9mm major

[JasonC]

Since powder tables are useless for determining how much slower/faster, here's some of my load data to noodle on.

5" barrel (non ported), 125 Zero JHP, once fired brass, WSP, OAL=1.175", approximately 170PF.

Silhouette- 7.5gr

N350 - 7.7gr

True Blue - 7.8gr

Longshot - 7.9gr

HS6 - 8.0gr

HS7 - 9.4

3N38 - 9.5

AA#7 - 10.0

Started out with HS-6 because it was recommended to me by a shooter I trusted. Most of my shooting background was in long range rifle, so of course I had to tinker with load development.

For a number of reasons, I have stayed with HS6. A little dirty, but not enough to cause any function problems. And I clean the gun regularly, so really not an issue.

My next favorite was True Blue.

When I switched to a ported barrel, I ended up bumping my load by about 0.6gr.

Longshot made me nervous. As I approched 170PF, I started to get non-linear velocity increases.

AA#7 was interesting. When I tried it in my ported barrel (about 10.5gr) I got a downward recoil impulse. Very odd to see the dot dip in recoil. I think optimizing a gun (bullet weight, porting, powder charge) around the powder would produce an extremely flat shooting gun.

Tried various primer brands and types (rifle, magnum, etc) and found no percieved difference in feel or measureable difference on the chrono. Stayed with WSP.

I use a slide mounted Docter, so am not fussy about brass and ejection patterns. Any once fired works fine.

Tried lighter bullets and found the recoil impulse/blast/noise to be too harsh and distracting. Moly bullets were too smokey. Plated bullets could not handle the velocity and would not group at all. Various jacketed bullets all performed adequately. The bullets went where the gun was pointed when I pressed the trigger.

In the end I came full circle and ended up using HS6, 125gr zero JHP, once fired brass and WSP. With hindsight, I would have been better off spending that time practicing!

[ChuckS]

Hi Jason,

What fun would it be if we didn't tinker? Besides I would of never got that killer deal on Silhouette from you Funny thing though: I am back on N-340 where I started.

Later,

Chuck

[Jman]

Good stuff. I'm assuming your velocities were all hovering in the 1,360 fps area? And yeah, Longshot sucks in the consistency department. Excellent metering which is strange cause I get some friggin' high SD numbers with it. No major 9 yet just playing around with some light bullet Open .40 loads. I might just give HS-6 at try with some 155's and 165' and see what happens.

Man, how long has HS-6 powder been around?

Jim

[Sandro]

Since powder tables are useless for determining how much slower/faster, here's some of my load data to noodle on.

5" barrel (non ported), 125 Zero JHP, once fired brass, WSP, OAL=1.175", approximately 170PF.

Silhouette- 7.5gr

N350 - 7.7gr

True Blue - 7.8gr

Longshot - 7.9gr

HS6 - 8.0gr

HS7 - 9.4

3N38 - 9.5

AA#7 - 10.0

Started out with HS-6 because it was recommended to me by a shooter I trusted. Most of my shooting background was in long range rifle, so of course I had to tinker with load development.

For a number of reasons, I have stayed with HS6. A little dirty, but not enough to cause any function problems. And I clean the gun regularly, so really not an issue.

My next favorite was True Blue.

When I switched to a ported barrel, I ended up bumping my load by about 0.6gr.

Longshot made me nervous. As I approched 170PF, I started to get non-linear velocity increases.

AA#7 was interesting. When I tried it in my ported barrel (about 10.5gr) I got a downward recoil impulse. Very odd to see the dot dip in recoil. I think optimizing a gun (bullet weight, porting, powder charge) around the powder would produce an extremely flat shooting gun.

Tried various primer brands and types (rifle, magnum, etc) and found no percieved difference in feel or measureable difference on the chrono. Stayed with WSP.

I use a slide mounted Docter, so am not fussy about brass and ejection patterns. Any once fired works fine.

Tried lighter bullets and found the recoil impulse/blast/noise to be too harsh and distracting. Moly bullets were too smokey. Plated bullets could not handle the velocity and would not group at all. Various jacketed bullets all performed adequately. The bullets went where the gun was pointed when I pressed the trigger.

In the end I came full circle and ended up using HS6, 125gr zero JHP, once fired brass and WSP. With hindsight, I would have been better off spending that time practicing!

Good data... I have been shooting 7.6gr of N350 at 1.160OAL at 169PF. I like this load the best.

[Alan Meek]

Good stuff. I'm assuming your velocities were all hovering in the 1,360 fps area? And yeah, Longshot sucks in the consistency department. Excellent metering which is strange cause I get some friggin' high SD numbers with it. No major 9 yet just playing around with some light bullet Open .40 loads. I might just give HS-6 at try with some 155's and 165' and see what happens.

Man, how long has HS-6 powder been around?

Jim

In Open 40 I would recommend HS6 and Nosler 135gr JHP, awesome load.

Alan

[ChuckS]

Good stuff. I'm assuming your velocities were all hovering in the 1,360 fps area? And yeah, Longshot sucks in the consistency department. Excellent metering which is strange cause I get some friggin' high SD numbers with it. No major 9 yet just playing around with some light bullet Open .40 loads. I might just give HS-6 at try with some 155's and 165' and see what happens.

Man, how long has HS-6 powder been around?

