Ramshot Silhouette for 9mm

I've had good results with 5.0 grains of Silhouette and 115 grain JHP bullets (20 shots in around 1.5" at 25 yards). I've not tried it with lead bullets.

Shot powder coated lead bullets with siloette and I like it. Cleaner than unique, way less muzzle flash than power pistol and just decent all around. Easy to meter but splashes easily and will make a mess in short order out of an electric meter. The balls are tiny. Never used it on a progressive but immagine it would be easily consistent.

Ramshot Silhouette, I now use it in my 100gr 380 loads, 9mm 115/124gr with RN, FP, and Berry's Hollow Base, 45acp with 185gr and 200gr.. I load all to around mid-level and as of right now I have four 1# jars in the bench storage. I was loading HP-39 to start with and we do a lot of indoor range shooting and one of the selling points is flash and smoke suppressed and I have to say the very first time the wife and I went to the indoor range and shot these loads we noticed right away how much better the air quality was because of the reduced smoke. It has also produced the most consistent on-target results of the 4 powders I have.

This powder has also been very nice to use in both my Lee Auto Disk measure and the Lee Auto Drum measure. I am getting this to hold 0 to -.01of my set target weight. Yes on the very rare occasion I will get a heavy drop but most variance has been to the light side. I also have found very little leakage from either measure.

JO JO said:

yes I do like sport pistol , will most likely order more online just wished my local stores would stock more alliant powders

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The LGS that I buy at is about the opposite, they carry plenty of Alliant and Hodgdon, but nothing of Western Powders.

I do like Silhouette in 9mm. It equals with CFE-P to me. If you have access to older reload data, Silhouette use to be Winchester's WAP powder. Everything I have read says the data is exchangeable.

Went to Sportsman's in Mississippi today and they had some on the Shelf so I picked up a pound they don't carry it at Bass Pro here in Memphis

JO JO said:

Is sihouette very dirty at the mid-range loads as in lots of unburned powder ?
Or does it prefer to run towards Max loads ?

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I see bits of yellow debris and some unburnt particles at mid-range loads. Nothing outrageous.

I should add, I usually go to a faster powder, HP-38 or Titegroup, if I'm lowering the velocity. It's only when working up a new load that I notice the debris.

JO JO, I can't speak for any one else but when I started with the Silhouette I always started at the published start level. First it was with 115gr and 124gr Berry's plated bullets. With the 115gr bullet the start load published is 5.5gr and it worked so well that I loaded some to 5.8gr and went back to the 5.5gr load. Then with the 124gr Hollow Base bullet the start load is 4.9 gr. and again it worked very well and I have settled on a 5.2 gr. charge because that is one that drops right from the Lee Auto Disk measure. That 5.2gr charge also worked well with the 124gr flat base bullet.

Then I loaded Silhouette in the 380 with a 100gr Xtreme bullet, the start was 3.8gr which was dropped from a Lee Auto Drum, it performed 100% better than the HP-38 and also had a wider spectrum then the HP-38. As I recall the smallest cavity for the Lee disk dropped 3.9/4.0gr of Silhouette and that load was lights out in two different pistols. Max load for 380 is 4.4gr...

Lastly I loaded it for the 45acp because with the HP-38 when shooting indoors we were getting a great deal of muzzle flash from the 45 and both my wife and I found it distracting. Afain started at the beginning with a 200gr bullet loaded lower than the listed 7.4 for the Flat Point and at the 7.2gr level listed for the HP. Again it shot great and settled at a 7.7/7.8gr level when max is 8.7

Last time I bought powder I bought 2 more lbs. of Silhouette even though I still had 2 lbs. at home. Again, we do most of our shooting at an indoor range and there is a big difference in air quality when using the Silhouette. We don't leave the range with that gun powder taste in our mouths.

Ramshot Silhouette is the old Winchester Action Pistol (WAP) powder hiding behind a newer label. The old Winchester WAP data works for Silhouette and vice versa.

Hope this helps.

Fred

More great info for my own 9mm powder decision!
Thanks for thread

I primarily stick to 115g Hornady HAP for my "accuracy" loads. Last spring, I was messing around with all kinds of powders and in my 4.5" XDm, it came down to No7 and Sport Pistol and between those two, Sp came out on top.. I looked all over my area for Silhouette, but couldn't find it. I finally got my hands on some recently and want to put it through its paces. Nato reloading did a fantastic test set on it:

http://www.natoreloading.com/silhouette/

I look forward to messing around with it this spring.

Typetwelve said:

I primarily stick to 115g Hornady HAP for my "accuracy" loads. Last spring, I was messing around with all kinds of powders and in my 4.5" XDm, it came down to No7 and Sport Pistol and between those two, Sp came out on top.. I looked all over my area for Silhouette, but couldn't find it. I finally got my hands on some recently and want to put it through its paces. Nato reloading did a fantastic test set on it:

http://www.natoreloading.com/silhouette/

I look forward to messing around with it this spring.

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I agree mostly with the guys from your link. But I like CFE-P also. And my shooting can't tell the difference between the two.
From the Western Powder's load data .pdf file, Silhouette stays on par, or slightly out edges #7 and True Blue in velocity.

kcofohio said:

I agree mostly with the guys from your link. But I like CFE-P also. And my shooting can't tell the difference between the two.
From the Western Powder's load data .pdf file, Silhouette stays on par, or slightly out edges #7 and True Blue in velocity.

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At a minimum, it seems more efficient. I was using their data for 115g Nosler JHP data for No7 as they don't list the Hornady HAP/XTP in 115g. I like to seat those HAP rounds deeper than some, most places state 1.100" but testing, they performed much better seated to 1.080". Anyway, 6.9g of No7 made an average vel of 1132 fps from my 4.5" barrel. If I can cleanly get that from 5.1-5.7g of Silh, I'll stick with that.

...with all of that said, Sport Pistol still performed better and it's under 5 grains...