Ramshot Silhouette

[TXTad]

While rooting around in my loading stash not long ago, I discovered that I had about 4 pounds of Winchester WAP that a friend gave me years ago. This powder is now discontinued, but the internet says that it's the same thing as Ramshot Silhouette. Brownells had a no-hazmat sale last week, so I added a pound of Silhouette to my powder order so I can do some comparisons to see if they track together. Like a few other Ramshot powders, Silhouette moves around the burn rate charts. Some show it barely slower than Bullseye, somewhere close to Green Dot, while others show it closer to Blue Dot. I believe the latter is more correct. Hodgdon's website shows some very good velocities with Silhouette for .38 Special +P, so I'm inclined to think that the slower speed is the most accurate.

I'm just curious if anyone has any experience or opinions about Silhouette.

[SecondsCount]

That is what I have read as well.

I still have a partial can of WAP but stopped using it because it left small yellow particles inside my 1911. My understanding is that was some kind of flash retardant, and that I should have turned up the load I was using it in to get cleaner results. It was a lead bullet so I switched to a more appropriate powder.

Since then, I have had some good success with Silhouette, one them was a 45 ACP load that was great at knocking pins off the table.

[LtDave]

I've used Silhouette a bit in 180 grain 40 S&W loads with good results. Bullets were Hornady HAP, Zero JHP, Montana Gold JHP and Speer TMJ pulls. Pistols were HKs and Glocks. Powder charge of 5.4 grains for all loads, with WSP primers. Groups of 1.0" to 1.625" at 20 yards off the bench. Velocity supposedly about 850 fps. The load is at low end of Ramshot's published data (5.5 to 6.2 grains).

[Beer brewer]

Ramshot Silhouette is my favorite powder for .38 special. It achieves the highest velocities at the lowest pressures for the 158 grain LSWC bullets I love. 5.4 grains gives 975 fps out of my S&W 67-1 4”. You can go higher without even getting into +P pressures but I don’t see the need. Very accurate load?

[Squib308]

Silhouette has become my preferred powder for 124/147 gr 9mm and 230 gr 45 auto loads. Velocities and SD’s are impressive, meters great, zero flash, minimal fouling. Among the Ramshot powders, true blue has given me even lower SD but has wicked flash and availability is spotty, so silhouette has the edge. I’ve been unimpressed with the hodgdon pistol powders and during pandemic gave up trying to locate Alliant powders, which is what drove me to the Ramshot offerings.

[fly out]

Powder Valley has Silhouette in 1# and 4# in stock - not great pricing but typical in this environment - and today is a no-Hazmat-fee day. Wish I could have shared this earlier. I may not have needed more, but it can't hurt, right?

https://www.powdervalley.com/product...ot-silhouette/

[Molon]

While rooting around in my loading stash not long ago, I discovered that I had about 4 pounds of Winchester WAP that a friend gave me years ago. This powder is now discontinued, but the internet says that it's the same thing as Ramshot Silhouette. Brownells had a no-hazmat sale last week, so I added a pound of Silhouette to my powder order so I can do some comparisons to see if they track together. Like a few other Ramshot powders, Silhouette moves around the burn rate charts. Some show it barely slower than Bullseye, somewhere close to Green Dot, while others show it closer to Blue Dot. I believe the latter is more correct. Hodgdon's website shows some very good velocities with Silhouette for .38 Special +P, so I'm inclined to think that the slower speed is the most accurate.

I'm just curious if anyone has any experience or opinions about Silhouette.

WAP and Silhouette are excellent powders for use in the 9mm Parabellum cartridge. I’ve obtained standard deviations as low as 5 FPS for 10-shot strings over the chronograph with WAP. Standard deviations for Silhouette were slightly higher, but still single digit.

In a head-to-head comparison using the same powder charges for both powders, Silhouette was 10 to 15 FPS faster depending upon bullet weight. That could easily be due to lot-to-lot variations of either powder or both.

The most accurate/precise 9mm loads that I’ve ever tested used WAP and the Hornady 125 grain HAP bullet. A 10-shot group at a distance of 25 yards had an extreme spread of 0.41”.




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