PB powder anybody use??

[jeeptim]

Bought another ton of reloading stuff several pounds of PB think the fella was using it for 9x18 mak .
Only found data on 9mm but didn't
Look real hard. The data I did find was very small amounts with light bullet in 9mm
I would use it in 9mm,10mm , 45acp, colt 45, 38/357 if I hear positive results from ya All .
Thanx

 

[rskent]

I have used it in 9mm when it was all I could find. It works OK.

 

[maxxhavoc]

I think it is the worst pistol powder I have worked with.

I couldn't get consistent throws with it, shot dirty, and very inconsistent.

I used it during the powder shortage, until I found a couple pounds of Red Dot. I sold the rest of the PB to a shotgun reloader.

I used it in 9mm, 38, and 45. It worked best in 38, but I had to hand measure it to keep from getting squibs.

 

[rskent]

WOW!

I never had any problems like that with BP. Its not a great powder for 9mm, but its not that bad.

For me, it meters a lot like Bullseye, and way way more consistent than Red Dot.

I was using 4.6 grains under a 115 grain plated round nose, shot out of a Glock. YMMV

 

[rfwobbly]

PB is one of the powders IMR stopped making about 4 years ago. It's a great single-base powder for lead bullets in 38 Spcl or something like 380Auto.

However, unless it's free don't get it. You'll never see it again, and so a lot of load development time will be wasted.

 

[jeeptim]

Well that sux!!
In the lot of stuff I bought was about 25lb of powder 3lb of PB I paid $125.00 for the 25lb of powder so 3 pounds of back up powder nor bad

 

[maxxhavoc]

WOW!

I never had any problems like that with BP. Its not a great powder for 9mm, but its not that bad.

For me, it meters a lot like Bullseye, and way way more consistent than Red Dot.

I was using 4.6 grains under a 115 grain plated round nose, shot out of a Glock. YMMV

From rskent's experience, most of my issues may have been caused by my powder measure not liking the powder (Lee Auto Disk at the time.)

I'm just glad I can set aside PB and Red Dot and the other "shortage" powders I used for pistol and load up with Unique, Bullseye, BE-86, H110, and W231. That makes me happy.

 

[rskent]

Well that sux!!

You set the bar pretty high. Fifteen bucks for enough powder to load about 3750 rounds doesn’t seem all that sucky to me.

 

[rskent]

I'm just glad I can set aside PB and Red Dot and the other "shortage" powders I used for pistol and load up with Unique, Bullseye, BE-86, H110, and W231. That makes me happy.

Truer words were never spoken by a wiser man.

 

[CoalTrain49]

It's a low pressure shotgun powder.

 

[Rule3]

http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/FIREARMS/imr_reloading.pdf

 

[jeeptim]

Rule3
Thank you!!! What an AWSOME reference cant wait to get home print it out and put it in my binder....

 

[Rudolph31]

I use PB to load for my 16’s. It works GREAT. I’m sure someone who loads shotgun shells would be happy to take it off your hands.

 

[nambu1]

My old LEE 1st edition lists 110 - 125 gr. bullets with 5.3 gr. of PB for 9mm, 180 - 230 gr. bullets with 5.3 gr. of PB for 45 acp & AR and 200 - 260 gr bullets with 7.1 gr of PB in 45 LC,

 

[rfwobbly]

Well that sux!! In the lot of stuff I bought was about 25lb of powder 3lb of PB I paid $125.00 for the 25lb of powder so 3 pounds of back up powder nor bad

You didn't say you had 3 pounds of PB !! I took your first comments to mean 1 lb each of a dozen or more powders. If you use 3.5gr per load, then you have enough for ~6000 loads. That's certainly an amount worth having !! In fact, in some calibers, that might be a lifetime supply !!

Both PB and 7625 generated very low chamber pressures when used in shotguns. And single-base powders make barrels last much longer because they burn at much lower chamber temperatures, due to the absence of nitro. IMR really screwed up when they stopped making those.

 

[Toprudder]

I've done a few test loads with PB and decided I did not like it as much as other powders, so I used it all up to get rid of it. I tested 9, 40, and 45acp with it.

The load data I had for 9mm only showed a max of 3.7gn for 115gn bullets, and that would not come close to cycling the action on my 9mm. I did not have any other published data at the time, so I gave up on 9mm with it. I'm reasonably sure I could have increased the charge to get it to work, but I did not want to go above published data.

Testing in 40 S&W went reasonably well. I tested 155 and 165gn plated bullets. I found a load for 155 that worked well, at 5.8gn charge, and just over 1000 fps. This is where I used up most of the PB powder I had left.

45acp gave some interesting results. I used 200gn SWC plated bullets. All the loads I tried ended up being low velocity, less than 700fps. This was using up to 5.8gn of powder. I will warn you, though, that I saw 100fps difference between large and small primers. Use large primer brass, or if you must use small primers, then use small magnum primers.

 

[rskent]

The load data I had for 9mm only showed a max of 3.7gn for 115gn bullets,

Well, there’s your problem right there.

My (Lee) book shows a starting load of 4.3 and a max load of 4.8 for a 115 grain 9mm. I’m not trying to say PB is a great powder for 9mm, just that it doesn’t suck as much as people make out.

 

[Toprudder]

Well, there’s your problem right there.

My (Lee) book shows a starting load of 4.3 and a max load of 4.8 for a 115 grain 9mm. I’m not trying to say PB is a great powder for 9mm, just that it doesn’t suck as much as people make out.

Yeah, I figured the load was way too low, but I was going by the load data that I had at the time.

 

[Toprudder]

Just for grins, I checked the Hodgdon load data for 124gn, and they show a max of 4.4gn. I remember thinking at the time that their 115gn data was wrong, but I'm sure of it now.

 

[Dudedog]

From Hodgdon
125 GR. LCN IMR PB .356" 1.125" 2.9 908 25,500 PSI 3.4 1004 34,000 PSI
125 GR. SIE FMJ IMR PB .355" 1.090" 3.2 887 25,600 PSI 3.6 974 33,500 PSI
124 GR BERB HBRN Plated IMR PB .356" 1.150" 3.8 869 26,000 PSI 4.4 1023 32,800 PSI
130 GR. BERB RN IMR PB .356" 1.150" 3.4 809 25,800 PSI 3.8 921 32,300 PSI