357 SIG and Love-Hate Relationship with AA#9

[antsi]

I have always loaded 357 SIG with 147 gr bullets and AA#9. There are a lot of things I like about this load: pleasant to shoot, accurate, clean burning, and I like the fact it is a compressed load as a guard against bullet setback in this caliber.

But, AA#9 always drives me nuts. The stuff is so fine grain it is always wandering out and jamming up my powder bar (Dillon 550b).

Does anyone have a substitute powder that works will in 357 SIG with 147 gr bullets? Hopefully a compressed load?

I don't want to go with lighter bullets because I have a boat load of 147 gr JHP laying around.

Or, does anyone have a good tip to reduce/eliminate powder migration with AA#9?

 

[Peter M. Eick]

Yes, I use an RCBS Uniflow powder dispenser. Works great with AA9 and the 357 SIG. These are my favorite 2 powders because as you point out, it just works!

 

[Dave P]

AA #7

Isnt 7 and 9 the same powder type/size? Yes they are - I just checked my stock.

FYI: AA9 works fine in my Redding measure, as does AA#7. I seem to get a touch better accuracy (357sig) with #7, tho.

In fact, I am about to order my first keg (8lbs) of pistol powder (AA 7) - looks like it should work in my soon-to-have 10mm (Witness Match), the SIG, and my 44 MAG. And I think I can use it on 45 acp if I want to. Thats a bunch of loading to do!

Lets see: 8 lb x 7000 gr/lb / 10 gr per round = 5600 rounds to load. Maybe I should get that progeressive, instead of single stage!

Pete - are you gonna make a 10mm page for us?

Happy New Year!
Dave

 

[griz]

Power Pistol also works well.

 

[Peter M. Eick]

Dave P.

What do you mean by a 10mm page? I can dump out a lot of load data I shoot, but I am not a hot rodder any more in 10mm. I go for around 1300 fps with 180's and 1200 with 200's. I have some nice plinking loads in the 1200 by 180's though. Let me know what you are thinking and I will try and post some data.

 

[shu]

try some BlueDot. I began reloading 357sig with BlueDot, found no fault with it. Tried some AA#9 but didn't like it as well; been a while, but now that you mention fine grain, that was probably it. Tried some Power Pistol also, found no major fault. Went back to BlueDot. Fills the case, burns clean when fully loaded, makes a nice satisfying blue flame!

-shu

 

[Dave P]

What do you mean by a 10mm page?


Pete, I was just referencing your 357 sig page, that I found very useful in the past.

I think I have enough data for now, to load 10mm. I will give you a range report next month!

Dave

 

[Peter M. Eick]

Wrong Pete. That is another guy who I have since lost track of. He was/is a great reloader who got me going in the right direction years ago.

Sorry, I don't want to take credit where credit is certainly NOT due!

 

[Dave P]

Not your page??? I must be losing my mind - again!

 

[caz223]

I second blue dot.
A lot of people like AA powders, I can't say if I do or not, nobody local carries AA powders, so I never got a chance to try 'em out.
I started out with blue dot for the 357SIG.
If you don't mind noise and flash, blue dot is GREAT!!!
BOOM!!
I've noticed that blue dot doesn't flow great through my dillon measure, but it doesn't seem to matter.
The 357SIG round has an inherantly low SD, and is VERY consistant.
IF you know anyone with a chrony, run your AA loads past it, and see if the powder variation carries over to velocity variation.
It doesn't with blue dot.
I guess if it does, you can always switch to blue dot/power pistol.

 

[Peter M. Eick]

Quick chrono data. Note all data is for a 20 shot string.

124 grn berry hp-fmj, starline brass, cci500 primers, 12.4 grns of aa9, 1.140 col. 1330 fps mean, sd of 8.
124 hornady xtp, same primer, brass, col, 12.0 aa9, 1301 mean, sd of 12
115 hornady xtp, same as above but 12.4 aa9, 1341 mean, 12 sd
90 grn seirra jhp, same as above, 12.6 grns of aa9, mean of 1563, sd of 26
147 hornady xtp, same as above, 10.0 aa9, mean of 1099, sd of 8

I don't post my 90 grn screamers, but they are max loads of aa9. You can achieve 1700 fps with my 229 sport.

 

[caz223]

What are you using to dispense the AA9?

 

[Peter M. Eick]

RCBS Uniflow with the precision small screw setup and a powder baffle. The uniflow is on my rcbs pro2000 and routinely gives me +/- 0.05 grns. I say 0.05 grns because it just comes up with the same number on the scale time after time, thus it must be less then the resolution of the 1/2 the smallest increment of the scale.