Best powder for Dillon

[faraim]

I need to find a smooth metering powder to use for light to mid range .38 special loads out of my Dillon 550. I've used Bullseye, Unique, 231, Titegroup, and AA2 with my single stage. Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Dan Cash]

Bullseye Bullseye

[jubela#4]

I have used Bullseye, Unique, 2400, Win 296, Hogdon 110 in my Dillon Square Deal B for years and have never had a metering problem. I believe you will do fine with your 550 and the powders you listed.

[epj]

About 3 gr of Clays, depending on bullet weight.

[Texas223]

I use Unique, Titegroup, Clays, Power Pistol, 231, 4895, and others in my Dillon 550. I also weigh every 5th round or so, just to be on the safe side.
I tend to favor Titegroup and Unique for pistol rounds.

Michael

[ChuckS1]

Bullseye is my "go to" in my SDB.

[Joed49]

I've had Dillon presses for 8 years. Odd, that some have problems with flake powders and others don't. Mine do not like Unique and at times the charges vary widely. For this reason I try to stay away from anything that is made of flakes.

I've had excellent luck with 2400 and Power Pistol. I'll probably try Universal next.

[Wee Hooker]

Originally Posted by epj

About 3 gr of Clays, depending on bullet weight.

x2! Very clean, very consistant, meters well in my Dillon and Lee measures.

[growr]

Must be an oddball, as I have used Unique in my 550 for 8 years and never had a problem...
Randy

[Ancient1]

I use Bullseye in my 650 for the loads you suggested. Have used a lot of the VV powders. No problems with Unique also

[Skip Sackett]

Out of the 3 Square Deal presses and the XL650 I have run a ton of powder without many problems. Bullseye, Titegroup (YUK, just don't like that powder), AA#2 through AA#9, AA2700, WST, HP-38/W231, Unique (not too much of it though), SR4756 & SR7625, Clays, VV340, Herco, Longshot, Lil' Gun, 2400, H110/W296, WC820 and a few more I can't seem to remember right now, have all metered sufficiently through them.

They love the small flakes of Bullseye, SR4756, SR7625 and all of the ball powders. I use them almost exclusively now with good success.

FWIW

p.s. BL-C(2) as well.

[dg101win]

I have used a lot of Unique and 231 in my 550. A little bit of Red Dot once. Always metered great for me +/- 0.1gr.

[iwilc2]

Winchester 231, works great

Len

[cmort666]

Originally Posted by faraim

I need to find a smooth metering powder to use for light to mid range .38 special loads out of my Dillon 550. I've used Bullseye, Unique, 231, Titegroup, and AA2 with my single stage. Any ideas would be appreciated.

I use both Bullseye and Unique in my 550 for .38 Special. I use Bullseye for wadcutter loads and Unique for service level practice loads.

[ChuckS1]

I also have used AA#5 with great success.

[Wheelgunner840]

You already have the answers, but I just felt like typing, even if it's a repeat.

All the AA powders, and W-231. I have probably loaded more rounds with W-231 than all other powders combined. Tens of thousands of .38s and .45ACPs! Most of those were loaded on the Dillon SD-B. W-231 seems to be working just as well with the two XL-650s. (Same powder measure).


WG840

[dillonhelp]

Unique might vary by up to +/- .2 grain, the others will all be within +/- .1 grain. BTW, +/- .1 grain is the level of accuracy in a powder scale, whether digital or beam.

[TSQUARED]

As a general rule the ball powders will meter better than flake powders. That being said I have obtained outstanding uniformity with Bullseye, Power Pistol, WST, WSF, W-231, VV N-310, VV N-320 as well as the flake powders such as American Select, Clays and Trail Boss. The HS-700Z all meters well but stay away from HS-800X as it meters very poorly.

[MMA10mm]

I use W231 almost exclusively now in my XL650. I've used many flake powders and a few extruded, and other ball powders.

I must say that I've had a little bit of difficulty with the really fine-grained ball powders. It could be the number of cycles I have on my powder measure, but the tiny granules of the super-fine ball powders (H-110 and AA#9 in particular) actually migrate under the powder bar and cause binding.

Really irregular or large flake powders often caused sticking of my powder bar. Loaded 1500 rounds with VV N318 (a flake powder made by laying out a sheet of powder and cutting it with a die into tiny parallelograms) and it was a nightmare... I highly recommend avoiding diamond, trapezoid, and parallelogram-shaped powders!! I've not tried it, but Trail Boss probably wouldn't meter worth a darn via my other experiences.

W231 has larger-shaped granules that don't get worked under the powder bar and runs extremely smoothly through my Dillons...

[blujax01]

Originally Posted by dillonhelp

Unique might vary by up to +/- .2 grain, the others will all be within +/- .1 grain. BTW, +/- .1 grain is the level of accuracy in a powder scale, whether digital or beam.

Thought I'd pass along that I bought a Dillon Eliminator Digital Scale. I was curious as to the actual weight of the 50 gram calibration weight supplied.

I have access to some ridiculously accurate lab gear and took the test weight in for countercheck.

After 24 hour stabilization it weighed 49.9923 grams at STP.

Not bad. Not bad at all...

[David Sinko]

I have used many different powders over the years and the only one that I would say is "dangerously inconsistent" in its metering characteristics is 800X.

Dave Sinko

[TSQUARED]

All the ball powders such as WST, W-231, WSF meter very well as do Bullseye, & Power Pistol. I have also experienced excellent results with American Select and Trail Boss in my Dillon 550. Unique provides a bit more variation and I have never tried HS-800X in my Dillon after disasterous results (in terms of exceedingly high variability) in a MEC shotgun loader.

