Shotgun powders that don’t work well in pistols?

[Silvercreek Farmer]

The WSH thread reminded me of a search I did a while back on various Alliant shotgun powders in pistol cartridges figuring they may become available before the popular stuff. Not your typical boolit powders like the Dots, Unique, Herco, but the others such as Steel, Pro Reach, etc. I was a bit surprised to see that people had not had luck with several of them stating inconsistent results. Even saw a letter from Alliant stating the same on one of them. Any ideas on why that is?

[Half Dog]

No, but I hope it’s not Extra Lite. I recently got some of that.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Look at what I found over in the Wheelgun stickies from the last powder shortage…

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?195149-Alternatives-to-quot-Standard-quot-Pistol-Powders/page5

[megasupermagnum]

Pretty much nothing shotshell specific from Alliant is great in handguns. By that I mean any powder since Hercules became Alliant. I'm not convinced it is always the powders fault, but mainly the fact that I don't think Alliant has done any load testing since the year 2000. Powders like Extra-lite, E3, Pro Reach, and 20/28 probably work fine in handguns, but I've never seen any load data for them.

The only shotgun powder I've tried that didn't work that great in anything else is Steel. I do not know why. It is a powder made for only one purpose, shooting light payloads (steel shot) as fast as possible in 12 gauge under 14,000 psi. Does great in 10 gauge too, probably really good in 16 if more data were out there. It does that job exceptionally well. Whatever they did to make it do that, doesn't seem to have done any favors for pistol shooting.

[reddog81]

I've always been surprised that so many shotgun powders work in handguns. Little cartridges with small bores vs large shells with huge bore diameters.

[Meatpuppet]

I use Nobel Sport Vectan Prima V in 9mm. Its intended to be a shotgun powder, but 3.1grains of it under a Blue Bullet 147gr shoots soft and burns clean.

Like everything else it has dissappeared (and people laughed at me when I bought it by the case).

[Scooby]

I am looking to go the other way, I have 4# of Power pistol and would like to load 20ga with it. It falls between unique and herco on burn chart. I called Alliant they said it is a pistol powder only.

[stubshaft]

I am looking to go the other way, I have 4# of Power pistol and would like to load 20ga with it. It falls between unique and herco on burn chart. I called Alliant they said it is a pistol powder only.

And I've used Bullseye for 12 gauge shells for years! Haven't found a shotgun powder yet that I couldn't use in a pistol cartridge of one type or another.

[Shiloh]

I use Nobel Sport Vectan Prima V in 9mm. Its intended to be a shotgun powder, but 3.1grains of it under a Blue Bullet 147gr shoots soft and burns clean.

]Like everything else it has dissappeared (and people laughed at me when I bought it by the case).
[/SIZE]

Just about everything has!! Panic bought some powder in 2020. Glad I did!!

Shiloh