Alliant American Select Powder-a "universal" CB pistol powder for me

[reedap1]

Just wanted to relate my experiences using American Select powder in the cast bullet arena with a number of handgun cartridges...

I reload large numbers of shotshell for sporting clays and settled on Alliant's American Select powder a number of years ago. It gives very good patterns, has good velocity, and is economical to use. One of its most outstanding properties is the fact that it was developed as a clean-burning powder by Alliant. In my shotshell loads, I can shoot 3-400 rounds through my over and under and semi-auto guns before I really have to stop and clean...mostly out of guilt. I buy it in large 8-pound containers and have lots on hand.

A couple of years ago I decided to see if American Select was applicable in handgun cartridges and it turns out that Alliant has a pretty good amount of data in a variety of handgun cases. You can see the data at the link below:

https://www.alliantpowder.com/reloaders/Powder.aspx?powderid=2

Without boring you with all the details I have found accurate American Select loads in my 9mm Luger, 38 Special, 357 Magnum, 44 Magnum, and 45 Colt using cast (mostly PC'ed) bullets. I just finished shooting over 450 rounds through my 357 revolvers with American Select and PC 158-grain bullets and it literally took me 15 minutes to clean the gun. The cylinder was barely fouled and the barrel took two swabbings of Shooters Choice solvent to clean it up. Overall it is an amazingly clean-burning powder and gives good accuracy with CB. I've even used it in my 45-70 Ruger #1 and want to try it in a 30-30 with PC bullets if I can get loading data from Alliant.

In our current shortage craze of nearly all components, I have found that my local gun store almost always gets American Select in stock in the 4 and 8 lb containers. Give it a try, I think you will be happy with the results.

Thanks for the opportunity to contribute the the Forum

Paul

[frkelly74]

It appears to play nice over a large field of usages. Might have to look for some when My Herco runs out.

[Bent Ramrod]

Somebody gave me a cardboard canister of American Select. I wasn’t enthused about having to work up loads with one pound of an unknown powder, but he was a good guy and the price was right.

I found that it was an excellent powder for medium-to-getting-there loads in .32-20, .44-40 and .44 Spl revolver cartridges. Sort of like an exceptionally clean Unique that metered even better than Unique.

I don’t see the stuff around these parts very often; that’s its only drawback AFAIC.

[black mamba]

I've use it in the past for handguns, but haven't been able to find any for several years. In my experience it runs between Red Dot and Green Dot for burn rate, and is extremely clean burning, accurate and economical. I'd love to find some more.