I have a lot of red dot and green dot from my trapshooting days. No longer shoot trap due to back injury. Want to load light 38 special loads with that powder. Only cast bullets, mostly 158 swc and 148 wc. Anybody use those powders??

Absolutely Red Dot and I really like it from target to about medium loads. With GD I have no experience.

I was 'forced' to try Red Dot during the shortages. Glad I did.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I've never used GD, but Red Dot is a great target powder for the .38 Special. That, along with Bullseye and lately, 700x, are my favorite target powders for the .38.

Besides the small groups, I like the fact that one pound loads a lot of rounds!

Great minds think alike! Apparently, ours do, too!

3.7 grs of red dot is a nice 38spl load w 158gr bullet . Max is about 4.0 .
With green dot 4.3 is max , same bullet. You will find load data above and below these numbers . These have worked well for me . In a 357 mag case 5.0 grs of red dot is a real nice range load using same bullet .

I use a lot of Red Dot. 3-3.5 grains works well with the 158 grain bullet.

I've used Red Dot and Green Dot in the .38 Special for target loads with good results. Don't have notes on the Red Dot, but do have some testing notated for Green Dot.


148 grain TVB DEWC/3.7 grains Green Dot

2-Inch Barrel
Muzzle Velocity: 669 fps
Muzzle Energy: 147 ft./lbs
Extreme Spread: 45
Standard Deviation: 23

4-Inch Barrel
MV: 706 fps
ME: 164 ft./lbs.
ES: 43 fps
SD: 14 fps

5-Inch Barrel
MV: 735 fps
ME: 179 ft./lbs.
ES: 17 fps
SD: 7 fps

6-Inch Barrel
MV: 690 fps
ME: 156 ft./lbs.
ES: 31 fps
SD: 13 fps

8 3/8-Inch Barrel
MV: 775 fps
ME: 197 ft./lbs.
ES: 73 fps
SD: 33 fps


Green Dot on left. The old 2.8 grain charge of Bulls-Eye on right. A 10 yard effort.

Lots of reloaders use both for handgun cartridges, and also for light loads in CF rifle cartridges. 13 grains in about any CF rifle cartridge with any bullet weight or type makes an excellent accurate and economical plinker and small game load for any caliber .30-30 or larger. Even works for .45-70 and .458 Winchester. 4.7 grains of Green Dot is my favorite propellant load for 124 grain lead RN bullets in 9mm.

I found out that Red Dot max's out in a 38 J frame snub nose
before Green Dot with a 158gr lead bullet.
My snub gets around 800fps with RD and 822fps with Green.

I do get good accuracy with Green backed down to just 612fps.

For an x-Lite loading I push a 125gr LRN with Green at 590fps.
Red Dot will do 533fps with the same bullet with just 3.2grs of powder.
You can go to 690fps but it is not a light recoil load any more.

If by chance you load a 9mm.....
Green Dot makes a great low vel. load with 115 up to 147gr plated bullets.

I substituted Green Dot for Bullseye in just about everything when BE was unobtanium. Lots of data available and is usually very close to BE.

It also makes a nice high-octane (and accurate) round. 5.2 gr under a 124 gr bullet will give 1205 fps from a Glock 19.

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an actual conservative

Either will do what you want. There should be loading data available for both. I have used both in the past. I once bought 8 pounds of Red at a garage sale for $5.

3.7 grains of Red Dot with a 158 grain plated bullet in .38 Special cases. I've been shooting this load for decades in my K-frame guns.

5.2 grains makes a good .357 load for all-out shooting.

Green Dot was my very first powder. I used it in .38 and .45 auto. I did not like it at all in the .38. It is a large flake that meters worse than Unique. With the small charges I was using for .38 I got very inconsistent results. Huge clouds of white smoke.

It was fantastic for .45 hardball loads.

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Common sense isn't so common.

With Bullseye unobtainable in my neck of the woods,I've replaced it by Red Dot and 700X.I do not think I will need to go back to Bullseye since while both are aprox on par with BE accuracywise,they are also both less expensive.
Can't comment about GD since I've never used it.Qc

+1 with post 6 and 13;

with a 6" barrel with red dot.

With a 158gr lswc bullet in this long barrel, Green Dot started giving
good accuracy with 4.0 grs at 838fps and it also did well at 905fps.

bmcgilvray, we appreciate the info and the time and trouble of getting it.

Red Dot and Green Dot have always been stellar performers for me in all handgun calibers. Alliant however is trying to designate handgun and shotgun powders in two separate categories now days and is not giving out data for dual applications which I think is amiss.

bmcgilvray did you check windage and get the spotting scope out before you shot that 10 yard group?

