Propellant Profiles

To many reloaders the name Shooters World may be unfamiliar, but that is about to change. Clean Shot, on the other hand, may stir up memories, but do not confuse it with a long-discontinued black-powder substitute from GOEX called Clear Shot, nor an earlier black-powder substitute called Clean Shot from the company that introduced Black Canyon powder and now

operates as American Pioneer Powder. This Clean Shot is a smokeless powder imported from the Czech Republic. But first, a little background is warranted.

The Accurate Arms Company, after relocating to McEwen, Tennessee, in 1983, moved away from the sale of surplus smokeless powders to newly manufactured powders from IMI in Israel. It wasn’t too many years, however, before an explosion at the IMI plant forced Accurate to find another source for its powders. This turned out to be the Explosia Company in the Czech Republic. In 1988, Accurate added Accurate No. 2 to its lineup. With the changeover to Explosia, the powder was renamed No. 2 Improved with some minor changes to its composition. When Western Powders of Miles City, Montana, purchased the smokeless powder division of Accurate Arms, the powder once again became simply Accurate No. 2.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Western began bringing its powders home. The extruded powder line was first, having been moved to the General Dynamics facility in Valleyfield, Quebec (see author’s note), and later the spherical handgun powder production was moved to St. Marks Powders in Florida, also owned by General Dynamics. In the interim, there were other changes whereby spherical rifle powder production was shifted from Explosia to P.B. Clermont in Belgium, where it remains today.

When Shooters World was formed a few years ago, the company set up shop in South Carolina with Ned Gerard as managing partner. The objective was to offer a full line of smokeless powders to the American reloading public. As a source, the company chose Explosia, the same Czech Republic company that formerly was the source for many Accurate powders. The Explosia Company is located in Pardubice–Semtín and sells its powders throughout Europe and elsewhere under the LOVEX brand.

When all this came to my attention, my first question was how do these powders relate to those previously imported by Accurate Arms and was told they are the same.

Now, back to the present. Shooters World Clean Shot is the same powder as Accurate No. 2, or No. 2 Improved, if you prefer, when it was imported from the Czech Republic. With the recent

decision by Western to bring its spherical handgun powders home to St. Marks Powders, I compared the Czech Republic iteration of Accurate No. 2 to the new St. Marks release in Handloader No. 264, (February-March 2010) and found no significant differences, so any published Accurate No. 2 or No. 2 Improved data can be considered suitable for use with Clean Shot.

That said, Shooters World began its operation with newly developed load data available online (shootersworldpowder.com). At this year’s SHOT Show, I was able to pick up a 32-page Shooters World Reloading Guide that includes data for 13 of the 15 powders in Shooters World’s inventory. Load data for the other two is under development.

Clean Shot gets special attention with a section on shotshell data for the 12-gauge, 2¾-inch shell with 11⁄8 ounces of shot at target velocities, jacketed bullet load data for the .380 Auto, 9mm Luger, .38 Special, .40 S&W and .45 ACP, plus a cast bullet section for the .38 Special, .45 ACP, 9mm Luger, .45 Colt and the .44 Special.

Because I was quite familiar with Accurate No. 2, I wanted to compare Shooters World Clean Shot with the original Czech Republic-manufactured No. 2 and the newer St. Marks No. 2. Therefore, I did not limit my testing to the Shooters World published data but included cartridges and bullet weights from previous tests.

Clean Shot is a spherical, double-base powder with a nitroglycerin content of 14 percent (The allowable range is 10 to 14 percent). Bulk density remains constant at .650 g/cc. Individual kernels range from .005 to .014 inch. Other powders with similar – but not identical – burning rates include Hodgdon Titegroup, Winchester 231, Alliant Bullseye and Vihtavuori N320. All of this confirms Clean Shot as a fast-burning handgun powder with some shotshell applications.

Under the LOVEX brand, the powder is known as D032. The powder is quite clean-burning and includes a flash suppressant. Metering through a powder measure is excellent, and shot-to-shot consistency is very good with small extreme velocity spreads in all cartridges. Clean Shot is suitable for use in many metallic cartridges from the .25 ACP to the .500 S&W, but only for target loads in the more spacious revolver cartridges.

My first test with Clean Shot was in the 12-gauge shotshell. I found published data for Accurate No. 2 Improved and Clean Shot with identical components to be extremely close, and my attempts to duplicate them were quite satisfactory. With 18.5 grains of powder and 11⁄8 ounces of shot, Accurate No. 2 recorded 1,200 fps; the St. Marks version provided 1,197 fps, and with Clean Shot I got 1,202 fps. That’s pretty close.

In arriving at the accompanying table, I first listed, where possible, each cartridge with the results I got from the Accurate No. 2 Improved powder imported from the Czech Republic, then from the St. Marks Powders iteration and the results I obtained shooting the latest Clean Shot. Results were very close, with the St. Marks Powder often showing a very slightly reduced velocity, indicating it was slightly slower-burning. My Clean Shot results often showed a slightly higher velocity than my earlier Czech Republic lot, but not beyond the likely lot-to-lot variations a handloader might expect.

The Shooters World Reloading Guide lists the cartridge case manufacturer but not the primer used or barrel length. I used a different brand of case in each cartridge. My primer selections were Federal 100 Small Pistol primers and Federal 150 Large Pistol primers. Data for the .44-40 Winchester and the .45 Colt was shot only with Clean Shot, neither having been used in the previous tests. The .44 Russian and the .45 S&W were previously tested only with the St. Marks production of Accurate No. 2. All of the data listed was shot with Clean Shot for this review.

Shooters World powders are available at a growing number of retail outlets and several mail-order firms. For more up-to-date information, contact the company at shootersworldsc@gmail.com. Powders are available in one-pound containers.

Author’s Note

For years on these pages I have referred to the General Dynamics powder manufacturing facility in Canada as being located in Ontario. At the 2019 SHOT Show, a Canadian gentleman stopped by the Wolfe Publishing booth and politely informed me of my error. The facility that manufactures Accurate extruded powders and Hodgdon’s IMR series is actually located in Valleyfield, Quebec. My thanks to him, and my apologies to all.