nYdGeo

Years ago, I used the original Black Bullets in my old 9x21 open gun. They worked great, I could use a lighter load, no lead in the barrel, accurate, etc., but over time they filled the comp full of lead due to gas cutting. Do you experience this with the Blue Bullets? Thank you!

That makes perfect sense. HS-6 is kinda fast for an open powder and has a lot of dot movement to me, but is so soft with regards to actual recoil. I've used N350, 3n37 and 3n38, but that was in .38 Super. Actually preferred the N350 under those conditions as it was soft, and it produced little dot movement. I recently tried someone else's 9mm major pistol loaded with N350 and it was as soft, but had more dot movement, likely just less gas volume? Then I fired some 9mm Major using 3n38, and was kinda stunned. It was as flat shooting as my pistol was when I shot .38 Super. So little dot movement! Just ordered some 3n38 to start working up my load. Great info here, folks. Thank you.

There is just so much wrong with that simplistic, short-sighted reply that it’s not worth the time to create a proper response, particularly when we all know it will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. Suffice it to say that there is, of course, nothing wrong with capitalism. It’s when humanity leaves it that it becomes wrong. This is not capitalism at its best. This is soulless, unethical, dishonest, greedy, despicable capitalism, and it’s at the center of what is destroying the country that I love. As much as these idiot liberals who want to give away the freedoms that we've fought for and the things that we work for, have damaged our country, our own U.S. big business has raped and destroyed it a thousand times more. All the information you need to know exactly what I'm talking about is readily available to anyone willing to seek it out. If you have no idea what you’re talking about and are not willing to put forth the effort to become educated as to the facts, your opinions are invalid as they are based on fiction. Stop believing that the garbage that you read in propaganda emails is the truth. Stop getting your 'news' and 'facts' from the Fox News entertainment program. Or, continue living happily under the current delusion. The choice is yours. Note that it is not unpatriotic to question information of any type from any source, and/or to question our leaders. In fact, it is our duty to ourselves and to our country as patriots to question everything. We also deserve honest answers from our leaders. Obviously, that is never going to happen. (The preceding is my opinion based on my observations and comprehension of information readily available to the public, and nothing more.)

Se post #8 pf this thread. I've shot this load through his open-class STI and was stunned by how well they worked. Extremely soft shooting of course, but was suprised to find that the pistol stayed comfortably flat when shooting these rounds. Good luck! http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=191301#entry2116689

You were kind enough to let me shoot a few of those rounds when my wife and I were picking up my STI recently, and I can verify that these loads are suprisingly soft and flat shooting. I'm thinking about developing a similar load for my .38 Super and then comparing them to my current 124gr loads.

He sneaked it in there

Over the past several years I read where several shooters have said that SP2 is the very best, and if they could get it that's all they'd ever shoot in an open gun. However, since they cannot get SP2, they now recommend shoot N350, 3n37, 3n38, AA#7, etc. This makes sense to me as though they may not have SP2's specific magic, these others are all of the generally slower burning, larger charge, higher gas volume type. Its very interesting to me when I read something like this. Here is an account of another shooter that since they cannot get SP2, they now recommend Silhouette. In other cases it has been 7625, another very popular powder for open. The thing is that these are not even in the same behavioral class as SP2 and the others listed above. They burn much faster and though they can work the gun quite nicely, any open pistol is going to feel and behave quite differently shooting either of these as opposed to any of the slower type powders listed above. I also understand that burn rates are only a small part of what makes any given powder behave the way it does in a given load in a give pistol. I'm not advocating one way or the other and make no claim that either is better. I can say that I prefer N350 in my .38 Super to 7625, but I ran out of N350 and have shot 7625 through all of last year because its what I had. I've had no issues with 7625 either. Its just that in my pistol, in my hands, I find N350 and 7625 to feel virtually identical with regard to softness, but find that I have obviously less dot movement with the N350. Many others disagree and we're all good with this. Anyway, back on topic. If you have the opportunity to speak with the same person, would you mind asking him for his thoughts on this...his praise of SP2 as the best and then recommending a powder with completely alien characteristics as his replacement recommendation? I'd be very interested in his comments, as they may assist me with understanding the reasons why many shooters today prefer the faster burning, lower gas volume powders over the alternatives in open pistols. Thank you for your time.

