Factory Loads... Bad/poor quality gun powder?

[The ROC]

Hello all,

First time to post but not my first time reloading.

So I'm about to start reloading 9mm with Frontier 147gr, W231 and Federal Primers. I'm all done shouting my 1000 rounds of Speer Lawman 9mm 124gr and about 200 rds of CCI Blazers 115gr. Right from the go my grouping with the Lawman were aweful even when I benched my M&P9 whether at 10 meters or 25 meters. It was very discouraging seeing those groups but as they say it's not the gun but the shooter. I then tried out the CCI Blazers and the groups improved alot.

Long story short I pulled the bullets from both rounds to do some measurements and with the Speer Lawman I found at least 15 BLACK odd shape flakes mixed in the gray gun powder. As for the CCI's there none of these black flakes I am mentioning.

In all my times I've reloaded for rifles I've never come across this. Could this lot of 1000rds of 9mm ammo had a bad batch of gun powder that was cross contaminated and that was causing my bad groups (from shotgun pattern to not even hitting a 8x11 piece of paper at 25 meter) or are there pistol powders that have BLACK colored flakes mixed in??

Thanks for the feed back

[HSMITH]

Hi Roc, welcome to the best place on the internet!!

I haven't pulled any Lawman apart but what you saw doesn't surprise me. Factory ammo is loaded with powders that handloaders can't even get, they are specific blends and even proprietary powders that are formulated for the ammo factory. They are selected to provide a decent load in most guns, be stable across a wide temperature range, make reasonable performance levels at fairly low pressures, and things like that. They aren't ever the optimum powder for the cartridge in every gun, but sometimes you will find a factory round that matches your gun very well just as you found a factory load that absolutely hated your gun. I wouldn't worry about it. Now that you are reloading you will be able to tailor a load to your gun and all will be well.

[G-ManBart]

Welcome ROC,

I'd be willing to bet that the different colored flakes were there as a marker for the factory to identify which powder it is. This has been done, mostly in shotgun powders, for years....red dot, green dot and blue dot come to mind. Each had a few colored flakes in each charge to aid identification. I've never seen it done for rifle specific or pistol specific powder, but that doesn't mean it isn't done in powders for factories which are non-cannister grade meaning it's not sold to the public. R,

[JD45]

What pistol are you shooting?

[The ROC]

What pistol are you shooting?

I'm using a M&P9 for IPSC Production.

[revchuck]

Welcome, ROC!

The replies above are on target; another factor is that the factories usually use the cheapest powder they can get and/or blend that meets their pressure and velocity specs. Cleanliness and accuracy aren't high on their priorities, especially since accuracy is so dependent on individual guns. I'm finishing up a case of .38 Special Blazer ammo I got dirt cheap; I can shoot my handloads for a long time before I have to clean out the cylinder, but with this batch of Blazer I have to clean out the chambers and under the extractor star every three cylinders full or I'll have problems doing speedloads due to unburnt powder residue. As already noted, this is an advantage of loading your own ammo - you can tailor the ammo to your specs for cleanliness, velocity, accuracy, whatever, as long as it's safe and reliable.

231 isn't the absolutely cleanest powder out there, but it's pretty good in 9x19. It measures really well, too.