No. 9 and Blue Dot comparison

[John A.]

Good evening guys. After a long absence, and a obviously a lot of changes with the forum, I was hoping that there would be a lot of the old data still on here but I’m not seeing hardly anything that was here before. If it is, my google-foo is seriously lacking. From everything I can tell, looks like the old forum was completely scrubbed.

So, I’ll chance and ask anyway.

This question pertains to powder choice coming out of a carbine length barrel.

And while using either 180 gr jacketed factory bullets or Lee cast 175 gr powder coat. I would imagine that both weights would load about the same either way.

These are going to be for whitetail hunting and likely black bear defense as well so I’m not wanting to pussy foot around.

I always got the highest velocity numbers with Number 9 powder. Recently, I got a lb of Bluedot and it looked like the numbers on it (out of a 5″ barrel) were relatively decent but I don’t have anything written down where I had used it in the 10mm so I’m not sure how it stacks up and compares with no9 with 180 gr bullets and the burn rate and pressure curve with it compared to the no9?

I’m not asking about plinking loads. I’m still loading the spicy stuff you’d use for hunting and defense. I didn’t build the gun for plinking and if I want to plink, I’ll plink with something else.

The main reason I’m asking is I’m trying to settle on a “pet load” out of that gun. My youngest son bought me a prism scope for it for Christmas and looks like the weather is breaking enough to where I can load up some rounds and sight it in. Thing is, I’m about to settle on the primary load the gun is going to be seeing going forward. As I mentioned, it’s not a plinking gun. So, once I get it sighted in, I will be sticking with whatever recipe that I am using going forward unless something extraordinary comes along.

In order to get the best velocity out of the longer barrel with 175 and 180 bullets, would you choose bluedot or No9?

I’ll also add, it’s a 10mm AR and I made the heavy and long buffer for it. Am using rifle length stock/tube and extra pressure buffer setup so my brass isn’t launched into next week. The gun feels really good cycling and the muzzle staying pretty flat.

[The_Shadow]

John, A lot of the pull-down data has been reentered in the pull-down section of this new forum but without the pictures.

Factory 10mm Ammo pull-downs

Blue Dot is good to go up to 10.8 grains with Jacketed 180’s, on my no powder coated cast 175’s I use 10.4 grains for an accurate load from the pistols.

AA#9 is also good performer.

[Kenk]

Nice to hear from you John 😊

[sqlbullet]

If velocity is the only metric, AA#9 all the way.

AA#9 Pros / Cons / Comments: Great Velocity, clean burn/ High cost per shot / Above average accuracy

Blue Dot Pros / Cons / Comments: Best Accuracy, Best value per FPS / Dirty, especially below max pressure / Usually falls 25-50 fps short of true max velocit

[John A.]

Thanks Ken.

Sqlbullet, velocity is what I’m going for. If I can squeeze extra fps out of my loads, that’s what I’m going for is Ft Lb of energy on target. I am not looking at my notes but I think when I shot these over a chrono, they were hovering around 1570 fps ballpark?

The distances that I normally hunt at are pretty close. 70 yard shots are rare and would be a very long shot due to the terrain and all the growth. Typically 18-40 yards is pretty average so I don’t exactly have to have cloverleaf groups as long as I can get the bullet into the boiler room. Plus, being a carbine, is going to lend itself to being more accurate for me than it would a handgun shooting at the same distances.

I got the new optic zeroed yesterday. Finished off the armscor 180 grain pills I had stashed back. Not finding any more available at any of my usual haunts. Natchez. Powder Valley. Etc. Out of stock everywhere. I know they’re imported. Phillipinnes I think, but they aren’t anywhere to be found now.

I may end up getting some of the xtreme munitions 180’s to use next. They’re $60/500

Best alternative I can find for that is $20/100 at midway for hornady pills.

Anyway, The gun zeroed well. I like the little prism optic on it. It’s a circle dot reticle similar to the Eotech and other than the center dot being a bit big and covering the entire little bullseye dot, will work well for deer hunting for sure. I didn’t need to use the illumination. Just used it as a simple scope yesterday.

I think I’m going to try some of the Lee cast 175 powder coat and start at maybe 13.8 or 14 gr and work my way up to get a comparable load so I can write it down in my book for perhaps some future time when getting components is harder and I may have to fall back on casting my own stuff full time.

I’m using 14.5 gr of #9 with the jacketed so I would prefer to err on the side of caution instead of going right for the horns at my max load. I’m not sure what the hardness is of the lead I’m using.

Do any of you think I should start even lower and go up or does 14 gr seem like a reasonable starting point and fire for effect? Even 14 gr is a little spicy. But the gun is doing fine with 14.5 and jacketed.

[sqlbullet]

Would these work?

.40 180 Gr. Full Metal Jacket Round Nose Flat Point Bullets *NEW*

[John A.]

Yeah, those would work.

The xtreme bullets are total jacket though. And about $20 cheaper/500. But, those bullets are still better priced than the Hornady. Thank you.

[Alaska556]

Suggest using AA9 use CCI 350 primers
Excellent for 200gr loads 13.7.

[Author]

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