Green Dot 9MM Load

Reloading equipment, methods, load data, powder and projectile information.

Green Dot 9MM Load

Post by the_sovereign_man » 04 Jun 2021, 9:46 am

Morning All,

As the title suggests I'm looking for load data for 9MM using Green Dot. Why Green Dot? It's all I have at present.

The 1996 Alliant reloading book suggests 147 projectile and 3.7 grains powder or 125 projectile and 5.2 grains powder or 115 projectile and 4.7 grains powder.

I need to buy projectiles today, as I'm all out, and looking to see if anyone has loads for other weights. I'm not sure what I can get at this stage.

I'm shooting a Shadow 2 in IPSC production, PF needs to be 125 (from memory).

Any help is appreciated.
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Re: Green Dot 9MM Load

Post by wanneroo » 04 Jun 2021, 12:18 pm

I have a stack of reloading manuals I can dig in tomorrow and see what is available.
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Re: Green Dot 9MM Load

Post by the_sovereign_man » 04 Jun 2021, 12:23 pm

wanneroo wrote:I have a stack of reloading manuals I can dig in tomorrow and see what is available.

You're a champion! Thank you.
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Re: Green Dot 9MM Load

Post by ob1 » 04 Jun 2021, 4:39 pm

There must be a reason why they dropped pistol loads from the later reloading manuals.
Liability risks? Maybe they changed the powder formula and it no longer suited handgun loads? Dunno.

Anyway, if you are going to give it a go these are some old reloading manuals for powders of that time. Page 50 of the 1995 manual for a starting point -

http://www.castpics.net/LoadData/Freebi ... liant.html
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Re: Green Dot 9MM Load

Post by rc42 » 04 Jun 2021, 5:43 pm

Powders themselves are very carefully manufactured to have the same burn rates as previous batches so that load data from 20 years ago for a particular powder brand is still good today.

Loading manuals themselves contain useful facts but are basically marketing materials, when new powders are released the old ones are often phased out of the manual, they don't really want people to continue using their old tubs of powder if there's a chance to get them to go buy a new one. Old powder being discarded or left in the cupboard instead of being used is music to their ears.
One thing that's noticeable is the the newer powders are shown as creating the highest muzzle velocities with older powder measures being reduced in the comparison tables so that they lag behind. It's clear from some manuals that the chamber pressures from some of the older powder loads are now listed as well below SAMI specs, some manuals have even stopped including the chamber pressures, presumably to hide this.
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Re: Green Dot 9MM Load

Post by wanneroo » 05 Jun 2021, 12:58 am

Well of all the current manuals on my shelf today the only load I find is:

Lyman #50 manual published recently.

Lyman 120g #2 alloy 1.065 OAL
Green Dot 3.5g starting load 966 FPS
4.4 max 1152 FPS

Looks like a lot of old timers still use Green Dot for 9mm and say that older load data for it is still valid.

Alliant 2000 manual page with Green Dot loads:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B47DvN ... g0bWs/edit

1987 manual:

http://castpics.net/LoadData/Freebies/R ... s_1987.pdf

Data emailed by Alliant to a customer:

https://thefiringline.com/forums/showth ... p?t=537340

I think you should be able to find something that works. Sounds to me like more fancy powders have hit the market over time, Green Dot doesn't meter as smooth as some of those or whatever, but reading up online plenty of old timers are like Green Dot works great for 9mm, it's just something that fell out of use over time as people bought different new to market powders.
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Re: Green Dot 9MM Load

Post by wanneroo » 05 Jun 2021, 1:00 am

ob1 wrote:There must be a reason why they dropped pistol loads from the later reloading manuals.
Liability risks? Maybe they changed the powder formula and it no longer suited handgun loads? Dunno.

Anyway, if you are going to give it a go these are some old reloading manuals for powders of that time. Page 50 of the 1995 manual for a starting point -

http://www.castpics.net/LoadData/Freebi ... liant.html


Reading up online in a variety of forum threads of people that use Green Dot for 9mm, it would appear it's still the same stuff that has been used for decades, just that it is now "cleaner burning".
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Re: Green Dot 9MM Load

Post by the_sovereign_man » 05 Jun 2021, 3:14 pm

Thanks for the input everyone, and for also confirming some of my suspicions/musings. My range is closed this weekend for a comp but I'll circle back here with an update once I've had a chance to try some loads out.
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Re: Green Dot 9MM Load

Post by the_sovereign_man » 21 Jun 2021, 8:19 am

UPDATE: I found the best groupings for my CZ Shadow 2 with 3.5gr Green Dot using 145 RN Tiger Shark projectiles and 1.15 OAL. Definitely not as clean burning as say APS450 but better IMO than Unique for example. Will chrono this week.
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Re: Green Dot 9MM Load

Post by wanneroo » 22 Jun 2021, 12:12 pm

Good to hear you found a way to make it work. That's sometimes what we have to do in these times.
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