I am interested in playing around with reduced loads in a couple of rifles I have and upon reading different gun forums have come to the conclusion that Blue Dot powder is a good choice for this endeavor only problem is it's darn near impossible to find. Was at a gun show this past weekend and found a five pound keg with about two pounds left in it and told the guy I was interested but was leery about buying someone else's open container. He understood and I snagged it for $25. Got it home and looked at the flakes (dots) to be sure they were blue. Here's where it gets interesting. The flakes (dots) looked more green than blue kind of a teal color. Here's another thing, this powder was in a Hercules container not Alliance. Hercules made Blue Dot from 1972 until 1995 when Alliance took over so I don't know if age can/ will change the color of the dots. I have a pound of Green Dot that I dumped some powder out and tried to compare with the powder I bought and there is a slight difference. I also have a pound of Alliance Blue Dot that I looked at and the flakes from this can look real blue.
Here's where you guys come in. I'm thinking about finding a cartridge that I have that I can fire both powders in and see if there is a velocity difference that would tell me just what I have. Let me give you an example of what I have in mind.
Load up three rounds of let's say .38 Special with five grains of Green dot and three rounds with five grains of the powder in question and run them over the chronograph. If the velocities come out close then the new powder must be Green Dot, if the velocities are much different than it must be Blue Dot. Here's another question, since Green Dot is a faster burning powder would the velocities be faster than the Blue Dot loads? The five grains I just mentioned is just an example, I will have to look closely to come up with actual loads. I just want to run this scenario past you guys to see if it has any merit and makes any sense or if any of you have had any similar experiences. Thanks in advance. BCM
Here's where you guys come in. I'm thinking about finding a cartridge that I have that I can fire both powders in and see if there is a velocity difference that would tell me just what I have. Let me give you an example of what I have in mind.
Load up three rounds of let's say .38 Special with five grains of Green dot and three rounds with five grains of the powder in question and run them over the chronograph. If the velocities come out close then the new powder must be Green Dot, if the velocities are much different than it must be Blue Dot. Here's another question, since Green Dot is a faster burning powder would the velocities be faster than the Blue Dot loads? The five grains I just mentioned is just an example, I will have to look closely to come up with actual loads. I just want to run this scenario past you guys to see if it has any merit and makes any sense or if any of you have had any similar experiences. Thanks in advance. BCM
