Trey Veston
Member
In developing loads for my new 1911 10mm, I wanted to try a couple of Unique recipes since it performed well in my Glock. I went straight to the Alliant website and they showed a charge of 8 grains max for the 180gr Speer GDHP.
I am using 180gr Hornady XTPs. I haven't seen Speer GDHPs for sale for years. I loaded up two recipes using 6.0gr and 7.3gr. The pistol preferred the 7.3gr.
So tonight, I am up in my reloading room and wanted to crank out some more of the 7.3gr rounds, and thought I'd try something a little hotter; around 7.8gr. I pulled out my Hodgdon book and was surprised to see them list only 6.8gr of Unique as the max load for a 180gr bullet.
I looked in another reloading manual and they list 6.5gr as max load.
Why such a huge disparity? Speer Gold Dots are a JHP, right? Same as the Hornady XTP. So what is the difference? I fired the 7.3gr loads and the pistol did very well with them.
I am using 180gr Hornady XTPs. I haven't seen Speer GDHPs for sale for years. I loaded up two recipes using 6.0gr and 7.3gr. The pistol preferred the 7.3gr.
So tonight, I am up in my reloading room and wanted to crank out some more of the 7.3gr rounds, and thought I'd try something a little hotter; around 7.8gr. I pulled out my Hodgdon book and was surprised to see them list only 6.8gr of Unique as the max load for a 180gr bullet.
I looked in another reloading manual and they list 6.5gr as max load.
Why such a huge disparity? Speer Gold Dots are a JHP, right? Same as the Hornady XTP. So what is the difference? I fired the 7.3gr loads and the pistol did very well with them.