Why no Blue Dot Commercial loads?

[Muskrat]

I think it's strange how Blue Dot is almost completely missing from any commercial 10mm loads. Why is that?

I'm sure the obvious answer is other powders work better for one reason or another...but Blue Dot works pretty darn well. It's economical, meters reasonably well, gives good upper-end velocity, and it can be crazy accurate.

I'm just surprised that it doesn't get used more. I use it as much as I use Longshot and AA#9, and it's often the most accurate powder of the bunch...it's also about half the cost of AA#9.

[Kenk]

Absolutely, it's my favorite powder with BE-86 coming in at a close second

[Trapper6L]

When I got into reloading back in the early 1970's, Blue Dot was a powder I was told to avoid. If not at or near peak pressures, it can spike pressures violently. It's also extremely subject to powder positioning inside the case when shooting. If the case isn't near an 80% or better loading density, you can get what is referred to as a secondary explosion. Some of the guys using BD as a reduced load in rifles have actually had the KaBooms happen due to powder positioning and secondary explosion effect. The powder is subject to temperature, especially cold temps and pressure spikes can happen, sometimes catastrophically. ATK, who owns Alliant now, issued a memo concerning not using it in some cartridges, 357mag 125gr loads and all 41 mag loads. Since this post has come up and the closeness of the 10mm and 41 mag in dimensions, I think I'm going to stop using it in any 10mm loads. My best accuracy comes from 2400 anyway and published data says the 180gr HST comes out at 1250'ps, a 5" barrel as the test barrel. I'm shooting a long slide so I might be getting more out of it but accuracy is beyond anything I was able to get out of BD. I've shot repeated groups of just over 1/2" at 25 yds from bags. The best I ever got out of BD was 1.25" and not repeatable.
"ATK Commercial Products
900 Ehlen Drive Anoka, MN 55303
www.atk.com

July 25, 2008

Dear Functional Wholesaler:

Please distribute this letter to all of your customers immediately with instructions for them to do the following:

    • Post this letter in a highly visible area of their establishment
    • Distribute to their customers as soon as possible

Alliant Powder Blue Dot® Product Safety Notice

Alliant Powder® periodically reviews and tests their published reloading data to verify that recommended recipes have not changed over time.
During the latest review Alliant Powder discovered that Alliant Powder's Blue Dot® should not be used in the following applications:

    • Blue Dot® should NOT be used in the 357 Magnum load using the 125 grain projectile (Blue Dot® recipes with heavier bullet weights as specified in Alliant Powders Reloading Guide are acceptable for use).
    • Blue Dot® should NOT be used in the 41 Magnum cartridge (all bullet weights).

Use of Blue Dot® in the above cases may cause a high pressure situation that could cause property damage and serious personal injury.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause and appreciate your understanding and cooperation in this matter.
Thank you for your cooperation and if you have any questions or concerns please contact me at Dick.Quesenberry@ATK.com or call me at 540-639-8503.

Dick Quesenberry
Alliant Powder
Product Line Manager"

[BENTENMM]

Thanks for the info Trapper! I was looking at getting some BD, but that may have changed to 2400.. I was using some 2400 I had left over on some GT Boolits & OTBC Laser-cast and was getting insanely small groups! I attributed the accuracy to bullets. I ran out of 2400 and moved onto faster powders.. I'll have to get some more -Ben

[Kenk]

With warnings like this, it's surprising Blue Dot is even on the market
Thanks

Ken

[sqlbullet]

Add to the above the fact that Blue Dot tends to burn a bit dirty compared to other more modern powders and it is a commercial loaders worst nightmare.  Temp Sensitive, potential for inconsistent pressure and customer complaints about how dirty it is.

[Muskrat]

Interesting.

I've never seen any rifle data for Blue Dot anywhere, reduced or otherwise. Apparently there's a reason. I'm also unaware that it's particularly temperature sensitive...where does that information come from?

I wonder what it was about the .41 Mag that was causing hick-ups? Alliant still supports it for ten different handgun cartridges. The 125 grain .357 Mag isn't listed, but 110 grain .357 is. Makes me wonder if maybe there were a couple odd occurrences and the lawyers got spooked.

