A powdered material and a process for producing the material are disclosed. The powdered material consists essentially of precious metal based spherical particles which are essentially free of elliptical shaped material and elongated particles having rounded ends. The material has a particle size of less than about 20 micrometers. The process for making the spherical particles involves mechanically reducing the size of a starting material to produce a finer powder which is then entrained in a carrier gas and passed through a high temperature zone above the melting point of the finer powder to melt at least about 50% by weight of the powder and form spherical particles of the melted portion. The powder is directly solidified.