[AMBASSADOR]

I have four pounds of Red Dot leftover from my shotgun shooting days,might be 18 years old is it still good ?It was stored in original container,and if the answer is yes,can It be used to reload .380/357mag rounds?

[rcmodel]

Yes* & yes.

*(If it still smells like acetone & ether solvent it is still good.)

Alliant lists Red-Dot loads for both .380 ACP & .357 Mag.

I have used it extensively in .380 & .38 Spl. loads for years.
Not so much in .357 because I load them full power.

It is too fast for full power .357 Magnum loads, but will work fine for mid-range loads.

Four pounds is about enough for 9,000 .380's or 5,000+ .357's! :what:

rcmodel

[DickM]

As usual, rcmodel has nailed this one. I'll just add that I have kegs of both Red Dot and Unique from that time period (and older) that I'm using for handgun loads and they both work just fine.

[fireflyfather]

edit: That's what I get for stepping away from the machine for a couple minutes! RCmodel beat me to it.

As long as it wasn't stored in extreme temperatures, I'm sure it's fine. I use it to load for .38spl. My load books give loads for .357, but they are far from high velocity, but near max pressure. For plinking, it'd be fine in the .357, but you won't get the same kind of velocity you could get out of 2400, etc. On the plus side, the charge weights are smaller, so it's pretty cheap (why I use it for .38spl, 9mm, and 7.62x54R).

Alliant's downloadable guide does not list red dot for the .357, but the Lee manual does. Alliant's online data is offline at the moment.

I don't have data for the .380, as I don't load that.

[zxcvbob]

Red Dot is a great pistol powder for just about everything except .357 Magnum. It will work in .357, but performance isn't very good.

I posted Alliant's downloadable databook last week in another thread. Here's the link (let's see if this works): http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=81593&d=1216513445 It has .357 data for Red Dot.