My experiment with the FF powders wasn't a happy one. The plants grew and flowered OK but my system was clogged with residue from the powders. You could see the little sparkles from it in there. Never had that happen with anything else. A woman at the grow shop said all of her friends that used Open Sesame had hermies. I didn't have that problem.
Since that time I've run a few crops with the whole H&G line including
shooting powder and had better but still OK results. Lately I've dropped everything of theirs except the A&B and
Algen extract. I use
Great White to help out my roots, a little liquid Kool Bloom to help with early root growth after putting the plants into the hydroton from the clone machine (I add the kool bloom there as soon as I see roots popping out). I always add cal mag from beginning to end, a little cleer ex or drip clean in every tank, and run the Algen until week two of flower. Lately for bloom boosters I went back to liquid kool bloom and then the powdered kool bloom in the last three weeks. I run my purps and headband for 70 days, do an aggressive flush with clear ex, and then two to three days on pH-ed water. I've had nothing but compliments on the results and some of the colas look like a fat baby's leg and stay firm after drying.
The way I worked my way to here was changing on thing at a time and seeing if it made things better, worse, or no change. If I dropped a product and saw no difference I quit using it. If it made things worse or less productive I dropped it. Dropping the
shooting powder and all of those adjunct that go with it and going with the Kool Bloom and switching Algen and
Great White out for Roots Excellurator saved me a lot of money on products and I got a slight improvement in overall plant health and a large one in weight and quality of the buds.
It could just be what the strains I'm growing like the best. I did have really good luck using the same system when I grew some woody kush too.