The whole issue of thrown vs. weighed charges for short range benchrest is, I believe, the result of VV133 coming into common use in the sport. Other powders do not present the problems that it does as far as being thrown to +- .1 grain. You can take that as a hard data point based on a lot of testing. My point is that making disparaging remarks about those that continue to throw without knowing what powder they are using, or what their particular results have been if they are using 133 seems to be more than a bit condescending. I see no harm in using weighed charges of any powder, neither do I see any problems using thrown, if accuracy of charge requirements are met that way. The old T powder and the other batches of surplus 8208 were very fine grained, and because of that, much easier to throw to tight tolerances than 133. The same can be said of recent 2015, LT32, and LT30. With a little practice and a good technique, staying inside of +-.1 gr. is relatively easy. The one point that throwing naysayers may have is that shooters may not have verified the consistency of their throws, and that doing so could be advantageous, particularly if they are not getting the results that they assumed that they were. Recently I read that someone had discovered that his results throwing ball powder were not what he expected. My initial reaction was extreme skepticism, but rather than shooting from the hip, I did a test, and found that indeed when using the worst of my measures with rather casual choice of technique, the results were consistent with what he had written. Then, I changed to one of my best measures, and did a little experimenting with technique, and was able to get the results that I had expected, extremely close throw weights. The other thing that I pay attention to is the results that others are getting. If one has been aware of NBRSA records for some time, the name of Gary Ocock will be familiar. Typically, Gary does not use 133 (although he has, somewhat infrequently) preferring other powders that are finer grained. All of his loads are done with thrown charges.
