Originally Posted by
prs
Some long absent or hard to find powders are coming back into circulation now. One such seems to be Green Dot from Aliant. My standing order for an 8# keg that has been in place for about a year or so is now on its way from the good people at Ballistic Products and I notice Bass Pro has single pound bottles. My personal experience with GD has been with shot shell loading in 16ga and 12ga. I did a research of our site here to see how others had used this venerable old powder in the 45ACP. My findings were pretty sparse and to a larger degree a bit negative due to GD being seen as hard to ignite, position sensitive, very dirty, and generally being an ugly step sister compared to better selections for the purpose. So, mine may be relegated to shotshell use, no problem at all; but I gotta try, don't cha know? Well, the loading date for 45ACP with GD seems to all over globe map. Little published data was noted and I don't think I saw any references attributed to the horse's mouth (Aliant), but I will e-look there too.
But, down in the man dungeon in my archive of "stuff" was found "RELOADERS' GUIDE for Hercules Smokeless Powers copyright 1980. Given Hercules is no more and 35 years is probably well beyond any patent for the intellectual property, I cite the above reference. Important; the charges given are stated to be NEVER EXCEED and reduce by 10% for starting charge weight (cw). Also BEWARE, different production lots may vary and there have been many lots since 1980 by Hercules and then Aliant. The end user assumes ALL risk. Verify the information yourself against several published sources.
180gr - LWC - MIN. OAL=1.150 - CW=5.3gr - Vel. 910fps - CUP=14,500
200gr - JHP - MIN. OAL=1.150 - CW=5.6gr - Vel. 910fps - CUP=16,000
230gr - LEAD- MIN. OAL=1.150 - CW=4.3gr - Vel. 805fps - CUP=13,200
Now, all of that considered, my starting charge under a 200gr #68 boolit seems to fall on the order of 5 grains of Green Dot which is pretty much what the scant data I could find elsewhere noted. I am fore warned to expect a powder/carbon fouled barrel. I will report back when get some hands on experience.
prs
More data found from 1973c "Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook"
185Gr. #452389 1.080" OAL specified, Green Dot powder:
Start Grs.=4.5, fps=745,cup=8,300 Max. Grs=6.0, fps=965,cup=14,800
200Gr. #452460 1.153" OAL specified, Green Dot powder:
Start Grs.=4.5, fps=715,cup=9,000 Max. Grs.=5.8,fps=895,cup=14,400
225Gr. #452374 1.275" OAL specified, Green Dot powder:
Start Grs.=4.8, fps=725,cup=11,400 Max. Grs.=5.8,fps=845,cup15,100