A Cleaner All-Purpose Pistol Powder: Winchester AutoComp

Over the years I’ve used a lot of different handgun powders. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was primarily Bullseye, Unique and 2400—powders that are no longer readily available. I often used Unique as a general purpose powder, useful for every handgun cartridge I loaded. It was a great powder, but in those days it was pretty dirty and sooty. I’ve heard it described as only a few steps removed from charcoal and black powder.

Today we have many more powder options readily available. One of those readily available is AutoComp from Winchester. It is touted as being ideal for competition guns, ideal for 9mm, .45 ACP, .38 Super and .40 S&W. It’s a ball powder so it meters well from a manual powder measure and is also clean-burning. It’s also made in the USA!

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About Winchester AutoComp

I decided to see for myself exactly what AutoComp could do with two popular semi-auto cartridges: 9mm and .45 ACP.

From Hodgdon:

Winchester AUTOCOMP is a ball powder designed for competition race guns. A perfect burn speed to feed the compensators with a higher volume of gas, it is a great choice for 38 Super, 9mm, 45 ACP and 40 S&W. With AUTOCOMP, competitors get off faster shots with minimal muzzle flash.

Made in the USA.

AutoComp isn’t as fast burning as I’d presumed. It’s right next to HS-6 and Hodgdon CFE Pistol, marking it as a medium handgun powder able to be used in a wide range of handgun cartridges.

Hodgdon’s Online Reloading Data Center showed a tight operating window for both 9mm and .45 ACP. The 9mm charges ranged from 4.8 to 5.4 grains while the .45 ACP loads ranged from 6.1 to 6.6 grains. Staying within these tight windows keeps AutoComp in its optimal operating range for good performance.

This reminded me of another high performance powder, H110. It’s wise to stay within the recommended range of powder charges recommended by the manufacturer.

Reloading

For this article, I chose one of my favorite loading presses, the Lyman Brass Smith All-American 8 Turret Press.

I’ve used this rugged, American-made press to load a wide variety of cartridges from .223 to .375 and .45-70 for rifles and from .380 to .44 Magnum and .45 Colt for pistols. It’s a very easy press to use and has produced excellent ammunition.

I prefer to prime off press with either a hand-held priming tool or a bench mounted tool. I decided to use a different method for each caliber. I primed the .45 ACP cases with Winchester large pistol primers using the Frankford Arsenal Perfect Seat Hand Primer.

I tried Lyman’s Accu-Prime bench top priming tool with Winchester small pistol primers for the 9mm. This was my first time using this tool, but I quickly got the hang of it.

I dispensed the ball powder through a conventional Hornady powder drop and the spherical Winchester AutoComp flowed easily through it.

I like to work in batches of 50 pistol cases, charging them all then inspecting them to be sure there are no double-charges before moving on to bullet seating. This powder would also do well in a progressive press.

I loaded Berry’s .45 ACP 230 Gr Hybrid Hollow Points over 6.5 grains of Winchester AutoComp, seating them with Lyman carbide dies.

I turned to another Berry’s bullet, the 9mm 124 Grain HBRN FP-TP, for the 9mm, seating it with Lyman pro dies over 5.4 grains of AutoComp.

Results

Kimber’s .45 1911 is an old friend. “Old slabsides” and I get along great.

I’ve got 45 years of experience with various 1911’s and it’s always nice to shoot one again. This load surprised me, averaging 918 fps!

.45 ACP Chronograph Results with AutoComp

I had anticipated approximately 875 fps. Anytime a .45 ACP sends a 230 grain bullet out at over 900 fps, I’m impressed.

The Canik TP9SFx is a pistol I’ve not used very often. It is very comfortable in hand and well-made, but I occasionally struggled to pick up the fine dot in the mounted Vortex sight.

I was pleasantly surprised and impressed with our recorded average of 1219 fps! I’d expected something around 1100 – 1150 fps from the load.

AutoComp delivered good velocity and great consistency with a standard deviation 12 fps.

9mm Chronograph Results with AutoComp

This is a pretty powerful load in the 9mm and the Canik handled it flawlessly. For competition I might be inclined to back off the powder charge a bit to reduce felt recoil and speed up my rapid fire.

Winchester’s AutoComp appears to be a very clean-burning powder, particularly in comparison to some of the older powders I’ve used which left a sooty residue on the gun and on my hands. After this shooting session, the gun was still rather clean.

Conclusion

Here at Ultimate Reloader I’m able to try a lot of different smokeless powders for rifle and handgun applications. This one, Winchester’s AutoComp, strikes me as an excellent choice for competition shooters participating in fast-paced events with high round counts.

The ammunition functioned flawlessly with good accuracy and the pistols remained quite clean throughout our firing session. We’ve come a long way from the lead bullets and sooty powders of yesteryear!

It metered very well and yielded higher than expected velocities in both cartridges. The 9mm load had a particularly tight SD! If I get a chance, I intend to try some of the AutoComp in my .357 and .44 revolvers…what are you using AutoComp for?