Are Power Pro Varmint and Tac the same powder?

[Lemonaid]

There was an on-line discussion I read. Power Pro Varmint was said to be discontinued. One posted that Tac and Power Pro Varmint are the same thing just packaged and marketed as different, both of them SMP739. My search about this did find others saying that Power Pro Varmint was SMP739 but I did not find confirmation that Tac is also SMP739.
There was speculation that any differences were just lot variations.
As my knowledge of this topic is virtually nil, anyone that can clarify, debunk or confirm said claims would be very appreciated!

[grayfox]

H414 and W760 it's pretty much known they are the same, you can look at charge loads for various calibers/bullets and they are virtually always identical grains between them...
Has anyone looked to see if PPV and Tac loads do the same.
I may eyeball this in the morning, vice now at 4 am.

[Zeneffect]

my vote is no, they are not the same. they might look the same on the surface just eye-balling it but a closer look shows PPV has small spherical balls incorporated with flattened balls/discs. TAC is exclusively flattened balls/discs of about 3x different sizes.

they smell different when burnt

they smell different when unburnt in canister



TAC is in the gold pan, PPV is in silver.

[Lemonaid]

Nice pics! I did the same visual comparison but with my samples they look identical, flattened disks. On the burn rate chart they are right next to each other. No way I could tell a smell difference.

[Zeneffect]

Tac had more of an Elmer's white glue smell vs ppv which smelled more sharp/chemicalish like acetone but not quite. I wish they were the same but tac will show pressure when ppv just laughs at it and says more please.