Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Favorite powders for .45 Auto

Like it reads, what's your favorite powder for the 'ol .45 auto? Unique and Clays are mine at present. How about you guys?

Shot a lot of different ones over the years , most of them work well enough. Do yourself a favor and try some Sport Pistol . I'm liking it as well or better than any I've shot over the years

Power Pistol, Longshot

Man, I've used so many. Winchester Super Target used to be really great, but then they discontinued it.
I have used a LOT of AA#2 & AA#5, Bullseye, Unique, and of course Win 231.

If I had to have a favorite, I'd say 231 was always my standby.

Had great luck with Accurate #2, ZIP, HP-38/Win 231 and 225-230 gr cast bullets in pretty much all my 45’s. ZIP always seemed to burn clean and consistent.

Mark in GA

Haven't really found one I don't like. Have used a fair bit of Bullseye, Unique, Universal and a few others I can't recall. You're hard pressed to find a fast to medium burning rate pistol/shotgun powder that won't work well with a 200-230 gr bullet in the 45 acp.

HP-38/W231 for decades and it's been an excellent powder for me. I'll probably switch to Universal when this last pound of HP-38 ls gone. Universal has also been a good 45 ACP powder for me and it I use it almost exclusively in 45 Colt these days.

Used a bunch. Bullseye, Unique and Power Pistol, since thats what I have the most of.

I’ve been using HP 38 or if you prefer 231. Hasbeen

Have tried a number over the years, but always seem to come back to 231 because it’s always worked well for me.

231 works well. Unique smells good. For some reason I load FMJ's and 231 in a .45 and lswc's and unique in the .357.

Unique is just good any where.
Universal is almost identical, many charges weights are essentially the same as Unique.

I use Titegroup almost exclusively.

I've also used 4.0 gr of Clays under a LSWC, and light loads of W231 for my wife's practice loads.

Lots of good powders; I use more PowerPistol than anything else & also for simplicity, it's my go-to powder for 9mm's.

It's very close to Unique in burn rate & performance & much cleaner, although I think the new Unique is cleaner than the old stuff.

Bullseye, AutoComp, Unique, BE-86, SOLO-1000 (when available) are all very good powders.

MM

W231 followed by Unique.

Thanks. A guy who used to post on here, "Hooks", got me started on Clays. Kinda surprised Bullseye didn't get more mention.
I just started using Universal lately and like it. Meters better than Unique. Do like Unique tho. Especially in my .38spl. That's another thread tho.Keep 'em coming.

Clays for me..

There's so many new propellants these days that it's difficult to know what will work best. But back when I was doing a lot of loading for the .45 ACP, WW231 was considered the "go to" powder for the .45.

Unique is what I started with years ago. It works pretty well for me.

When powders were in short supply I used whatever I could get my hands on which included previously mentioned Bullseye, Unique and Universal but also WAAP, 700X, Red Dot, and another powder or two I'm forgetting. When powder supplies started to return I decided to stock up and standardize so ordered four 8# kegs of Universal for most of my handgun use. I would have preferred Unique as it's also great for mild cast loads in rifles, but was sick of being out of powder and figured Universal would be a close equivalent.