Whatever happened to Alcan powders?

[Leadmelter]

I was rereading some old manuals from Lyman and they mentioned Alcan 8 powder. I remember using this in my youth but what happened to that line and what is a close equivalent?
Happy New Year to all!
Gerry
MI

[mpmarty]

AL-8 was a terrible powder. It was huge square flakes that wouldn't measure through any powder measure worth a darn. Most folks never bought a second can of it. It was spendy too as it came in 8 ounce cans instead of a pound. Good Riddance. AA-9 is close to what AL-8 was in burning rate but it measures like a dream.

[runfiverun]

they were trying to be a trendy upscale reloading product during a time that reloaders were neither.
their wads were a gimmicky reverse winchester affair, their powders are mentioned above i still have some al-5 here i might burn up one of these days.

[DLCTEX]

I still have a couple pounds of Alcan 7 and part of a pound of Alcan 8. I liked the Alcan 7 for shotgun and pistol loads. I bought an 8# can at an estate auction once and was sad to use it up.Oh, I gave $5 for the 8#'s, that was about 2004 Any idea who manufactured it?

[stubshaft]

IIRC - Accurate Arms was producing the old Alcan line with the AA prefix rather than the AL.

[frkelly74]

I have been using some old AL5 for reduced loads. It has white flakes in it as a tagging agent. Dirtier than unique in rifles and won't all burn in my 45 loads. If I shoot into the wind I get peppered with unburnt powder. But it was cheap and I do have some Lyman data for it.

[cajun shooter]

I worked in a gun store in the early 70's and we sold the Alcan powders. I remember one load for 38 spl that I wanted to try that called for Al-7 or Al-5. It was the Speer 148 HBWC loaded backwards and was being used by the air Marshals of the time.
The can was small and square and was as posted by mpmarty and only held 8 ounces.
This was not to the liking of reloaders of the time as the other powders were only a few dollars a pound.
I purchased Bullseye,Unique,2400 and H 110 for under $3 a can.

[jimwill48]

I grew up about 60 miles from the Alcan plant over by St Louis so Alcan products were very easy to obtain. I tried the powders but only once but I used the heck out of Alcan primers. They were very good, cheap and always available.

[Rocky Raab]

I grew up even closer, and remember driving there with my Dad to buy a pickup load of powder, wads and shot at a time. The plant was in Alton, Illinois.

Alcan began selling reloading supplies right after WWII - the first company to do so. If it were not for Alcan, the reloading world might be a lot different today. Their success prompted competition from the other possible suppliers; the demand for reloading products spurred the creation of Hodgdon, for example. Eventually, Alcan folded for several reasons, the final one of which was the destruction of the Bofors powder plant in Sweden - their supplier.

Of their four shotgun powders (Al-120, AL-5, AL-7, and AL-8) the three faster ones have the best application to handguns. AL-8 was a true magnum shotgun powder and only worked well at high-end handgun loads. It acted a lot like 4227 in handguns, requiring a full charge, a magnum primer and a heavy crimp under a heavy bullet. Not for sissies.

I've used it for dino-slayer loads in the 45 Colt. There are better choices among the other powders, though.

[1Shirt]

Shot a lot of Alcan in shotguns about 40 years ago. Times change and so do reloading products.
1Shirt!

[Reload3006]

Smith and Wesson bought Alcan in or around the late seventies or early eithties ran it for a few years and then just shut it down. It really pissed me off as I absolutely loved Alcan powder

[357maximum]

I had about 12 lbs of AL8 given to me a year or so back that a buddy of mine got with a boxlot at an auction. It had that funky ammonia smell to it and the red osier dogwoods, and ninebark shrubs out back are proably still sucking some nourishment out of it.

[shaune509]

picked up a 12# keg of al120 last year ['10] for $20.00. Smell is good and flash burn test seemed ok,not used any to load yet. Alcan did a great service to the reloading community with there extensive line of supplies that they eather made [shot wads, cards]or imported [powder, berdan primers, brass shot shells]for the era.
shaune509

[Cherokee]

I used a lot of Alcan powder - AL5, AL7 - in handgun loads. Worked for me at the time.

[JohnFM]

From the '60s up into the '80s, I think, we all used to use a lot of Alcan stuff.
At one time or another I had every powder they sold.
Most of us used paper and I remember they had real good prices on new paper hulls.
We were all sad to see them go away.
I bet if I dug through some boxes of old target loads I'd still find a few old Alcan shells.

[Rocky Raab]

Shaune, you'll really like AL-120 for target/light loads in most handgun cartridges. Begin with RedDot or Clays data and fine-tune your loads from there.

[jimwill48]

And lets not forget the Alcan loaded shotgun shells. I used these by the case if I remember right on sale they were about $2.25 a box for 12ga 1oz 3 dram loads. We used to have huge flocks of starlings that caused all kinds of problems at the coal mines and they let us on the property to thin the flocks it was nothing to shoot a case of 12ga.'s in a evening. I also used the Alcan shells for rabbit and quail and even trap.. Still have a box I keep for of times sake....

[Amy@wild]

I was rereading some old manuals from Lyman and they mentioned Alcan 8 powder. I remember using this in my youth but what happened to that line and what is a close equivalent?
Happy New Year to all!
Gerry
MI

[Amy@wild]

Any Body know about alcan al-101 shotgun powder?
Amy@wild

[BCB]

I got a 6-pound keg of AL-8 from Bartlett some years back…

As mentioned, it really doesn’t meter very well, but I still use it from time to time…

I had pretty good luck with it in the 357 Magnum with the 358429. I was able to get 1125 fps from a 6” Security-Six…

I tried it in a 45 Colt with the 45-270-SAA and I could not get any velocity and I think I was getting high pressure at only 800+ fps—I may be wrong on this, but things just didn’t seem right so I quit using it in the 45 Colt…

I was using Blue Dot data as a starter…

A couple of months ago, I acquired and old Herters shot shell reloader and along with it come a 3-pound canister of AL-5 and part of an 8-ounce canister of AL-5 also…

I think I will try it in the 357 Magnum, but I am uncertain as to what data to use. Although, I think if I research a bit, there might be data out there for that powder…

Powder Profiles might list some starting points…

It’s always kind of “neat” to use some of the older powders—nostalgia maybe?...

BCB