.380 acp

There's quite a good many..Ive used:
American Select
800-x
hp-38
zip
AutoComp
Bullseye
7625
4756
be86

Not all were perfect. I believe your quicker powders are probably best..maybe powders 10-30 or therabouts on the various burn rate charts floating around.. Start low and work up of course.

Love Titegroup. I use it in my .380 loads using a 100gr bullet.

I also use Bullseye in .380 though with a 120gr TC cast boolit.

I've used both Bullseye and Power Pistol. Using PP at the moment, (have more of it). 3.6gr, Bayou Bullet 105gr LSWC. Seems to work well, haven't actually chronographed it yet. I've only figured out what cycles the gun, the loads seem to group well.

I have never used Tightgroup. So far with the powders I have tried, Bullseye has been the best. I am about to start testing on CFE Pistol powder. I suspect it might me my go to powder for .380 ACP when all is said and done.

380 loads require small powder charges and Bullseye/W231/HP-38 meter very well at these charge ranges.

If you are using Auto Disk, this mod will allow you to consistently meter below smallest hole charges - http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=741988

Good and timely thread. My wife just started shooting .380, so I recently bought dies for it. The only handgun powder I currently have on-hand is HP-38, which has served me well in .38, .357, and .45ACP. Guess I'll see how it does in .380 now.

Bullseye and N320 have given me the best accuracy so far. Autocomp was not nearly as accurate for me. I didn't bother trying to tune it since my other loads were performing quite well. I strongly suspect that HP38/231 will work great but I haven't got around to trying it yet. If I run low on Bullseye I might give it a shot.

Ramshot Competition at near min has produced a very accurate mousefart load when combined with either MBC 95gr lrn or Xtreme 100gr plated FP.

My favorite for 380 is AA#2 or #5. Both meter better than anything else on the market and both perform very well at the pressure level 380 runs at.

i just completed my first workup of the .380 with Bullseye and HP-38. Both powders performed well with a 100g RMR RN bullet in a Sig P238. I settled on a load with HP-38 only because i probably just have enough to load the 250 bullets i ordered.

As a side note the RCBS dies i bought worked great!

bds said:

380 loads require small powder charges and Bullseye/W231/HP-38 meter very well at these charge ranges.

If you are using Auto Disk, this mod will allow you to consistently meter below smallest hole charges - http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=741988

Click to expand...

I agree, HP-38/W231 meters much better than Titegroup at this small of a charge.

Bullseye, Red Dot, Green Dot and Clay's all work well, but don't meter well enough at low weights on some measures. I hand-weigh loads with those powders. AA#2, if you can find it, meters like water. WST also works well.

I've used AA#2, Red Dot, & Unique. I like them in that order.

Bullseye is the only powder ive ever tried in 380, and it works great!

I've had good luck with Titegroup and Bullseye as well. I use a Dillon and metering for these has not been a problem for me, down to as low as 2.8gr.

Ironicaintit said:

Bullseye is the only powder ive ever tried in 380, and it works great!

Click to expand...

Same here. Works great for me in this caliber.

I've loaded Win231 and Promo (Red Dot) with 100 gr Berry's and Xtremes.

I've had good results with W-231/HP-38 and Accurate #5 and Bullseye using 100gr Extreme plated bullets. I am out of Accurate #2, I think this would be a good choice for the 380 acp.
A tenth of a grain of powder makes a difference in this small case, find a powder that meters very well in your set up.

+1 to BE in 380

HP38/.Win 231

Titegroup will work, preferably with jacketed, plated, or good coated bullets. It's not recommended for lubed lead unless you want to feel like you're shooting black powder. It's a very dense powder, making wildly overcharged ammo (resulting in destruction of the pistol) possible. Red Dot / Promo are similarly fast, will work, and are at the other end of the density spectrum, making double charges unlikely, but may not meter well due to their bulk. An x-small powder bar in my RL550B seems to have made .380/Promo doable.

Clays? I couldn't find published data. I tried some, based on anecdotal data, but was scared off by bulging brass, while still at low velocity.

njl said:

Clays? I couldn't find published data. I tried some, based on anecdotal data, but was scared off by bulging brass, while still at low velocity.

Click to expand...

Interesting. It must not play well with the small case capacity. That really surprises me though.

I tried WSF for 380 acp with 100gr Xtreme fnfp it did ok but I there was little to no data to be found.

I've been using Bullseye for 380. The smallest charge i can throw on my Lee Autodisk is 2.8 gr, which is pretty close to the max charge recommended in my Hornady manual. I just bought some Universal to try in 380 because the smallest Autodisk is not that close to the max for Universal.

I've used Bullseye and 231 with great results. My favorite load for all my 380's are with 231...