power pistol powder

[bigfoot]

using power pistol in my 38 spl loads, seems like it spits unburnt flakes back at you, anybody tried pp, you like it or not? i bought the stuff to try, but i still like my 231 better!!
bigfoot

[AlaskaMike]

That's strange--I've never experienced that with Power Pistol. I use it in all my revolvers as well as .45 ACP with great results.

It's hard to argue with 231 in .38 special though.

[Lloyd Smale]

i use the heck out of power pistol. Its probably only second to bullseye in the ammount i use in a year. Its a great powder for midranged loads in the 44s and 45colt and in many other rounds but its a bit slow for 38s and slow for 45acps too. It will work decently in 45acps for top end loads but theres better powders for that application. Used about anywhere unique is it is cleaner burning, much better metering through a measure and id have to say that it gives me a bit better accuracy then unique. I will never be without unique in the cabinet but it gets used alot less lately

[35remington]

The downside to Power Pistol is that it is very blasty for the velocity it achieves. Judging by the blast, you'd assume that the bullet's going like hell, when in fact it's not going any faster than that velocity produced by other powders.

I can't really see any advantage to the blast, unless it's intended to make compensators work better on the trick gamey guns used in IPSC.

[fecmech]

45colt and in many other rounds but its a bit slow for 38s and slow for 45acps too.

Lloyd--It's funny you said that. Just yesterday I was on the "throne" pondering the imponderable with the new Alliant powder guide in my hand. They listed a std pressure load in the .38 spl with the Speer 158 gr lead SWC of 5.4 grs of PP @ 948 fps. Along with that they showed a +P load of 6.0 with the same bullet for 1037 fps. Now if they are not BS'n with that velocity ( their other loads with BE,RD, and Unique are all in the ball park) it looks like it might make a nice safe HV load for the 38 spl with std wt bullets! Also I looked at the Hodgdon Powder Burn Rate Chart and they showed PP faster than Unique and slower than 231. I thought it was slower than that myself. Lloyd is PP a fine grained powder or flaky like Unique? I think I might have to try some in the .38

[35remington]

It's small granuled. It meters very well.

Properly ranked, PP is between Unique and Herco, with Herco being slower. This is Alliant's ranking, which is more representative than Hodgdon's.

And yes, that load moves out in 38 Spl. BTDT. Blast is included, but it does run.

[Lloyd Smale]

35rem is correct about the granuals and the burning rate. Im not saying it cant be used in 45acps or 38s it just that it doesnt make economical sense. Theres powders that will get you the same velocitys at pressures allowed in those rounds using half the powder and personaly ive had better luck with powders with burning rates around bullseye-231 in both of them for accuracy

[fecmech]

Lloyd--I wasn't being critical just commenting on the timing between you posting what you did and me just having read the powder guide. I like you think there are better powders for the .38 and .45, Bullseye being the main one. I buy it in 4 lb. kegs because I go through so much of it. My thoughts for PP had been in my .357 rifle and refining a 100 yd load that I normally power with Unique to maybe give the PB slug a gentler start and a possible accuracy increase. Another idea was for my Hunters pistol 100 yd load. I normally shoot 4.2/BE/158RN and will occasionally loose a Ram to a low hit(that load runs 900 fps and is super accurate). If I can bump the speed up with good accuracy with PP that would be a side benefit.