Talk:Improved military rifle powder

IMR4064 and magnum capacity rifle cartridges?

I was under the impression that IMR4064 was developed before the war as an alternative to IMR4895 for military contract .30/06 ammunition.

I also know that IMR4064 has been much favored for .308/7.62x51mm match ammunition for decades now, and I am given to understand that the military specification for 7.62x51mm M118 match ammunition has always specified IMR4064 exclusively. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.41.23.114 (talk) 07:55, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Merge of IMR Legendary Powders

Besides some really minor aspects of corporate history, what's the difference between the gunpowder maker brands of IMR and IMR Legendary Powders? IMR Legendary Powders is also a newly created article with some problems about close paraphrasing of its main source. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:25, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I would support a merge.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 01:10, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I concur with the problems with this article, but suggest a somewhat different merger proposal here. Thewellman (talk) 01:48, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

References

The two pages should be merged, but since the correct legal name is IMR Legendary Powders the Improved Military Rifle should be merged into that.Digitallymade (talk) 15:56, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• IMR Legendary Powders is a 21st century name for marketing a 19th century propellant manufacturing process which has been identified as Improved Military Rifle for more than a century. I prefer the longer usage as a more appropriate focus; but I suggest the propellant process be considered separately from the various companies who have manufactured and distributed it. I would propose to integrate the IMR Legendary Powders material as a subsidiary subsection of the Hodgdon Powder Company article, with a listing of the powders marketed under that name, including internal links to the appropriate sections of the Improved Military Rifle article. Some of the powders marketed by IMR legendary powders, like Trail Boss, are not of the Improved Military Rifle process, and may be retained within the IMR Legendary Powders section of the Hodgdon Powder Company article until such time as other articles (similar to Ball propellant) might be written about different manufacturing procedures. Thewellman (talk) 17:34, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Your statement that IMR stands for improved military rifle is flat out false. It was the abbreviation for Improved Military Rifle Powder which is what it stands for. It was a DuPont brand name. DuPont powders were referred to as IMR powders. So if you want to use an improper form of improved military rifle, I'll be looking for the rifle on that page since that says nothing about gunpowder. If you want I'll take a picture of my old reloading manual which lists the DuPont powders such as IMR4064. You don't seem to understand that when the DuPont name came off the can the official name is now IMR Legendary Powders. If you want to use a non-nonsensical name for an improved rifle, go ahead. But be sure to reference the rifle you are talking about.

--Digitallymade (talk) 18:19, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Before I created the page IMR Legendary Powders I searched on Wikipedia for IMR and could not find it. Digitallymade (talk) 18:23, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

By the way, If Hodgdon had NOT used the IMR name on the can, no one would know what it was and would not buy it. It's NOT a rifle Digitallymade (talk) 18:21, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• Curiously, I have a can labelled HODGDON'S rifle powder 4831 (without the IMR); but I understand the difficulty of locating pre-digital-age information on the internet. The IMR Legendary Powders article includes an incorrect assertion that DuPont released their first handloading guide in the 1950s. I have a copy of their 1936 publication entitled BETTER LOADS for BETTER SHOOTING with du Pont Improved Military Rifle Powders. Handloading authors including Philip Sharpe and John Wootters often referred to these propellants as "the Improved Military Rifle series" or "Improved Military Rifle No. 4064" through the subsequent decades. I am neutral about whether the marketing term powder or internationally preferred propellant follows that term or its initials, but I left it off the original title (which included the IMR abbreviation) to avoid counterproductive edit wars between the American and British English Wikidees. Focus on the present brand name ropes in a number of products which do not belong within the history of the manufacturing process producing the military rifle propellants based on John Bernadou's patent. Thewellman (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

If it doesn't say IMR then it cannot be assumed that it is actually IMR4831. From what I have heard Hodgdon reformulated powders that had originally been IMR powders. Maybe not? Besides that, why is a page about an improved military rifle talking about gun powder? If you have a 1936 DuPont reloading pamphlet then perhaps you should let Hodgdon know that their published history is incorrect. If you can document it, then your knowledge can be used. Note that you said improved military rifle powders, not improved military rifle. When propellant is used, it's primarily in deference to the fact that some cartridges are loaded with black powder, some with smokeless powder, and some with cordite. What I am looking into today, is why aren't there references to brown and cocoa powders also. I grew up next to a DuPont plant. Most of my neighbors worked there. DuPont was broken up by the Anti-Trust commission because they were the majority of supplier of products in too many areas. Digitallymade (talk) 21:17, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• I, too, grew up in a town where a DuPont mill had dominated the local economy, but far enough from the plant that the smoke from periodic accidents merely appeared on the horizon rather than blotting out the sun. We may have heard similar reports about the IMR propellant manufacturing process not producing absolute uniformity, and requiring evaluation of each batch to determine appropriate charges for loading ammunition. Canister powders sold to civilians were selected from those batches conforming to published loading data; while nonconforming batches were used, after appropriate investigation, to load military or commercial ammunition. Hodgdon's innovation was blending large volumes of nonconforming batches to achieve a uniform average performance; but potential differences from DuPont specifications were recognized, as you suggest, first by omitting the IMR prefix and by later substituting an H prefix to the number identifying the propellant after DuPont began civilian sales of numbers originally manufactured only for bulk commercial use and salvaged by Hodgdon from surplus military ammunition. Thewellman (talk) 23:01, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposing this page be deleted