I've found Blue Dot to be inferior to other powders for powder-puff loads, or for pushing 225 grain slugs at the upper end. But I've found it to be quite brilliant for the medium-warm loads I normally shoot, and the book-max Blue Dot loads, while not achieving the velocity of some other powders, are the most accurate I've found. Consistent velocity, low standard deviation, very good accuracy.

8 grains under a 200 grain lead bullet gives me 1090 fps, and 8.5 grains yields 1131 fps from a handgun. Those are tack-drivers out of some barrels and pretty-good out of others. Great every-day shooting loads that are easy on the brass and gun and shooter.

As for it being a dirty powder...guess that hasn't been my experience, either. I don't normally shoot more than three or four hundred rounds in a session, but at those round counts my guns aren't any dirtier than with any other powder I use. If anything I'd call it a fairly clean powder, though reduced loads burn noticeably dirtier than stouter loads.

About the only thing I don't care for with Blue Dot is that it doesn't meter as well as some other powders. 0.2 grains deviation is not unusual of out of my Redding Competition...not a big deal at the velocities I load to, but some other powders meter much better.

I guess that based on MY experiences, I'm still puzzled that it isn't used more commercially. Many of the other powders I use come up often in commercial loads...Longshot, 800X, Hs-6, Power Pistol, AA#9...and I personally find as many trade-off's with those powders as I do with Blue Dot. But then I don't reload for a living, and I'm sure that those who do know more about it than I do.

[Kenk]

I have heard that as well regarding pressure spikes in extremely cold weather. I have found that 10.4gr's of BD under a 180gr XTP is amazingly accurate.

Ken

[Muskrat]

Y'all got me curious so I started digging around. I've not been able to find any substantiated case of pressure spikes with temperatures down to -25...just a slight reduction in velocity as temperatures drop, same as all powders. Not saying that information isn't out there somewhere, but I'm not finding it.

I wonder if it's one of those grain-of-truth-but-not-the-whole-story statements that gets repeated enough that it's eventually considered fact. Every time someone has an experience that supports it then they pass it on as if it were corroborating evidence, when in reality something else is to blame.

I've heard the (vintage) theory that the nitro glycerine freezes and breaks down into smaller, more volatile pieces, and maybe that happens. But nitro glycerine freezes at 57 degrees...why it would break up at -57 is a bit beyond my scientific pay grade.

Some shotgun loads specify "not for cold weather", though exactly what that means is unclear. I also wonder if the construction of shot shells...wadding, plastic hull, primer mass to powder mass, etc. has more to do with that recommendation than the characteristics of the powder in a pistol cartridge.

Given how long the powder has been on the market and how many loads are supported with it, you'd think that if there was any truth to the folklore Alliant would have done a scientific study and published explicit guidelines.

Interesting stuff to think about anyway.

[Trapper6L]

On the Alliant website, they comment about the design use of the powder and it's primary duty and use is for shotgun. As a secondary use, per Alliant, it can be used for HEAVY pistol loads. Yeah, this has been kicked around the gun circles for decades and I primarily will take the safe trail over a possible oblivion road. Life's too short to gamble it away on a maybe or a possible scenario. I had a conversation with one of the gun writers about it years back. You'd know his name right off but I'll leave his name out since he doesn't frequent this forum. He claims that Alliant must have had a bad day when they made this memo about not using it in 41 mag or light 357 mag loads. That conversation took place back in the 1980s. You'd think by now Alliant would have had time enough to retest their product and issue a different memo.....but they haven't. To say that Alliant hasn't gone back to retest the powder and to correct any load data would be incredibly negligent.

