One powder that does it all.

U

USSR

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About 3 years ago, I bought an old, unopened 15 pound cannister of Red Dot. Upon looking at the vast quantity of powder in that cannister, I said to myself, if I just use this for handgun loads, there is simply no way I am going to even put a dent in it. So, after a 25 year hiatus, I took up trap shooting again. Now, thanks to Ed Harris and the reloading component pandemic, I am finding yet another use for it: plain base cast rifle bullet loads. If there is a more versatile powder, I'm not aware of it. Great powder!

Don
 
There are blue dot and 800x "Gopher" loads out there pushing bullets around 2000fps but they leave a lot of room in the case.
 
As I stated, shooting trap and shooting plain base lead rifle bullets, so no 2000 fps rifle loads. Unique would work, although far from a great powder for trap loads.

Don
 
I think 1 powder for handgun, rifle, and shotgun might be a stretch. Maybe 1 for each.
universal handgun
universal pistol
universal shotgun
 
Red Dot is a fast burning low density flake powder. It is one of the "easiest to ignite" powders out there (I have seen it reported that this is because it has no burn rate deterrent) making it less position sensitive when used with very low load densities (a small fraction of the net case volume). The low density also helps with reduced charges.

I shoot Alliant's bulk version of Red Dot (Promo, typically $132 for 8lb at Powder Valley).

At the maximum listed charges, in the Alliant 2000 pamphlet, Red dot will do loads that are "good enough" in just about all common handguns. It will do excellent target practice loads for each of these.

It performs well loaded down for "low recoil" loads in light weight and/or snub nosed guns.

For a 12 gauge it will handle the "not heavy" loads quite well. It will push 1-1/8 oz loads up to 1300 fps with the right components. It is great for 7/8 and 1 oz loads also.

And Ed Harris found that 13 grs of Red Dot and medium weight bullets worked so well in a huge portion of medium power rifles he dubbed it to be "The Load".

Other powders can probably do all of the things Red Dot does. With one exception (Unique), this does not really get utilized much because there is so much less load data and experience base. Unique is probably noted for flexibility more, but many times Red Dot will do the job well where Unique will be too slow and very dirty. These two powders have the rock solid reputations that go with the tons of experience by people that have taken advantage of their flexibility.
 
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Red Dot target loads would work for most the pistols owned, and can easily replicate the discontinued Speers 200 gn gdhp short barrel round for 44 mag.
 
USSR said:
About 3 years ago, I bought an old, unopened 15 pound cannister of Red Dot. Upon looking at the vast quantity of powder in that cannister, I said to myself, if I just use this for handgun loads, there is simply no way I am going to even put a dent in it. So, after a 25 year hiatus, I took up trap shooting again. Now, thanks to Ed Harris and the reloading component pandemic, I am finding yet another use for it: plain base cast rifle bullet loads. If there is a more versatile powder, I'm not aware of it. Great powder!

Don
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Unique was considered the most versatile powder at one time.
 
Unique is great but I think Bullseye is up there too. I’ve loaded it in 380acp, 45acp, 45-70, 357, 44mag, 12ga and even 224 lead rounds.
 
At one time in my career I became a traveling man and didn't want to store a lot of different powder for a period of time. After looking at several load data manuals I determined that IMR 4895 would "work" in all my rifles, I was loading for about 12 different at that time. Now there were better powders, but I wanted one that would work in every rifle that I was loading for. For pistol the powder was Unigue. Now that I'm retired I have about 20 different powders on hand.
 
Unique was considered the most versatile powder at one time.
Click to expand...

And it still is a versatile powder, just not for low power trap loads. And, we are not talking about a versatile powder just for rifles, we are talking about handgun, shotgun, and rifles. One powder that does it all.

Don
 
Simplify as much as possible, but no more.

An old American Rifleman article by Jac Weller describes his then-efficient loading setup.
Several turret presses, each with two or three caliber dies installed, four or five powder measures each left set on one powder charge that served multiple calibers well enough.
He said if ammo loaded quickly that way would shoot to the same point of aim as factory at 100 yards, it was good enough for practice. He could buy hunting ammo and carefully load match ammo.
 
Ed Harris wrote an article on using Red Dot in low powered rifle loads. The old US Military .30-06 load was a 150g bullet loaded over 13g of Red Dot. I've made similar loads for 7.7x58 Arisaka, 7.5 Swiss, .25-06 and .30-06. Great fun, little recoil and not all that loud.

I have one of those big canisters of Red Dot to but mine is down to about 1/4 full...

Tony
 
The old US Military .30-06 load was a 150g bullet loaded over 13g of Red Dot.
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No.
That is Ed's "The Load" devised to make use of leftover Red Dot. About .32-40 power.
Other shotshell powders will work, too. I had some nice plinking loads with 700X.

Trivia: The military Guard Load was the 150 gr service bullet and 9 gr Bullseye.
 
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