.45 ACP & Alliant Power Pistol

Pete I was talking to a friend I recently ran into here. He uses power pistol in his Kimber Competition pistol and he says he pistol is hot to the touch when he runs a round with several magazines. He also tried it in a Wilson Combat 1911 and said after one magazine all he could touch was his pistol grip so he no longer uses it in that pistol. As to the why I can not answer that The power pistol I picked up the other day is for the boss's 44Mag.

I have been using Power Pistol for some time now in my 9mm M&P and around the first of the year started using it in .45 ACP behind 230gr FMJ. All in all I'd estimate that 1,200+ rounds in 9mm and 700+ in .45 ACP have been through the guns with Power Pistol this year. I always lay the handguns in the shade or under the mat between shooting because I live in the desert. Anything metal gets hot quick in the bright sun. You have me thinking now about this. I have noticed the guns being hot but not to the extremes you are talking about; I always blamed the ambient temperature (90°F to 112°F). I shoot a few hundred rounds when we go out so now I'll take some other loads and compare. I like Power Pistol for performance on target and through the powder measure (very consistent in both cases). I'll be going to the range next week and will let you know how things go. I'll take the infrared thermometer and check the difference.

I'd be careful PJ.  Nothing is free.  Flatter trajectory means more speed.  More speed means more pressure.  More pressure means more heat & stress on your pistol.  Have you used a chronograph to check the velocity?

Hi PJ-haven't heard from you in a while ! Hope things are going well. Meanwhile, I read this a while ago, and it was sloshing around my little noggin, and I formulated a question. If this is making the outside of the gun hot, what's happening inside the barrel ? Does the stuff promote accelerated wear ? Snap's used a bunch of it-time to break out the bore scope ?

I did tried out the powder also with my .44Mag, it did perform also pretty well but could note no extra heat than the usual powders that I use (H110/W296 and 2400).

I indeed was a bit of the grid, due to much work at my company. For one; I pleasantly received many foreign orders and trips that followed (mainly to the East coast of the USA). Besides that I was building a new website that now has English and German language pages. Due to more and more foreign orders and requests I redesigned the site. Plus I made the site to be used primarily for business-to-business, in the past I had also civilian requests but due to Dutch regulations (I produce industrial components) I can not accept civilian orders. That took a lot of work, and I need to finish the last details (a couple corrections and so on), see here the first impressions of the English pages of my site: www.rstechnics.nl/en/

Plus my health is not in good shape, I had a the past (about 4 years ago) a mild heart-attack, and about two weeks ago again. Next week I'm in the hospital for further examinations, it's not clear what causes it. So I do things a bit slower than usual and have a bit more time for my self.... like shooting and reloading.

PJ

PJ, I'm sorry to hear about your cardiac problems. Be careful, particularly with a second one under your belt. I had one about four years ago that nearly made me the late Pooh. (Lots of damage. Fortunately, being a lawyer, I don't need a heart ! ;-) ) Handful of pills a ccuple of times a day, and I'm doing what I used to, only not quite as fast, as often, or as much ! Be good-we're counting on you to hold the Netherlands for the good guys ! (PS-worst part-no grapefruit juice. Of all things...)

Snap, I'll be interested to see the results of your comparison. Because it's a nice day, I'll spare everyone my rant about why Unique is A Good Thing.

J

GWS- my basic rant on Unique is that it is the closest thing to a universal powder there is. I have literally loaded shot, pistol and rifle with it. I love the stuff ! It may not be the best thing for any single usage, but it's like the guy who wins the decathalon by taking second or third in everything. It is reputed to be dirty, but heck, you're supposed to clean your gun now and then anyway. (The reputation for dirty was always overblown, but the newer incarnations have eliminated some of what was there.) I love the stuff, and sprinkle a bit on my oatmeal in the morning. That's the Reader's Digest version of the rant ! And, yeah, I'm actually interested to see what Power Pistol will do. ;-)

Interesting to hear about your cardiac experience. I was running a chain saw today, so it's amazing what they can do. Be careful on the preventative end. (Boy, did I hate feeling like I was the goalie on the JV Dart Team !)

PJ,
Sorry to hear of the medical issues. Please take good care of yourself my friend. I am eager to see how Snapshot makes out with his up coming Power Pistol test. 

PJ. Perhaps this is ONE time you should listen to your wife! Stay well.

SnapShot,
Interesting test and results. Really close in your findings. Do you plan on a rapid fire along with rapid reload test in the near future? 