I used Red Dot in the past. Real good powder for target and standard velocity loads. Very accurate as I recall. However, don't push velocities with it...use current loading data and you'll be fine.

I'm gonna say it was the bullet lube, not the powder. I've not had that problem with jacketed or plated bullets. Lube smokes though.

. . .

Green Dot is the fastest powder I generally load with & have had some really good results with it.

I don't routinely load 38 Specials anymore as all my 38 range guns are 357s.

In 357 cases I found 5.7grs/G-D & a 158gr P-RNFP (~975fps) very accurate in my 686-6 or 327TRR.

In my 41 Mag I found 7.8grs/G-D & a 210gr P-RNFP (~1045fps) very accurate in my 657-5 or 357NG.

.

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Waiting for the break of day

As others have stated, when Bullseye was non-existent; I bought what I could find. Found 5 lbs. of Red Dot and was very happy with the results in 38 Special LSWC and 9mm 125 Gr. RN/TC loads. Accuracy was on par with BE loads. I have since been able to replenish my BE powder supply, but will continue to keep RD in supply as well. No experience with GD though...

No man. Just take any excellent and accurate Model 14 K-38 with a barrel so long it reaches half way to the target and you're there.

In general, I agree with you. With the same lead bullet, some powders produce more smoke than others. For example, with Hornady swaged bullets Green Dot smokes much more than W231 or even Bullseye. Universal smokes much more than Unique.

Not that I care about how much smoke it makes, just something I noticed. I've read complaints from others about smoke so thought I would mention it.

I had an 8 lb jug of Bullseye that got me through the scare, so didn't need to scrounge. Never tried Red Dot, but Green Dot was a good .45 auto powder.

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Common sense isn't so common.

I started reloading with red dot and 158 grain swc bullets. It was very smokey, but I could deal with that. But it did not
Meter well. Very inconsistent. I use HP38 for .38 and 9MM now and it drops dead on every time.

Slightly off subject but that reminded me, last week I was shooting (100) 44 Mags I loaded with 10.5 & 11.0gr of CFE-P (on a 12gr. max) with Xtreme 240gr P-RNFP bullets. Both grouped well with my new M69 2-3/4" but I realized there was a lot of black smoke in the air after I fired off a cylinder full. Obviously not lube caused. I'm suspecting it's because CFE-P is flash supressed. Never got that with CFE-P in any of my smaller caliber cartridges before though. Odd.

.

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Waiting for the break of day

AA9 (also flash suppressed) does the same thing in my 10mm shooting jacketed. I find the flash suppressant makes AA9 "dirtier."

Side by side in the 10 at night, BE-86 produces a golf ball-sized red flash and AA9 produces one even smaller and darker. Amazing. If you want a SD load for night time, I highly recommend these two. The load tested was a 180 Gold Dot at 1200 fps.

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an actual conservative

I like Accurate #9 , but it leaves a black film on the outside of the cases . It's not from being loaded too low of pressure . I load in 357 mag , 41 mag and 44 mag , top end loads . I have always thought it was flash suppressant residue .

I was using Green Dot for .38 Special. there is not much data. I contacted Alliant, and they sent me pages of handgun data for G.D. I was happy! Bob

Red Dot is very close to Bullseye and thus excellent for cast 148 grain target wadcutter loads with 2.8 grains of Red Dot. Very mild and accurate target load.
Gary

I got some spotty results with 3.7 gr Green Dot but they were generally consistent with what you got. Of course the inconsistency may have something to do with the fact the powder I was using was more than 30 years old.

The Green Dot loads I made up also were sensitive to the degree of crimp. A mild crimp produced inconsistent velocities and a heavier crimp produced more uniformity. Again, because of the age of the powder my results may not be typical, but it seemed that the tiny charge of Green Dot needed the delay in bullet movement provided by the heavier crimp to build up consistent pressure.

Red Dot works fine for .38 Special light target loads. Green Dot is better in heavier loads.

I have used RD off and on for 57 yrs. From the same can. My Dad and uncle reloaded shotgun shells back in the paper hull days and had a metal drum of it. Still using it on light 38 spl and 45acp loads. Velocity jumps up every 20 yrs or so. (just kidding)

Charlie

3.7 Green Dot under a 148 DEWC seemed to be pretty warm to me.
Loaded 10 using my digital dispenser.
Shot them in my 6" 28-2 over the chrono:

LDEWC 148 Green Dot 3.7 LO 861.00 HI 943.00 AVG 891.00 ES 82.00 SD 23.87

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-jwk-
US Army '72-'95