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W231

firearm propellant

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 4, 2025
Entity authorityQ16821868
Source-derived summary

W231 is a smokeless powder manufactured by General Dynamics at the St. Marks plant in Florida. It is packaged, distributed, and marketed by Hodgdon Powder Company and marketed under the Winchester trade name. Hodgdon licensed the Winchester brand in January 2006, assuming all packaging and support responsibilities. Prior to this Winchester brand powders were manufactured by the Olin Corporation.

W231 is commonly used in metallic cartridge reloading and handloading. It is used primarily for pistol cartridges. While the product label states "ball" powder, W231 is a flattened-ball powder.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “W231” as firearm propellant. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around W231, firearm and propellant.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2006—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with W231, firearm and propellant providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “W231”, the useful work is to connect “firearm propellant” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 4, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16821868. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2006.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “W231”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow W231 primary sources, W231 archive and W231 research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “W231”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from W231” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.