I haven’t loaded anything but 140 and 158 grain bullets for my .357s in a long time but haven’t been able to find any of those for a while. I did find a couple of boxes of 125 grn Hornady XTPs and picked them up. Since I have more Blue Dot than anything else I went to Alliant’s website to look for recipes. I was surprised to find this warning:

Blue Dot warning

It says that it’s unsafe to use Blue Dot for the .357 with 125 bullets, and for the .41 mag with any weight bullets. Does anyone understand this? I have reloading manuals from Sierra, Hornady and Lyman that show loads for Blue Dot with 125 grain bullets and for all kinds of bullets for the .41 mag.

??

As I recall those combos result in some real bad flame cutting or pitting of the forcing cone and top strap.

I have used some Blue Dot in 45 Colt loads with very good results. I saw that warning also and just heeded it.

Well apparently it’s perfectly safe in the .45 Colt and .44 mag which is a good thing since I use it a lot for both cartridges. And safe for the .357 mag as well, for any bullet that doesn’t weigh 125 grains.

I've used it in the .41 for years. No complaints did run into some pressure issues with it in the .357....

odd warning. I use a lot of Blue Dot in the .38 Special. So far, just with 140 grain bullets, both JHP and LSWC. Zero issues

From Alliant


Unfortunately we do not have an explanation and are a bit perplexed about this too. The bottom line is that the pressures were higher and unacceptable, hence the warning. We will offer some new load data after we complete our investigation. Thanks for your interest in contacting us and have a nice day.

Ben Amonette

Consumer Service Manager

Alliant Powder Company


Evidently the new Alliant formulations vary upwards from the old Hercules formulations causing excessive pressure spikes.

I used ro use it a lot in .41 Magnum and .357, but quit when Speer quit selling the half-jacketed bullets for those two cartridges. It was/is dandy stuff. I even used it in 9mm and .45ACP for some applications. At the time, the only two powders I kept handy were 231 and Blue Dot, as I was living in a barracks at Ft. Bragg, and din't want to keep a lot of stuff around. They weren't the best best powders, but they worked in all four cartridges well enough.

The .41 was an eye-opener with it, though. The first ammo I shot in the new Blackhawk were 220 Speers and Blue Dot, and I was able to hit milk jugs at 100 yards easily, I hit four of five with the first six shots out of the gun. Ah, the good old days when I didn't have arthritis or bad eyes.....................My favorite .357 load was the max charge of Blue Dot and the Speer 146 half-jacketed HP, it was spectacular in the old Smith M28.

I have BD that I bought probably 5-7 years ago.. I wonder if the warning is for the current production - or if it's for all of BD cans..

The warning for BD in the 41 mag is at least 12 years old.

I saw the warning for BD when it came out. I preferred BD over Unique in my low pressure loads with 210 Berrys and 165 gr cast in 41 mag. Unique was leaving carbon scale on the muzzle and cylinder face.

As I only used Blue Dot for low pressure loads, I used up the several hundred I had loaded at the time and then used up the rest of the can of powder in however many rounds it took to empty it.

I have since replaced BD with SR 4756 (almost out of it), HS-6 (easily available in normal times) and Titegroup or Universal for my lowest velocity loads.

SR4756 and HS-6 actually burn more cleanly than does Blue Dot in my applications

I have seen no information on that warning being retracted for newer production. I guess their investigations yielded no answers which would do the reloader any good.