Component shortage reveals least popular powders?

Green Dot gets little love. It's actually a pretty good powder for many/most pistol cartridges.

If I can't find W231/HP-38, I would gladly use Green Dot (most of my 9/40/45 GD loads took .2-.3 gr more charge than W231/HP-38).

The local Cabellas (Maine) had more than a dozen cans of H1000 in stock a couple weeks ago with hardly anything else there and zero primers. Might have more to do with over sticking things that are slow movers to begin with IMHO.

I think its probably normal to see this. The most popular powders go first, then the others slowly get bought. Its probably good in a way, as the stock gets rotated. Lightman

Green dot is a great powder. I use it for a lot of pistol loads

Retumbo is a popular choice with the large magnum shooters.

Its not all bad, either, as it kinda forces some of us to try powders that we normally wouldnt use, possibly finding a new favorite for whatever use. I have a decent stock of powders that I already use, but I have picked up a pound of a few different ones recently that were looking lonely on the shelf, just to see if I could find a niche for them. It led to me discovering that my 44 Mag SBH LOVES HS-6 loads with the 200 gr XTP, where Universal Calys and H-110 were only decent in the accuracy department in all load ranges.

I was in Kevin's Gunshop in Tallahassee Fl Friday and they had several powders in stock. REd/Green Dot, Reloder, 296, WSF and several others that I didn't recognize. Also had .222 as well as a decent supply of defensive ammo for .38/,357,9mm, 0SW and .5 ACP. Prices seemed decent. $28 per lb of powder and the ammo was $20 to $27 for a box of 20 depending of caliber.

Seems like most of the powders left in stock around me (Northern Illinois) are primarily shotgun powders. I guess the the sotgunners aren't as panicky. Thing is, some shotgun powders are really good pistol powders as well, but aren't what a lot of people think of for pistol loading, so they are still available.

Good reason to have both old and current reloading manuals. If you can't find your favourites, a burning rate chart and a couple of manuals will help you find something suitable as a substitute.

BTW, WSF is my go-to powder in 9mmx19, and it has good data for .40 S&W too.

What Rod said on post 11 describes me a couple weeks back. I was looking for a magnum pistol powder and of course my old standbys like 2400 and H110 were gone.

So with the help of the relative burn rate chart and a pad full of notes from manuals helped me pick a powder. I ended up with Ramshot Enforcer, never have used any of the Ramshot line... With the little bit of development I've done I really do like it.

Yup, same thing happened four years ago, too.

I can think of several ugly freckled redheaded stepchild powders....part of the problem is that in the last decade the powder companies stopped publishing data for them in other than the "primary" categories.

Examples:
Pistol data lacking for Promo / Red Dot , Green Dot, Herco. Pretty much all you see is Bullseye, Unique, Blue Dot, 2400. In the past you saw plenty of data for the others. Now you only see them listed in shotgun.

Same issue with rifle powders...especially the slower ones. I'm not seeing much love in the data category for many powders in the 4831 or slower realm. Only a handful get any play...the rest seem to be forgotten. Strangely all too many people don't know the powder cross references other than W231=HP38, et. al. Many of our powders are Norma, ADI, and Vectan.

Maybe where YOU live, nut I know a lot of folks who would love to get 20/28 and green Dot - these folks shoot a lot of shotgun at targets

Lots of guys use WST around here. Lots of competition shooters I shoot with use WST for minor PF. I love WST behind lead bullets in my .45's, and it's my go to powder for .40s&w minor PF.

gahunter12 said:

Lots of guys use WST around here. Lots of competition shooters I shoot with use WST for minor PF. I love WST behind lead bullets in my .45's, and it's my go to powder for .40s&w minor PF.

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Isn't WST also useful for 38 S&W or is that Win231?

Isn't WST also useful for 38 S&W or is that Win231?

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I'm not really sure about 38s&w since I have never loaded for that caliber. Sorry.

Thing is, some shotgun powders are really good pistol powders as well, but aren't what a lot of people think of for pistol loading, so they are still available.

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Some powders that are "primarily" shotgun powders make the best handgun loads too.

Some powders that are "primarily" shotgun powders make the best handgun loads too.

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+1. Solo 1000 and 700X are 2 that I use regularly.

Don

I had to pick upb3 new powders today. I was actually surprised how excited I felt to try the new stuff. Mostly shotgun powders for pistols.

WST is is good for 16-yard loads, and not much else..
maybe skeet loads.. licks nuggets for most everything else..

now that I've said that, someone is gonna flame me...

Green Dot is extremely under-rated as a shotgun powder, and under-utilized as a pistol powder because of it's close proximity in burn rate to Unique..

gahunter12 said:

I'm not really sure about 38s&w since I have never loaded for that caliber. Sorry.

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Its okay I just checked and it was win 231.

Green dot
Clays
50cal

I was lucky to find some trail boss today...