[tgd31968]

I use Unique, for both .38 special and 45 ACP. I picked a safe charge that works in both so I don't have to redo the poweder setting.
However, the charges do vary considerably with Unique. I keep the charge at the lower mid range because of the inconsistency. That way, when it dumps too much powder, I am still in the safe range.

One thing though. Even though it can vary by a fairly large amount, I see little effect on accuracy. The guns group very well with my standard load.

Originally Posted by TSQUARED

All the ball powders such as WST, W-231, WSF meter very well as do Bullseye, & Power Pistol. I have also experienced excellent results with American Select and Trail Boss in my Dillon 550. Unique provides a bit more variation and I have never tried HS-800X in my Dillon after disasterous results (in terms of exceedingly high variability) in a MEC shotgun loader.

[ArchAngelCD]

W231/HP-38 meters extremely well and will probably work very well for you.

[2sigs]

WOW!!! This thread jumped back to life after a 15 month rest.

I caught it at 3AM here after reading TSQUARED feelings on 800-X have not changed lol


Anyway, I have used a RL-550B since the late 80's and fed pistol cartridges from .25ACP to .45ACP 700-X with good results.

With all Fast powders please watch for double charges!!!!

Be Safe!

[epj]

Originally Posted by tgd31968

I use Unique, for both .38 special and 45 ACP. I picked a safe charge that works in both so I don't have to redo the poweder setting.
However, the charges do vary considerably with Unique. I keep the charge at the lower mid range because of the inconsistency. That way, when it dumps too much powder, I am still in the safe range.

One thing though. Even though it can vary by a fairly large amount, I see little effect on accuracy. The guns group very well with my standard load.

You might try some Universal Clays. It will meter better than the Unique and has almost identical burn characteristics. You can ALMOST (but not quite) do a direct substitution of load data.

[Skip Sackett]

epj,
Have you used this powder? How does it work with cast bullets? I am wondering about making some additions to my powder shelf! hahaha

Like I don't have enough now!

[epj]

Originally Posted by smith crazy

epj,
Have you used this powder? How does it work with cast bullets? I am wondering about making some additions to my powder shelf! hahaha

Like I don't have enough now!

I've used it with cast bullets in both .38 Spec +P, and in 10mm. My .38 loads have a pretty large extreme spread, but very fine accuracy. The 10's are very accurate also. It will work in everything I load, but I'm still using Clays in .45 ACP and 231/HP38 in my 9mm loads. (No particular reason)

[Bullseye Smith]

Originally Posted by faraim

I need to find a smooth metering powder to use for light to mid range .38 special loads out of my Dillon 550. I've used Bullseye, Unique, 231, Titegroup, and AA2 with my single stage. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Keep doing what you have been doing, they all do well.

[rodell]

For difficult powders, I use the Arredondo bar and the micrometer measure from UniqueTek in my 650 and SDB. Smoother and seems to capture the tougher powders. Accuracy and repeatability of the setting is great.

All of my Dillon measures are very accurate and repeatable within expected standard. I have one on every toolhead so I've got a few to sample.

[Red Cent]

Go to WallyWorld or..........and buy a $10.00 fish aerator. Attach (I use a highly specialized article-duct tape) the aerator to the side of the powder dispenser and plug her in. The constant vibration will make the difficult to meter powders behave. I wired mine through a wall switch to have the easy off-on.

[bigt5150]

AA# 2 is my favorite. Meters beautifully and very clean.

[LTC]

Bullseye for me in my 550B.

LTC

[cal50]

231 or Bullseye are very clean burning. I prefer 231 ball powder. Your powder measure will dictate what powders you can use. Slide type metering bars do not like small flake powders and flake powders generally meter a little worse than ball propellant. A RCBS uniflow with cylinder volume charge metering throws more accurately than the slide measures. I swapped my Dillon powder measure on my 1050 to a RCBS measure with the Hornady auto linkage. I was loading rifle charge weights and the long slide bar was pretty bad for accuracy with stick powders. It did OK for pistol volumes charges (short bar movement).

[mkk41]

Ball powders work best thru powder measures , especially in smaller doses. I've been using W-231/HP-38 for many years in my Dillon 550 for .38 and .45 ACP with totally satisfactory results.

[FloridaFlier]

I've been using W-231 for about 5 years because it is a highly rated powder for the 3 calibers that I load (.38, .45 & 9mm). I saw a friend's gun destroyed because he forgot to switch powders.
-Firm believer in the KISS principle.
Also of note, I do my reloading in the garage, down here in southern Florida, and W-231 does not give me any trouble with the humid conditions.

[dcxplant]

Great thread, glad it's back!

I'm a first time reloader and made my first batch of 200rds 44mag with my RL550b using IMR4227.

Being paranoid of accuracy for the powder charge, I bought the Dillon digital scale, plus some extra calibrating weights.

The 550b was difficult to measure out at .5gr increments. I was working up from 19grns to 21grns and wanted to do batches of 20 in .5gr increments. The powder measure did not like that very much and weights varied by .2 to .3

I ended up making batches with 19, 20, and 21 grns. Powder weight consistency was still +/- .2 to .3

I did like the IMR4227 in that a double charge overflowed the 44 mag cases.

I'll burn this stuff up and try another.

[Skip Sackett]

Dcx,
I think it was Red Cent that mentioned the aquarium pump for certain powders. I have never done that but Dillon clearly states that their measures aren't designed to handle long stick powders, of which is IMR4227, if I remember correctly.

If you are going to make plinking loads for the 44mag, and run them through the RL550, I would suggest either Unique, HP-38/W231, AA#7, HS-6 or even Longshot as an alternative to IMR4227!

In my experience with them and my 3 Dillon SDB and the 2 XL650's, all of the powders I mentioned will work very well in charges for mid to upper loads.

FWIW