16ga.com ~ View topic

Joined: 21 Mar 2019 Posts: 45

Sorry if this has been covered but what would be a good alternative to Universal? 1 oz. Load and 16 gauge of course.

Thanks, John.

Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 1310 Location: Western WA

I’m not recommending this to anyone, but if it were me, I would be content with any powder labeled ‘shotgun’. 1 oz is the very heart of the 16 ga load envelope, and there are published or tested 1 oz 16 ga recipes for virtually every shotgun powder out there, from very fast powders like Red Dot to slow powders like Longshot and Steel.

I would favor a powder somewhere in the middle between those extremes.

All the Best,
B.

Joined: 04 Mar 2019 Posts: 1843 Location: Central ND

John1,

If you can find it Unique is the closest thing to Universal and those two powders just about duplicate each other in most applications. WSF and 20/28 should work well too, but there just isn't a lot of data for either powder in the 16.

There are some loads from BPI on the spreadsheets, but a lot of it is out in left field somewhere and not sure I would trust it unless it was retested by a competent lab, it just does not look correct.

Joined: 04 Mar 2019 Posts: 1843 Location: Central ND

BTW, when WSF was introduced, Winchester was still making the 16 ga. compression formed hulls and there was data for those hulls. I used this data when those hulls were plentiful, killed a lot of pigeons and broke a lot of skeet targets with the 1 oz. loads. Here it is: