[Guy B. Meredith]

The title says it all. How do grain size for HP38 and Winchester's 231 compare to AA#2? I like AA#2, but the small grain size makes it a pain as it gets into everything if you have a spill. Seems like even without a spill.

[Jim Watson]

231 is a little larger grain size than AA2.

[Guy B. Meredith]

Thanks. I'll go ahead and give it a try.

I want to try it based on commentry here and load manuals, but if it is a nuisance to handle it might just end up on the shelf for those times that I am scraping the bottom.

Just don't have money for shelving seldom used items.

[Jim Watson]

Yup, there are a lot of 15 ounce cans of powder on shelves all over the country because people think they should be able to see a big difference in the shooting by changing powder two places on a burn rate chart. Or they think there is a powder that will save them the trouble of cleaning the gun.

I am at present loading .45 ACP with some old 452AA. It is almost as small grained as AA2. But it is long out of production and I am looking at Titegroup. I have been loading AA2 for low flash ammo for indoor and night shoots, but Titegroup is not supposed to be too bad on flash and I will probably not reorder the AA2. Titegroup even works in 9mm. Probably ok in .38 but I don't know if I have a suitable bushing for my old C-H PPC ammo machine.

Titegroup is about the same *size* granulation as 231 but is very irregular. Made by the Ball powder process but you can't tell to look at it, the granules are flattened, broken, and squished into strange shapes. But it goes bang and is readily available and reasonably priced.