American Reloading pull down powder

I may have had a psychologically weak moment late last night and bought some “used” powder for $25/pound from AR. I have no regrets, but sleep deprivation can make me spend some money in curious ways. It’s all in good fun.
Anyway, they had for sale 5 pounds of pull down powder. The load info is: 6.5gr under 230gr FMJ. .45ACP 856 fps.
Do any of you fine folk have any experience with this powder? Any ideas as to what I’m working with? It looks like Unique but I can’t go by looks. It is a flattened disc powder.
They seller provides baseline cartridge info but not any brand name. It’s kinda frustrating but fun at the same time.

The price sure is right. They have several pull down powders for sale BTW.

 

25 bucks for mystery powder...why?
My go to place in a small Wisconsin town sized at about 4000 people, just last week had pretty much his shelves stocked. Pistol powder is about 30 bucks.

Heck last week I bought 2 lbs of silhouette for 29 ea, price is even better and am not guessing.

 

Two words for you: New York

 

I have used the #1 45 ACP pull down powder from American reloading, and though the starting data is low, it has worked very well for me. I agree that the current prices at AR are too close to known powder to merit the risk, though I have four different pull down powders from American reloading, and all have worked really well.

 

The load and physical description are similar to Winchester Autocomp. The Sierra app says a 6.6gr load under their 230gr FMJ will produce 860fps from a standard 5” barrel using a Universal receiver. Autocomp is also a flattened ball type powder. I’m not saying what you have ordered is Autocomp. What I’m saying is, what you have described is very similar to Autocomp.

 

I've never read or seen a pistol powder that would be problematic with a 10% reduction... a 25 round test from presented load reduced in 2% increments for a max of 10% should give you a reasonable chart. It should closely match a powder out there for use in other applications.... however untrue I think they would give you a max charge like Alliant does. I would not be inclined to go above that without significant data. I would also assume their charge is a standard load not a plus p

 

I am looking at $50/pound for any powder here in NY. Economizing and having a good time experimenting is what I’m happily forced to do. The loads listed for their pull down powders seem to be the lower end of power relative to other potential loads. I’m not all that nervous about experimenting with loads as I have tanks for handguns (Ruger) that I’m sure I won’t blow up and none of the worrisome weapons that require delicate flower pressures.

 

I have run Quickload tables to look for similar or equivalent powders. Note that the accuracy of this effort is much less than perfect as I am guessing at AOL and barrel length. My guess would be a "fast batch" of the bulk version of HS-6. If you were to chrono a load and provide all needed inputs, the effort could be refined.

Code:

Quickload study for 45ACP pulldown                                                       
            Bullet    Charge    Velocity         
    Data    230    6.5          856                           
                               
Cartridge          : .45 Auto (ACP) (SAAMI)                              
Bullet             : .451, 230, Speer TMJ 4480                              
Useable Case Capaci: 10.877 grain H2O = 0.706 cm³                              
Cartridge O.A.L. L6: 1.200 inch = 30.48 mm                              
Barrel Length      : 5.0 inch = 127.0 mm                              
                                                         
C A U T I O N : any load listed can result in a powder charge that falls below minimum suggested                              
loads or exceeds maximum suggested loads as presented in current handloading manuals. Understand                              
that all of the listed powders can be unsuitable for the given combination of cartridge, bullet                              
and gun. Actual load order can vary, depending upon lot-to-lot powder and component variations.                              
USE ONLY FOR COMPARISON !                              
                               
Powder type          Filling/Loading Ratio  Charge    Charge   Vel. Prop.Burnt P max  P muzz  B_Time                              
                                      %     Grains    Gramm   fps     %       psi     psi    ms                              
---------------------------------  -----------------------------------------------------------------                              
Winchester WAP                      68.0      5.9     0.38     856    90.8    18488    2421   0.708                              
Alliant POWER PISTOL                80.8      6.4     0.42     856    74.6    17161    2675   0.722                              
Winchester 540                      63.1      6.5     0.42     856    85.6    18608    2461   0.708                              
Accurate No.5                       62.3      6.5     0.42     856    79.8    18371    2533   0.709                              
Lovex D036                          62.3      6.5     0.42     856    79.7    18370    2533   0.709                              
Hodgdon Longshot                    65.1      6.6     0.43     856    85.1    18318    2486   0.711                              
Hodgdon HS-6                        68.5      6.8     0.44     856    82.7    18545    2487   0.708                              
Alliant BLUE DOT                   104.7      8.5     0.55     856    63.1    18044    2650   0.714                              

 

I have successfully used a variety of their surplus powder.

