Cheesywan, I have a Smith and Wesson 686 with 6 inch barrel. I was testing several powders, looking for something with a little less recoil than H110. I tried several powders, HS7, HS6, 2400, Blue Dot and one or two others. They all worked pretty well, getting 80 or 90% of the velocity of H110 (judging by trajectory). I had a four-position front sight for silhouette shooting on the pistol, and was testing out to 300 yards. All the loads shot well, some with half the recoil, it seemed.
Blue Dot was the only powder that I noticed produced the little burning specs on my forearm. Shooting with short sleeves, I would feel three or four or five hot little particles land on my forearm on the downwind side of the pistol. They were so small I don’t think I ever saw any of them. I had heard that the little colored markers in red dot, green dot, and blue dot are some kind of inert plastic or nylon. I assumed that’s what the hot particles were landing on my forearm, having blasted through the cylinder gap. I never experienced this with any of the other powders that I tried. It wasn’t a big issue, they didn’t really hurt, but they might have burned a little hole in a long sleeve shirt fabric.
Blue Dot was the only powder that I noticed produced the little burning specs on my forearm. Shooting with short sleeves, I would feel three or four or five hot little particles land on my forearm on the downwind side of the pistol. They were so small I don’t think I ever saw any of them. I had heard that the little colored markers in red dot, green dot, and blue dot are some kind of inert plastic or nylon. I assumed that’s what the hot particles were landing on my forearm, having blasted through the cylinder gap. I never experienced this with any of the other powders that I tried. It wasn’t a big issue, they didn’t really hurt, but they might have burned a little hole in a long sleeve shirt fabric.