It's nothing but advertising literature and should be deleted as such. Digitallymade (talk) 12:44, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• This top-importance B-class WikiProject Firearms article has been viewed approximately one-thousand times per month for seven years. This history suggests your opinion may not reflect consensus. As an alternative to deletion, I suggest moving the page to a new name Improved military rifle propellants to retain the generic description of these similar single-base nitrocellulose propellants by various manufacturers while avoiding advertising implications of the Improved Military Rifle Powder trade name. Thewellman (talk) 19:37, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Show me the rifle and I'll agree.Digitallymade (talk) 19:59, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 5 March 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move  — Amakuru (talk) 13:29, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

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Improved Military Rifle → Improved military rifle propellants – To reduce confusion. Improve context to avoid interpretation of the subject as a firearm, while using propellant rather than powder and removing adjective capitalization to avoid advertising implications of similar trade names used by manufacturers and distributors of small arms propellants formulated from an ether/alcohol colloid of nitrocellulose patented by John Bernadou. Thewellman (talk) 21:21, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Keep as IMR (capitalised) as I understand this to be a tradename and not a generic name for the process. Are they made and sold under this name by anyone other than the licence holder for the IMR name? (We have three articles claiming to own this name, but each one does literally own, or owned, it and is not merely using it as a generic title.) Andy Dingley (talk) 22:03, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

this is how the page currently starts:

IMR Legendary Powders is a line of smokeless powders which are popularly used in sporting and military/police firearm cartridges. The initials 'IMR' stand for Improved Military Rifle powder. IMR powders makes a line of various types of smokeless powder suitable for loading many cartridges for rifles, handguns, and shotguns.

This is a trademarked name owned by Hodgdon Powder. Other powder makes also make rod, and flake powder.

Digitallymade (talk) 23:31, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

No, that is how a different page starts. I don't know what your point is, relevant to this article and its naming. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:35, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. Although there are several other articles focusing on various distributors who have used these terms and initials in product marketing, this article describes the chemical formulation patented by the United States Navy in 1897, used by the Naval Powder Factory in 1900, by the United States Army Picatinny Arsenal in 1908, and licensed to the California Powder Works and DuPont for commercial production in wartime. DuPont miniaturized the artillery propellant grain structure for use in small arms cartridges. These military rifle propellants were initially identified by a two-digit number, and later improved variations were identified by a four-digit number. Many of these numbers were internally used to identify experimental propellants which seem undocumented in secondary sources, but a few successful varieties warranted extensive production by several manufacturers. Some were used almost exclusively for military contracts, or commercial ammunition production, but a few achieved popular recognition and the descriptive term became useful in product marketing. Thewellman (talk) 23:38, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Just for your information: whoever is behind the pages for IMR as if it was a rifle may also have been the same party who labeled the DuPont home as the factory. (I've been to both of them) The Hagley Museum is in fact the First DuPont plant which produced Black Powder in Wilmington. DuPont was the FIRST maker of any kind of gunpowder in the USA. It was the business which got him started. In the 1950s DuPont was broken up by the Anti-Trust commission. I may also turn my attention to Hercules powder, a company division that split off DuPont also. Hercules Dynamite is a product that I used and supported in the 80s. Similarly I may also examine entries relating to the mining industry, particularly the atrocities committed by mine owners against workers who were kept in virtual slavery and who were shot down by the score for speaking against their perpetual indebtedness. All of these topics are interrelated. DuPont chemistry made these industries profitable. DuPont's dynamite saved the lives of tens of thousands of workers who were being killed by blasting powders. This is not just some idle tinkering I am engaged in here. For any part to be deranged, the whole will not function properly. I suggest merging improved military rifle (a nonsensical name) into IMR Legendary Powder (the products ACTUAL name) which is a superior and more accurate page without being a copy of company advertising. Digitallymade (talk) 00:02, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Another approach

Hi, IMHO, this article must treat "Improved Military Rifle" as a brand more explicitly... Currently Hodgdon distribute some of the powder using this name. take a look at pt:Improved Military Rifle --MarcRic::Ruby (talk) 14:49, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

I disagree. As explained in this article, the term improved military rifle powder was used to describe DuPont's modification of their United States Navy patent license decades before Bruce Hodgdon formed his powder company. Commercial use of the "IMR" acronym began when DuPont improved production uniformity and started selling to civilians about twenty years later. The "Legendary" suffix is a Hodgdon brand name including chemically and physically dissimilar propellants, and recognized by a separate article. Thewellman (talk) 19:40, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi Thewellman, just to clarify my pont: i didn`t deny the historical origins of the "IMR", and it is also there in the Portuguese version, but... There is a fact that it was a brand registered by "IMR Powder Company" in 2002, and is being used that way since then, recently it was combined by Hodgdon with the "Legendary", but if you look closely the "R" sign is close to the "IMR" not to the "Legendary" part. I could locate the confirmation that the "IMR" brand was registered here, including the quadrilateral shape (make a search with "IMR" it should be the 25th item of the generated list), regards. --MarcRic::Ruby (talk) 23:01, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Do you find mention of the acronym IMR in this article? The intent was to remove the IMR brand acronym to clarify this article's focus on the propellant formulation, and avoid confusion with the other formulations marketed under the brand name. Thewellman (talk) 05:10, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Confusion around name, trademark, scope, etc.

