I recently ran out of Clays and went shopping for some more. My local reloading supply store was out of Clays but did have Clay Dot so I thought what the heck, I'll try it. I had read about it but had not had a chance to compare it.
According to Alliants website:
Designed for competition shooters, Clay Dot™ is functionally and technically identical to competitive shotshell powders but at a reduced price. This American-made powder meters the same through reloading press powder bushings and functions with the exact same powder charge weights to achieve equal velocities and pressures. No need to change bushings or load data.
Remarks:
Designed to duplicate the performance of Hodgdon® Clays™ at an economical price.
I have also read that Clay Dot is slightly denser than Clays. I thought I'd do some tests and see how much they differed. I set up my Ponsness-Warren 375 Duo-Matic and dropped charges of each powder using all of my different powder bushings. I used an electronic scale and a minimum of 5 throws per bushing to get an average. Here is what I found:
Bushing Clays Clay Dot
F 13.7 13.73
G 15.0 15.23
J 17.74 17.89
K 18.5 18.78
L 19.0 19.34
M 20.0 20.48
N 21.4 21.64
P 22.1 22.5
Conclusion; Clay Dot IS slightly more dense than Clays but not enough to make much difference in listed shotshell loads.
I am planning on loading some pistol cartridges using Clay Dot loaded with Clays published data. I will start low and see how it performs and being very careful to watch for signs of pressure. In my opinion Alliant is doing themselves a disservice by not investing the time and money to publish load data for anything other than shotshells with Clay Dot.