Jim

Jim,

I have been using Rainier 135 in my open 40 for some year now with very good results. I tried the Berrys 135 RN but did not get them to group well. That was some years ago and I never tried them again. Get a few Rainiers and see if they work in your barrel. I am using both Scheumann (non-AET) and Kart barrels and they work fine. I also use the Noslers that Alan mentioned and I think they are a hair more accurate but with me at the controls I am not totally convinced it is worth it. As I mentioned about, I have tried some other powders but wound up back with N-340.

Later,

Chuck

[Flatland Shooter]

AA#7 was interesting. When I tried it in my ported barrel (about 10.5gr) I got a downward recoil impulse. Very odd to see the dot dip in recoil. I think optimizing a gun (bullet weight, porting, powder charge) around the powder would produce an extremely flat shooting gun.

Tried various primer brands and types (rifle, magnum, etc) and found no percieved difference in feel or measureable difference on the chrono. Stayed with WSP.

Interesting comments.

I saw an earlier posting where Benny Hill recommended AA#7 with 115 gr bullets and that it ran clean. After using HS-6 for many years, I switched from to N-350 for the consistency and clean burning.

With the WSP primers, do you see any pressure signs? Finding WSR primers is getting tough.

[JasonC]

Yeah, I know it's in my nature to try things and see what happens. However there is certainly some truth to finding a load that works and getting to the practice.

No significant pressure signs with WSP and am certainly not blowing out any primers. I do not fully trust primer condition as a sign of a safe load, it seems that the margin from no signs to flat to blown is quite narrow. But I suppose that's all there really is to go on. I do not understand the purpose of using a harder rifle primer. It doesn't make the load safer, just hides the pressure signs.

I do like the cleanliness of Vit, but the price does not justify it. The last time I checked, I could buy 48#'s of HS6 for about the same price as 32#'s of Vit.

As for AA#7 being clean, I did not find that to be true, however I did not spend that much time working with it. During my rifle shooting days, I did find that each powder had a certain "sweet spot". Accuracy was great and the SD's sometimes dropped into the single digits.

BTW, I forgot to include that I had also done a temperature test with HS6. I compared ammo at ambient (about 90 deg) to rounds taken out of my ice chest (about 50 deg). Velocity difference averaged only 11fps.

[hitman]

So what were your thoughts on Silhouette?

I know lots of people using it.

I am getting ready to try it and possibly switch from HS6.

[Intel6]

Man, how long has HS-6 powder been around?

Jim

WhenI had my open gun built in 1995 it was the powder reccomended to me by the gunsmith. It was "the" powder at the time but was starting to loose ground to new powders.

Neal in AZ

[SLM]

Nice workup. If you ever get board I'd like to see the results using 115's!

[blkbrd]

My data and work mirrored yours but it took me a while to try and then settle on HS-6, not as dirty in my short gun due to higher pressures to make major.

Silhouette got scarry pressure wize at 168PF in my short gun with holes.

Want to try out 350 as its the only one I havnt played with.

[HSMITH]

HS-6 is filthy nasty dirty, horribly dirty and did I mention dirty? That said, if your gun will run 300 or 400 rounds without issue using it and you are willing to clean it, it is outstanding in 9mm major. Soft shooting, probably the softest out there, accurate, consistent enough, and overall just a really pleasant shooting load. My gun is so tight it won't run 5 rounds in a row, so I can't use it. Silhouette and 3n-37 are a lot cleaner, shoot very well, almost as soft, and my gun will run 1000+ rounds between cleanings and without added lube with them so they are what I have been using. 3n-37 is insanely consistent, ES is always single digit, accuracy is as good as anything else I have tried too. The downside is it puts heat in the gun faster than anything I have ever used and it is expensive, the gun gets wicked hot in just 40 rounds. Silhouette feels exactly the same to me and costs half as much. Consistency is a bit worse, ES of 25ish, and I give up almost an inch at 50 yards for accuracy but it still goes under 3" at that distance easily. The big plus is it doesn't put nearly as much heat in the gun.

Silhouette is hard to get locally, harder than 3n-37, so I have been using 3n-37 for the last 2 years when it matters.

AA7 is FILTHY too, but it shoots nice. If your gun will take it and you can get it locally I would shoot it.

Longshot works OK in my gun, I have burned about 10 pounds of it so far. Consistency sucks but for local matches I don't worry about it too much. My load goes 175 power factor so I am not cheating, I know it never goes below 165. Accuracy is OK, and it will run 1000 rounds without cleaning if I add oil each time out. It is incredibly dirty by 1000 rounds, nasty smegma oily mess, but it works.

The more loads I try the more I come back to a clean consistent load, I don't care what the dot does as long as it lifts in a manner that I can see and returns to POA without issue, that is all I need to shoot the gun as well as I can shoot the gun at the highest speed I am capable of.

[JasonC]

Silhouette worked well. A little fast for me and made the gun a bit snappy. I preferred True Blue, but the difference was quite small. Sil and TB are really fine powders, so I had a problem with some of the grains getting caught between the powder bar and spacer. Would either bind the powder bar or trickle powder on my bench. Fixed it by using a piece of paper as a shim. The plus side is that it is very dense and not prone to spilling out of the case when the shell plate indexes to the next station.

Vit is extruded so a bit bulky. A little extra care is needed when indexing the shell plate.