SnapShot.
This evening I have a training session for action shooting (steel plates) again, this time I will use the same pistol. But with a slightly reduced load (than Alliant states in their manual) and again with a 200gr bullet. To make it interesting I will scan the barrel at the same location as you mentioned also with a hand held infrared thermometer (I sell them my self so I have a couple laying around to use one). I also will do a similar magazine (time) loading routine. Only with 6 loading sessions (due to the local restrictions - how much we can shoot). I will keep you all posted.

PJ

Okay now that was interesting to say the least......

To start with: the load data was: .45ACP - 200gr (plated bullet) - 7,6gr Alliant Power Pistol. The normal load would be 8,3gr (this is what I initially used). This is about a 8% reduced load.

To come as close to similar testing as SnapShot did I repeated/simulated his test. I used a Raytech Infrared thermometer. Note I have a high gloss stainless steel barrel and infra red does not measure that good on such a surface (deflection) and on a matte finish slide. And the same measuring distance (25cm = about 10"). Magazine: 8 rounds - 5 series of 2 magazines - loading/filling the 2 magazines in between the series (= about 3 minutes rest).

* 15 plates event (and with 1 spare round)
* I can explain later why we can only shoot 16 plate/target events over here. You we amazed how bizarre our gun law works over here, in basic you are not allowed to own more than 2 “cartridge holders”.

Ambient temperature: 23°C / 73°F (indoor range)
Start of the test:     Slide               Under the barrel
Out of the case       23°C / 73°F      23°C / 73°F
1st series               28°C / 82°F      31°C / 88°F
2nd series              35°C / 95°F       39°C / 102°F
3rd series               45°C / 113°F     52°C / 125°F
4th series               47°C / 116°F     55°C / 131°F
5th series               47°C / 116°F     56°C / 133°F

Time series including magazine change. (max. 16 rounds to use)
1st series / 14.65sec / 1 round left
2nd series / 13.12sec / 1 round left
3rd series / 14.37sec / 0 rounds left (missed 1 plate)
4th series / 12.78sec / 1 round left
5th series / 12.29sec / 1 round left

Extra comments:
* The 3rd series showed a significant rise (jump) in temperature
* The 4th series is about the same amount of rounds fired by SnapShot
* It looks like the temperature stabilizes when more shots are fired
* The gun “sweats” oil and is dripping all over the pistol (normally not that much)
* Gun used: S&W model 1911 with a Performance Center barrel and compensator.

I also brought along a “contact/surface thermometer”. The actual temperatures at the start and finish were:
at the Start - Slide: 22.8°C / Barrel: 22.6°C (out of the case)
at the End - Slide: 49.4°C / Barrel: 63.8°C (last shot from the 5th series)

Digging back in my memory, the gun was just as hot as the first time when I used Power Pistol for the first time 2 weeks before. At least that is my perception. To me this is way hot. We did measured also a Springfield 1911 .45ACP (from a fellow gun club member), he loads the same bullet but than with N-320 (VithaVuori), like I also usually do. We ended with a barrel temperature of 39°C/102°F. that looks pretty similar as SnapShot had with Bullseye.

By the way, look at this case (sorry for the bad photo quality), one of the cases is damaged in a very strange way. I have never seen this before. It has been ejected properly since I had no malfunctions. Fellow participants all said that it sounded like I was shooting a magnum caliber handgun and cases were found back over 8 meters away from me. They all had (like me) a bad feeling about this load.

Apparently with my 1911 and load combination the gun gets quit a bit hotter than other loads. To me this not feels that good at all, plus the reduced load had not a really desired result shooting a the plates (extremely erratic compared than the 8,3gr load). Having used Power Pistol for the second time in my 1911 I think I will go back to N-320 (or other powders) and use Power Pistol now only for my .357Mag and .44Mag.

PJ

Last week I found a way better load (use) for the Power Pistol powder. The 45ACP was not a great success but for my .357 Magnum I’m pretty happy with it. These shots were fired at the 50 meter range (free/single hand) with 158gr Hornady FP-XTP’s. It needs a bit of tweaking but than I’m there. The shot at the far right was my own mistake, but the rest is pretty acceptable for a first load test. Even some touching holes......

This time I used my Chronograph and the average of 5 shots with this combo was a whopping 1217fps. The recoil was normal (as you can expect with a .357 Magnum) and the gun (barrel) did not heat up. In all my frustration with the .45ACP’s I forgot to chronograph these loads. Up next is fine tuning the load and go on testing it also for my .44 Magnum. I’m glad that the powder has found a better use.... I guess my heavy frame Freedom Arms revolver does handle this powder much better.

PJ