red dot powder
 

stop by a little gun shop this evening and the man had a coupla cans of red dot powder...since my main loadings are usally 8 ga and 10 ga i could not remember if red dot was used to load either of these gauge s...i only bought 1 pound can since i could not remember a load for these ga guns...for sure i knew i did not have loadings in the 8 ga for red dot..the 10 ga i did not know but i knew i could load 12 ga for sure...anyway got home and with the help of pete lesters charts on the 10 ga i found 10 loadings for red dot powder in the 10 ga...surpriseingly 9 loads were for 1 1/4 ounce loads and one was for a 1 1/8 ounce load...so know will have to make a trip back and get the other can... the 1 1/4 ounce loads are pretty fast at 1360 fps on one of the loads the pressure is not given with any of the loads...any body ever reload red dot in 10 ga if so how did they shoot... charlie

Funny you bring this up as I just started playing with some Red Dot 10ga loads recently. After seeing Hercules had used up to 29 grains with 1 1/4 ounce I felt pretty safe with trying 25 grains pushing 1 1/8 ounce. I was feeling more recoil in 10+ pound gun than I think is needed but they broke the trap targets nicely. I am loading another box with 22 grains of Red Dot with 1 1/8 ounce to try this week. I would expect Red Dot to be a very good performer in sub freezing temps.

pete i figured the 28 29 and 31 grain and 1 1/4 ounce would kick some...the 22 grain loading sounded like it would be a mild load for sure..let us knoy how they shoot for sure... i think i ll go load up a few rounds myself and see what they do... charlie

loaded up 5 shells with the red dot load using 22grains and 1 1/8 ounce of no 6 lead shot..recoil not bad...patterns very good..now this is the short 10 ga loading...i shot at 50 steps at a foam dinner plate roughly 9 inch in diameter...put9 shot in the plate.. next shot at 45 steps put 21 shot in plate..next shot at 40 steps put 30 shot in plate.next to shots were at 35 yards put46 shot in plate..last shot at 35 steps put the plate full did not count them...this will be a very good load for the hunter or thetrap or skeet shooter...i think if a fellow dropped the load to 19 grains of red dot it would be really soft on shoulder and break clays out to 50 yards with ease...very clean burning... i did use the crimp that JACK told about i can not think of the name at the moment but its the one were you use the first crimping stage and then follow up on the 2 nd stage crimp but put very little pressure on this stage only close crimp about a third of the way..its not a pretty crimp but its very good on those old tough remington green plastic hulls...i shot all these loads through the old parker ph 10 ga with twist steel barrels... try this red dot its a good load.... charlie

Whoa, you guys are not very scientific about choosing powders and charges. Of course, I would be the first to admit that it is hard to blow up a good ten or eight with normal loads. Yup, Red Dot is fine with tens and eights and light shot charges, like 1 1/4 in the ten and maybe a little heavier in the eight. With normal plastic wads or fiber wads the ten should be more than safe with 25 grains of Red Dot and the eight should be safe with 27 or 28 grains of Red Dot and give a nice slow velocity with the mentioned shot loads, probably under 1200, but plenty to break clay targets. Red Dot is a fast powder and should not be used with heavy shot loads or loads that attempt high velocity. I prefer Red Dot in big bore guns with light loads because it is not likely to produce bloopers because of its fast burning rate. However high pressures result from heavier shot loads.

Not scientific but using common sense. The old Hercules manuals gave some 10ga 2 7/8" 1 1/4 oz loads that called for 29 gr of Red Dot with a plastic shot cup, no specified primer. Seeing the velocity was 1360 I knew it was a hot load. I considered those facts and realized I was shooting 10% lighter shot load with 1 1/8 oz and 14% less powder at 25 grains. Shooting the gun at trap targets the loads worked great but I felt a little more recoil than I do from other known loads, nothing bad, just a little more. That caused me to lower the charge weight to 22 grains and see how they work.

Bill how many grains of Red Dot are you using and with what shot weights?

As you know we have not a great deal of "data" for the short ten and powder companies and the like don't want to give us much help when we ask.

Reread my post. I said what I thought was safe with what shot weight. "What I use" would depend on the gun and what I wanted to use it for. It wouldn't neccesarily be what I would recommend to others. Red Dot is usually pretty benign in big holes, less so in small ones.

This is from an antique shop in Maine yesterday.




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Is that the stuff you bought or is for sale?

It's still at the shop.