In regards to cold weather temps and Blue Dot performance. Here's test data by one of the YouTubers from Alaska that does gun testing similar to what Hickock does.  This particular individual addresses most everything from a mechanical and engineering viewpoint. The data shown is from his testing of the 44 mag in a Ruger Redhawk using a 250gr lead bullet. The powder load is 14.0 grs of BD. Shot strings are 5 shots to each. The difference is between 70F and -15F. The first number is at 70F and the second number is at -15F. I'd strongly suggest you take special note of the last shot string. Things are about to get crazy.
Five Shot Strings with 14.0 grains of Blue Dot
70 degrees F -15 degrees F
1222 fps 1144 fps
1257 fps 1206 fps
1246 fps 1225 fps
1319 fps 1246 fps
1241 fps 1327 fps
As you can see the velocity has fallen off in all of the loads at cold temps, with the exception of the last shot string. Instead of losing 50-80 fps, we GAINED 86 fps. I've loaded a lot of 44 mag over the years and to have to get an additional 80fps takes a lot pressure. FWIW, I couldn't find any CURRENT data to support the 14.0 grs used in the test. Current is defined as powder made by Alliant. As most of us know, the powder was originally made by Hercules Powder co. Their data on their powder says the 14.0 grs is a recommended load. But Alliant does not show anything this hot. Did Alliant reformulate Blue Dot like they Unique? I don't know. All I know for sure is that the current maker, who has been making it since 1994 doesn't recommend it. The shot strings above show that Blue Dot is not as stable at cold temps as we would like our powders to be. It's not just about safety. If you've ever shot on a traveling shooting team, you'd know that what works in the back yard in central Texas on a 80F day is not going to shoot the same group in Denver, Colorado on a 40F day. Or the jist of all of this is that accuracy with Blue Dot is going to be mighty iffy on a cold day.

[Kenk]

Great write up Trapper, Thanks man!

[Muskrat]

Yup, great information! So much to ponder...

One thing I'm not clear on: is the above data the result of 10 rounds, or 50 rounds. If it's ten rounds, then the spike (1327) isn't a trend, it's a anomaly. And its only 8 fps faster than the highest recoded "warm" velocity (1319), which can also be called an anomaly. And ten rounds really doesn't show anything of value, anyway. If it's a compilation of 50 rounds, then there's still the issue of only a 8 fps difference between the warm and cold loads.

Take the two high values out and you get an average of 1241 fps for the warm load, and 1205 for the cold load. Or take the two low values out and you get 1266 for the warm, and 1251 for the cold. Neither one shows any tendency to spike at cold temps.

I'm not a statistician, but I'm not seeing any sort of obvious trend in that data. Very possible that I'm missing something...

[Kenk]

I've run aprx 5lbs of BD year around over the years in MN, 95 + in the summer to -20 in the winter without issue, must just have been fortunate / Blessed that nothing bad has happened 😊

[Muskrat]

I've run aprx 5lbs of BD year around over the years in MN, 95 + in the summer to -20 in the winter without issue, must just have been fortunate / Blessed that nothing bad has happened 😊

Or...maybe Blue Dot isn't as temperature sensitive as some would believe?

I don't claim to know the truth, but I've yet to see any statistically relevant data that shows Blue Dot is temperature-sensitive within the realms of normal human activity.

[Trapper6L]

From Rob Behr of Western Powders, his comments in regards to a double based, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine powder. Blue Dot is a double based powder.

"While nitroglycerine adds substantially to a propellant's energy per grain, it tends to develop increased pressure when ignited at colder temperatures. Designing a powder that balances the pressure dynamics of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine at both temperature extremes is an impressive manufacturing feat".

Many of you are gaining knowledge via this thread and that's great. For years I took the mag called Handloader. If you've never seen it or heard of it I suggest you take a tour thru the mag. Generally the website will let you read some of the articles. They will discuss things like a specific powder and its characteristics. They will give the energy available, burn temperature, etc. They also have pet loads, cartridge board, etc. They're not trying to sell you anything like most gun rags. Might give them a look. You can get the mag via electronic or in paper. I'd strongly suggest paper as you can go back and research things that might take you days to find via internet. It's not necessarily a cheap date at 24 bucks per year and it comes every other month. But if yer a gun nut, you'll read it many times before the next issue comes.
https://www.handloadermagazine.com/