Blue dot and green dot

[Cowguy]

Has anyone used these powders in 9,40 or 45 successfully? What experience did you have, was the recoil noticeable? Did you have trouble making power factor?

[BJB]

Blue Dot will easily make PF. It might not be the best for USPSA but it can produce high velocities. You'll have some recoil & a big flash.

 

http://www.natoreloading.com/bluedot/

 

[M1A4ME]

Blue Dot is my powder for 9MM and .40 S&W hollow point loads.  Compressed powder charge, you won't double load it.  My loads are under the max charge, but still feel stout.

 

I've got some Greed Dot, haven't used it, but I have seen loads for it in at least one reloading manual.  I'll try it one of these days to use up that old shotgun powder.

 

If you run across Herco, I've found that one to work well in .40 with lead bullets (or coated bullets).

[pbairborne]

I've loaded Green Dot for both 9 and 40.

 

Out of my Cheely 6" 40, using 185 gr Precisions. loaded to 1.200, 4.0 gr GD gave me a PF of 164. 4.5 gr gave a PF of 179.

 

Out of my 5" Kimber 9, using  Eggleston 147 RN, loaded to 1.125, 2.9 gr GD gave a PF of 131.4

In both cases I was using Tula small pistol primers. Wish I still had some.

 

Green Dot is a large flake powder and may not meter as consistently as powders with smaller particle size. That is a suspicion on my part. I haven't tried to prove it. The OP also asked about recoil and making PF. My experience was that the recoil was not different enough from other fast powders (Solo 1000, Red Dot, Sport Pistol) that I could notice the difference. As far as making PF, GD did so without any serious signs of pressure.

[zzt]

GD works great in 45.  Here is max load data from a 2005 Alliant manual.

 

9mm, WSP, GD, 115FMJ, 1.12" OAL, 5.5gr, 1150fps, 30kpsi

           WSP, GD, 125FMJ, 1.15" OAL, 5.2gr, 1150fps, 32.1kpsi

            WSP, GD, 147XTP, 1.14" OAL, 3.7gr, 930fps, 32.2kpsi

 

40sw, WSP, GD, 180JHP, 1.125" OAL, 5.3gr, 1010fps, 33.6kpsi

 

45ACP, Fed 150, 185JHP, 1.23" OAL, 6.8gr, 990fps, 19.3kpsi

              Fed 150, 200 LSWC, 1.25" OAL, 4.3gr, 805fps, 9.9kpsi (target load)

              Fed 150, 200JHP, 1.23" OAL, 5.9gr, 915fps, 18.9kpsi

 

There really is no reason to use Blue Dot for these loads, because you use so much more powder for a miniscule velocity gain.

[noylj]

Blue Dot really fills a 9x19 case. I could not reach max pressure with 124 or 115 gn bullets, but I got very high velocity. Consider AA7 more useful.

Green Dot is similar in usage to 231/HP38 and N320. Very good for 45 and 38 target loads.

[slayer61]

Before my wife went to 147s & Unique, her pet load was a 124 & 7 grains of BD.

 

She's not a competitor, she just likes what "feels good" to her.

[kryo]

I ended up taking a combination of the info here to make my .40 load for limited major with Alliant Green Dot powder. Here's a list of my tests all done with CCI small pistol primers, Federal brass, and 180gr coated bullet. My oal was 1.175" - 1.18".

 

4.2 gr averaged to 940 fps, 169.2 pf

4.3 gr averaged to 958 fps, 172.44 pf

4.4 gr averaged to 963 fps, 173.34 pf

4.6 gr averaged to 972 fps, 174.96 pf

4.8 gr averaged to 1006 fps, 181.08 pf

 

No signs of over pressurization on any cases. All categories of weight were done in sets of 5.

I settled on 4.3 grains to stay on the safe side for in case of slight light charges and/or wonky chronos at majors. 

Hope this helps anyone out there with a random lb of green dot to shoot up!