I finally had a chance to try this powder out, here's an update:
About a month ago I ran out of the Red Dot powder that I have been using for 9mm USPSA minor loads for my wife and I. I started watching online and couldn't ever get the stars to align and get some, so I looked for an alternative. I saw the CSB-1 powder in the where to buy thread on another forum and after a little research decided to give it a shot. Most of the info I could find said it was somewhere between Universal and Unique, so it seemed like it could be a useful powder for 9mm, and .45 for sure, and probably .40 S&W also. I ordered a few 4# jugs and after a slight shipping delay on the dealers end received it last week.
From what I was able to find online, CSB-1 is the powder used in Rio shotgun shells, and Rio is going to start offering reloading components in the US sometime in 2014.
Rio Reloading Components
Maxam Powders
Anyways, on to the fun stuff. My old minor load was 4.0gr. of Red Dot with a 124gr. Xtreme RN @ 1.145" and either Rem. or CCI SP primers. This load averaged about 1050 fps and gave me a 130 power factor and pretty light recoil. I wanted to try to get close to that again. The data below is from shooting these loads in my full size M&P 9mm. I also shot them out of my wifes P226 and those velocities pretty consistently ran about 50 fps. higher due to the longer barrel. All of these loads used CCI SP primers.
Here is what the chronograph said.
The 3.8, 4.0, 4.2, 4.4 & 4.6gr. loads I loaded on my LNL AP but used my Chargemaster to measure out the powder since I only did 16 of each. The 4.5gr. load I used the Hornady powder measure and from checking it yesterday again I think it was dropping closer to 4.6 than 4.5 most of the time. I am going to stick with the 4.4 to 4.5 range either way and should make PF with a little room to spare that way.
I also checked my Red Dot loads as I was testing these, just to use as a baseline.
Here's a (bad) cell phone picture showing Red Dot, Unique and CSB-1.
