Which powder?

[Hambo]

Winchester Super Target (WST) is another powder, almost as versatile as Unique without the soot/smoke.

WST and TiteGroup are my first pistol choices, but I bought some ETR7 because it was fairly cheap and more importantly, it was available. I'm not married to one powder in 9mm because 4# goes far enough that I don't mind resetting the Dillon if I buy something else the next time. To me, components are more easily stored as assembled ammo so I binge load in quantity and then it might be a year or two before I load that caliber again.

Be careful starting out and load for quality, not quantity. The biggest safety tip I can give is don't get distracted while loading.

[JV_]

The biggest safety tip I can give is don't get distracted while loading.

Exactly.

And, when you get a jam, clean out all of the stages and start fresh, watching each stage as it gets going again.

[okie john]

So I have been slowly acquiring all the equipment I need to start reloading and am finally ready to start. My reason for reloading is to be able to be able to shoot higher volume than what I shoot with loaded ammo. I will not be the guy that obsesses over load development. I will be loading primarily 147gr coated lead 9mm to try and match poa/poi to my Winchester RA9T duty ammo. I will also be loading .38 special with 158 SWC coated lead but in much smaller numbers and more for fun than serious shooting.

With all that said I would like to put up a enough powder to get me into mid 2018(In case the wrong person gets elected and we have another run on components). Looking around, the powders I can acquire in the needed quantities are Advantage #5, Ramshot silhouette, Titegroup, and possibly Ramshot zip. I have ruled out Titegroup because I am new at this and it has a very narrow window of loads and I want some forgiveness of minor errors in charge weight. Cost seems to be about the same for the same weights of powder but I'm not sure if I would be burning more of one than the other per charge weight.

If you just want the gun to go bang, then buy any powder that has published loads for your caliber. If you need to match POI of a specific load, then you'll have to do some load development. Each gun is a law unto itself, so you'll have to repeat at least some of the process for each one.

So you'll definitely want to do your load development before you buy powder in bulk, otherwise you could end up with a very expensive pile of stuff that doesn't work. Been there, done that, you don't have to.

Bullseye and Unique are time-honored choices for the 38 Special and a bunch of other stuff, plus they work pretty well in 9mm, so if you insist on buying something NOW, then I'd start with them.


Okie John

[olstyn]

Lots of good advice here. Reloading is not difficult, per se, but it is definitely something that requires a detail-oriented person to do properly, especially given the consequences of doing it improperly.

Regarding the powders mentioned in this thread, I've used Unique and CFE Pistol to load 9mm (115 gr and 124 gr, round nose and jhp), and they both seem to work pretty well, although the CFE Pistol was a bit more consistent, probably due to the fact that it meters better. In the end, however, I settled on using VV N320; it meters just as well as CFE pistol, has lower charge weights (more rounds per pound), shoots softer, and gives more consistent velocities, at least in my experience. Unique is fine, but as others have said, it's a bit sooty, and it fills 9mm cases full enough that tossing some onto your shell plate and/or your bench every time the shell plate advances is a real possibility. I never realized how dirty it was until I started using N320. Unique will turn your hands black when you're shooting, N320, not so much.

As far as acquiring powder for 9mm/.40/.45 goes, Powder Valley has N320 in stock in 4 pound jugs at the moment, so that'd be my recommendation. If you buy at least 8 pounds and throw in some primers while you're at it, the hazmat fee gets diluted enough to be worth it.

[Blayglock]

IME, Titegroup is suboptimal with coated lead bullets because of the excessive smoke.

Same Here.

[LSP972]

I binge load in quantity and then it might be a year or two before I load that caliber again.

I used to do that; until those two heathens disguised as my grandsons got old enough to start shooting. Then the wife decides she wants to start shooting .40- the fault of which can be laid squarely at Tom Givens' feet-, so I had tool up for it. I'm being punished for something over that; just don't know what (not a bad caliber to load; just ANOTHER one).

And now, of course, grandson #1 has begun shooting .45 instead of Euro-Pellet. Yet another Precision Delta bullet order is in my immediate future.

It never ends. But my local loading shop has been getting WST pretty regular, so I've been stocking up. One pound cans only, though… but its better than nothing.

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[LSP972]

I never realized how dirty it was until I started using N320. Unique will turn your hands black when you're shooting, N320, not so much.

Indeed. But you gotta mortgage your children to buy VV powder in quantity; at least, around here you do.

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[olstyn]

Indeed. But you gotta mortgage your children to buy VV powder in quantity; at least, around here you do.

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The price was a bit of an eye-opener for me when I ordered 8 pounds of it this summer, but I figure it'll last me quite a while, and even with the hazmat shipping, it was way cheaper per pound getting it from PV than buying it locally. The one pounder I bought locally to try it out was about $38 after tax; IIRC the math worked out to more like $30/pound once I spread the hazmat fee out between a pair of 4 pounders of N320 and a few thousand small pistol primers. Still not as cheap as Unique, of course, but it shoots nicer, loads nicer, and I get more loads per pound, so when I had the opportunity, I jumped on it.

[Hambo]

I used to do that; until those two heathens disguised as my grandsons got old enough to start shooting. Then the wife decides she wants to start shooting .40- the fault of which can be laid squarely at Tom Givens' feet-, so I had tool up for it. I'm being punished for something over that; just don't know what (not a bad caliber to load; just ANOTHER one).

I started trying to keep ammo loaded as an organization/storage OCD thing. I even loaded all the .338 Win Mag brass I had in the shop, which is probably enough for two lifetimes unless the zombie elk apocalypse happens soon.

[LSP972]

Yeah, but when "they" start shooting the stuff up faster than you can load it…

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