 

I’m curious as to why Autocomp wasn’t included.

 

I have purchased from American Reloading and Pats Reloading in the past. This was when their propellant was less than half the cost of canister grade at other vendors. It worked as avertised with no problems. Just keep in mind that it might have a short shelf life. No help with this particular one though. I found there is not a short cut to doing a trial workup of an unknown propellant using their sparse data though as nothing else matched it well enough to just match

 

What evidence do you have that shows they gave you a load on the lower end.... I think that approach is a mistake.

 

I have used many powders from American reloading mostly Midwest brand. Never any problems. That holds true for their projo's too. I like the fact they sell items that are not readily obtainable elsewhere such as, the 50gr. nickel plated copper 9mm bullets. Best wishes

 

This is less about the powder than the use of 5 pounds of powder in a pistol round pushing heavy bullets.

If my math is right, 5 pounds of powder will load thousands of rounds, totaling nearly 170 pounds of lead moved.

What becomes of all that lead? Is it recovered to fire again?

 

My version of Quickload does not have that powder in the database. Autocomp is certainly in the burn rate range indicated by QL, somewhere between Power Pistol and Longshot.

 

Darn. I was hoping it would shed some light. Oh well, close enough.

 

The same as someone dug it out of the ground originally, I’m sure some one can do it again. I’m n

 

A combination of Ignorance and dead reckoning.

 

Well take a GPS data point and enter it into your ESGN for a better fix. (Electronic suspended gyro navigation)

 

I have pondered responding to the above since it was posted.

I have been watching American Reloading for a while. I have a pretty good stash of stuff, but my do not have a lifetime supply. My fast flake (Promo) will probably last another year or so and my supplies of other stuff should last longer.

When I have run stuff through Quickload (QL), most powders are predictable and follow the "standard pattern". A few are less so. I have very low confidence in Lil Gun predictions. Power Pistol tends to give a better velocity for a given pressure than most. I feel that most pulldown powders are likely to be "run of the mill" type stuff, but some non-canister powder may also be overruns, out of spec stuff etc.

I have run a lot of their suggested loads through QL, just to have a feel for what they are offering. I might get an urge to buy some. I have found more than a few are likely to be "on the lower end". Most have been closer to "warm but prudent". The specific load provided in the OP falls into this category. A very few have been more like "not sure if I would use that one in a low margin gun".

My guess is that most of the time, they just work up loads that seem ok. They give use the chrono results and expect us to be smart on how we use the info. I really wish they would provide COAL along with barrel length.

 

I think testing would bring a lot of clarity in what is actually on hand. Quickloads I believe gives much better results when adjusted to actual MV. It is my firm conviction that the real strength of programs to take your real world results and adjust its output.

 

I agree that "fine tuning" with real inputs and tweaking to match a chrono is a strength of the tool.

However, the correlation between powder charge and velocity for a given OAL and barrel length produces results that are pretty easy to interpret. It can get you "in the ballpark" for a handful of powders that all have very similar charge vs velocity. When you then go look at the official load data for those specific powders, they tend to give very similar results for max allowed charge for the same bullet and OAL.

One big qualifier is that density and percent fill also matter. I would try to avoid using comparisons where your powder is giving 95% fill and you are using load data for a powder that only has 50% fill (really just any big mismatch). For the case of the OP, he could do something to quantify density and then the results could be refined even further.

But as we all know, this kind of info all needs to be used carefully. Some cartridges / guns have big safety margins and some do not.

 

I don't believe these sellers do any specific testing of the pulldown powders. From what I've seen the past, they appear to just list whatever the original finished cartridges were before disassembly. In theory that should have been a safe load however we are only given basic information. Since we don't know the brand of brass or actual bullets profile, the standard practice is to start lower and work up. I've had good results doing some with pulldown powder after extrapolating data to other cartridges.

 

Spontaneous combustion- https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/old-powder-caused-fire.788841/
Does happen.

 

This, I am not worried about.