It looks like the discussions above never concluded, and we still have a bit of a mess. Looking at source usage via books n-grams, we find "Improved Military Rifle Powder No. ..." as the dominant usage back in the day, i.e. for particular du Pont product names. The phrase "Improved Military Rifle" was seldom used on its own (and doesn't make much sense as our article title), but in the last century "IMR powder" was common. The relation to the various company names and trademarks is also complicated, as discussed above. I feel a need to work on this, but we'd need to understand it all better first. Any suggestions? Dicklyon (talk) 21:46, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Per TESS trademark search, IMR is Hodgdon Powder Company's live trademark, and "Improved Military Rifle" is not found. And the use of "propellant" is rare compared to "powder". So I suggest that IMR powder would be a most appropriate and commonname title for this article, unless someone find some other commonname (I'm surprise to see no redirect there, nor at IMR powders). As to whether IMR Legendary Powders rates an independent article, I'm neutral, and that's for a separate discussion. Opinions? Dicklyon (talk) 21:58, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Actually, "IMR propellant" blipped up in 1967 and 2019. That would be due to the larger number of uses of "IMR propellant" in these 1967 hearings and this 2019 book. But "IMR powder" is more widespread. Dicklyon (talk) 22:10, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Alternatively, if the trademark IMR powders are not the right scope, is there a generic term that describes these formulations? If so, it wouldn't be dressed up like a proper name, right? Dicklyon (talk) 22:14, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

It looks like Tubular powder are Tubular propellant are popular generic terms for these. It looks like the "propellant" term is more commonly associated with rockets, and "powder" more commonly with firearms, but they're mixed. Dicklyon (talk) 22:22, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

The term tubular powder has been used to describe a broader range of European pyroxylin propellants such as the Vihtavuori powders. I'm unfamiliar with the history of Vihtavuori propellants, and concerned that this article's focus on United States production may encourage Template:Globalize tagging if renamed.

My concern with use of the acronym IMR is inappropriately focused linkage of that acronym to modern consumer products rather than the evolution of a specific type of propellant historically manufactured by several different companies. Although improved military rifle smokeless powder might be acceptable, I prefer the title improved military rifle propellant, as described above, to emphasize the evolution of improved smokeless powder for military rifles. Thewellman (talk)

Yes, I would find that to be a very sensible descriptive title. Looking again at n-grams, we might figure that the capitalized ones refer to the product names, and lowercase are generic. I'll study some more sources and see if that holds up. Dicklyon (talk) 02:37, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Sure enough, lots of "generic" lowercase usage is seen when searching (books) on "improved military rifle powders", sometimes referring to du Pont's IMR and sometimes more generally. Even searching for "improved military rifle powder" or "improved military rifle powder no." finds a mix of uppercase and lowercase product names (usually uppercase on product listings from du Pont, lowercase in discussions by others). So not all the lowercase stuff is generic, and not all the du Pont stuff is capitalized, but at least your title suggestion makes it more clear what the article is about and doesn't pretend to be a proper name. So I support it, though I might still prefer powder to propellant. And I agree we need to not use the IMR trademark in the title if the scope is more generally about the types of propellants. Dicklyon (talk) 02:53, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I see it's what you proposed in 2017, and Andy D opposed. Try again? Or with powder? If I do an RM, I'll propose powder, but if you do it with propellant, I'll support that (and maybe mention powder as an option). Dicklyon (talk) 06:39, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Rather than resurrecting a previously unpopular alternative, I would prefer you try powder. Thewellman (talk) 23:51, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

OK. Here goes... Dicklyon (talk) 02:23, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 13 August 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Moved as an uncontested request with minimal participation. If there is any objection within a reasonable time frame, please ask me to reopen the discussion; if I am not available, please ask at the technical requests page. (non-admin closure) Aprilajune (talk) 02:48, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

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Improved Military Rifle → Improved military rifle powder – Per previous discussions on this talk page, recognize the topic of the development of improved propellants as initiated by du Pont but not limited to their product names. Dicklyon (talk) 02:23, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support. The encyclopedic topic here is the general class of projectile propellants, not a particular brand name.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:53, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• Support—I'm surprised this process is necessary: no brainer. Tony (talk) 03:26, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• Support: This is a clear case of common sense. Waqar💬 14:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
• Support — I am pleased to find acceptable clarification for a long-standing ambiguity. Thewellman (talk) 17:39, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.