American Pioneer Powder is indeed the newest incarnation of Clean Shot powder - a name change necessitated by Hodgdon' s lawsuit over the powder " pellets" issue. Their new powder sticks is their answer to the lawsuit' s issues.

That said, the loose powder is pretty good stuff. Clean Shot was my powder of choice before 777 came out. It shoots Extremely clean, more so than 777 & MUCH more than Pyro, Goex Clear Shot, or Black. But you have to be very careful with it because it picks up moisture badly. A 1lb bottle can literally go bad overnight - it happened to me while sitting tightly-sealed in an air conditioned room.

It also is a little bit weaker than Pyro (about 5%) - which makes it about 20% weaker than 777. For equal performance, I have to use either 80gr of 777 or 105gr of CleanShot/American Pioneer to drive a 300gr bullet to the same point of impact in my Knight USAK.

But that' s with loose powder. I would HIGHLY advise leaving the " powder sticks" alone. The old CleanShot pellets were bad . 90% of the time you didn' t get a complete burn, leading to inaccuracy and chunks of unburnt or flaming powder flying down range. I tried their 30gr pellets in my cap & ball revolver once and 3 out of 6 rounds never even made it to a target set up at 10yds [] . It' s kinda a shame that Hodgdon found the need to sue over the pellet issue because there was NO comparision between their 2 pellets.

The fella was right about using any type of pellets in sidelocks. Pellets were specifically designed for inlines and their ignition in sidelocks is not consistent at all.

Hope this helps.