I know that this topic is old now, but I used #7 way back when in both 9x21 (EAA, first using 147gr and later 124's) and .38 Super (124gr)...I think it was on Benny's recommendation. I'm going to get some and try it again when my current open-pistol powder supply gets low. I seem to recall it being very dirty at first, but then someone told me to tighten the crimping die some small amount...been too long to recall how much. For whatever reason, that seemed to make it much cleaner. Not N350 clean, but I don't ever recall having a malfunction due to powder residue in either pistol/caliber. Something to experiment with anyway...I hope that helps someone trying out #7. Thank you for your time.

Now the fun stuff...working up a good .40 open load. Good luck!

Leo, thanks for the load info, and you are correct. We all perceive the behavior of a given pistol with a given load so differently, its often difficult to make comparisons. Its just that alien nature of 7625 puzzles me...it is quite a unique beast. I'll be shooting 7625 loads (7.8gr/124gr JHP) in a match this weekend, my first real match experience with it, so my fingers are crossed! shooterbenedetto, you seem to have a good sense of objectivity; have you ever had the chance to compare a springco and the STI Recoilmaster in the same weapon?

An entire crew of US shooters were disgusted with this situation 12-15 years ago, and a few still are. The rest of the world get Tanfoglio, and the U.S. gets...EAA. I know of several shooters within Area 4 that switched to STI, SV, and Para-based pistols as a direct result of their interaction with EAA. A couple of these are a well known Grand Master and his father. It is very likely that they would have gone to 2011-design pistols anyway due to the sponsorship, support, and overall involvement of the manufacturers in the USPSA/IPSC shooting community, one of several things that EAA failed miserably at. But dealing with the people there sealed the deal. After their last dealings with EAA over product support they sold some Gold Teams and Silver Teams (one to me), threw the rest in the safe, and now shoot STI and another manufacturer. I still believe that the Tanfoglio competition frame is the most ergonomically perfect grip for my hands, and I would love to be shooting one myself. I still have one, my old small-frame Silver Team that was a 9x21mm open gun, and is now a long-slide 9mm limited/steel gun. Oh, But my main pistol is an STI Open-Class pistol, and when I purchase a Limited pistol it will mo doubt also be an STI. This is not because I know of anything wrong with the Tanfoglio pistols being sold through EAA. I just have no interest in putting myself in a position where I may find myself trying to resolve a problem with a company that has shown me, in my experience, that it does not have a care in the world with regards to me or my shooting sport of choice. You have my apologies for the rant. This just brought up a lot of old, bad memories, and reminded me of how much I want that now 6" Tanfo Limited gun that I cannot have.

I have run 10lbs and now run Hennings 10.75 with no problem. That's with IMR7625 and 125gr Zeros making about 171pf. I don't have any experience with power pistol but when I ran N350 I also used a 10lb. Leo Its so hard for me to get my head around 7625 working well with that many ports in the barrel. Soft I can believe, but I have to imagine N350 shooting much flatter. For practicality reasons (like VV powders costing nearly 50% more) and because it does work in my STI reasonably well, I'm moving from N350 to 7625 for the time being. But, I have only 2 x 3/16" barrel ports and a four chamber comp; I can get right on that 171PF with 7.8gr of 7625 behind a 124gr. With 8 ports (much less 12) it would seem that gas volume (like what Eric gets from SP2) would be required for it to really perform to its optimal potential. What kind of charge of 7625 do you have to load behind that 125gr Zero to get that 171PF? Can you get enough pressure or gas volume going to keep it reasonably flat? Thanks! DVC

This is a minor nitpick, but like all VV powders N350 is single-base, thus having a nitroglycerin content of zero. Didn't know that all VV powders are single-base. Now I'm not sure where N350 gets such a high caloric rate. I'll have to research this more. Thanks for the info.

Sorry to ring an old bell, but I know about a dozen local shooters, all using 7.2gr of 7625 behind a 124, and all making major just fine. Very soft, clean, works very nice, but just not flat shooting enough for me, but it s being done by many nonetheless. Silhouette and its original (Action Pistol) are both very decent powders among the mid-fast burning, but the problem that I have with it is its sensitivity to temperature. A great number of open shooters used to use Action Pistol and Silhouette in this area, but stopped not because it didn't work well or was dirty, but because between an early spring match and a late summer match the same load could go from a 178PF to a 172PF. That was far too much for me. Anyway, just another 2-cents.