loading manual

[bigted]

ive prused the net for a blackpowder loading manual similiar to hornaday ar speer loading manuals. no luck. ive got lymans book's on cast and bp and loading and on n on... but im looking for a manual that spec's black powder cartridge's ONLY.

wouldnt it be great if there were a manual that started with the smallest 22 cal plackpowder cartridges and go up thru the "old" cartridges that would end up with the "big 50" [50-140].

this "manual" would serve up several "loads" [starting with lowest and going up to highest] for each boolit weight listing the velocity for a certain length barrel and for each calibre and each granulation of each blackpowder manufacturer.

i dont suppose that such a "manual" exists? maybe for even just one powder manufacturer?...:groner:...:holysheep

[montana_charlie]

Have you seen this?
http://www.goexpowder.com/load-chart.html

CM

[bigted]

yes i have it printed off but the prob i see here is the lite for caliber boolits they use. it is a start tho and i thankyou for the reference charlie.

i found another "primer" the other day but im having a problem finding it again...dummy me...should have bookmarked it when i was there. oldtimerbrain at work here...lol

[bigted]

found it again...the book i found earlier is;

SPG black powder cartridge reloading primer....written by venturino and garbe

this little manual is 120 pages and the cost is $30.00 without shipping. question is..has anybody looked at this and if so is it worth the dollors? does it contain anything like what i described above in the first post?

[4060MAY]

this may help

www.wahsatchdesperadoes.com/Intro_to_BPCR_Loading.pdf (http://www.wahsatchdesperadoes.com/Intro_to_BPCR_Loading.pdf)

[longranger]

The Garbe and Venturino book is very good it is probably the closest to what you seek.It used to be only $20.00 at Buffalo Arms,try Amazon.com as well.

[NickSS]

I have Garbys book and it is a good starting point but it does not have a lot of load data per caliber but then what's the problem just fill the case with powder and compress it enough to put the bullet in. What I have found is that any load data I find in a book for black powder is only a starting point that may or may not work for you.

[bigted]

this is all true...im just spending money and trying to get by cheap on not buying a chronagragh. guess i should just break down n get one then i can write my own book on each rifle i have....wowwww what a thought huh...bet you all wish you had an origanal thought like this huh...lol

naaa i just pruse thru loading books when the fancy strikes while im dreaming of "the next perfect rifle project". i load n shoot for tests like everyone except i am just too dang cheap to buy the needed chrony that ive been stalling on for all these years. ive prolly spent hundreds on books n stuff when a c-note would have purchased a chronny and been the answer to most of my questions for all these years.

i did find and order the "spg" book tho and didnt have to pay 30 for it either...cant imagine the greed and then to boot they wanted 29.95 for shipping up here...what a rip. the shame is that this price gouging came from non other then "buffalo arms". went to tow and 21.99 got the book and 5.50 shipped it here. what a difference huh?

[405]

bigted,
Find the simple model chrony for cheap. Don't shoot it :). Learn all the little things that make them operate flawlessly. Use something like this: http://www.easycalculation.com/statistics/standard-deviation.php
Then all the manuals in the world simply become a "starting point" and general guide whether it be smokeless or blackpowder. Between the chronograph data and the target data you'll have pretty much everything needed. The only thing missing then will be a pressure testing system... but that's another story.

[boommer]

bigted happy to see you finally understand that books and advise from others will only give you a starting point. Now your on the right track.

Now pry open your wallet and get a chrony you don't need one with all the bells whistles. Then make sure you don't shoot it and if your friends want to use it !!
they hit a rod ,bust a screen or damage it IN ANY WAY they bought IT!!

Chrony will save you money and give you a education over time.

[montana_charlie]

this is all true...im just spending money and trying to get by cheap on not buying a chronagragh.
When I decided to buy a T/C Hawken and try my hand at some local competition, I wanted some expert guidance in loading for accuracy. I had to read some actual printed material because the internet was twenty-thirty years in the future, back then.

All sources pretty much agreed on how to position the charge and bullet in the barrel, and picking a cloth to use for the patch was rather straightforward. The biggest variable seemed to be the powder charge, itself.

One suggestion for choosing a correct amount of powder was to place the round ball in your palm, and pour a cone of powder over it...an amount sufficient to just hide the ball.

I was already experienced with carefully weighing precise charges of smokeless for modern cartridges. I couldn't guess what kind of muskrat choker had ever come up with that procedure, but the fact that it was written in a book showed me one thing, for certain.
I would never require a 'loading manual' for any black powder firearm.

Ted, if you want to shoot accurately, you need to find the 'good load' your rifle likes. No loading manual can put you there.
If you want it to shoot accurately at extreme long range, you need to put your 'good load' together with so much precision that each round performs exactly the same.
A chronograph can help you determine if you are achieving that.

Beyond those two factors, the only thing a loading manual can tell you is the muzzle velocity of some test loads, that were shot by somebody, with some brand of powder, at some time in the past...just before he wrote a loading manual for you to buy.

Even if you can still get the brand of powder used by the author, the lot number available today will probably yield different results.

Now, you don't even need the chronograph until you find the 'good load' for your gun. And, if you happened to shoot some of that 'good load' at an 800 yard target...and got very little vertical stringing...you could even do without the chronograph because you would know that your muzzle velocity is not varying from one shot to the next.

That leaves just one thing.
Do you want to know exactly how fast your bullets fly?
If they make small groups, and can do that clear across the county line...who cares how fast they fly?

CM

[405]

A chronograph is for more than just velocity or even velocity SD and Spread. It shows you where your load is compared to the velocity/pressure data found in the manual. I'd be the first to say that for pure blackpowder cartridge shooting it may may not have as much use as for smokeless but it still will reveal reality vs guess work. For sure for any shooting over maybe 200 yards knowing velocity SDs is important.

Since anecdotes seem to carry some weight on this forum... sometimes more than even good scientific data :( .... well here's one.

I have an extremely well made single shot with a good barrel and based on a Win 85 action. I know I have the right components, right brass, right bullet, right lube....etc., etc., etc. I shot a huge variety of combinations over many repetitons for a long time to get to a point where the groups were OK. But just OK. The best BP loads were shooting right along side the best smokeless loads. But both were just OK. At 50 yards the groups for both types were on the order of zero horizontal and up to 3-4 inches vertical. At 100 yards the horizontal was holding steady at 1/2 minute but the vertical was scaling to 6-8 inches. Over the course of months I kept changing components thinking that I was getting pressure/velocity irregularities. This particular cartridge does not have a huge data bank of published data. I finally decided to shoot the best loads of both the BP and smokeless thru the chronograph. Eureka! and Doh! at the same time. How could I have been so stupid. The positive side is I had learned a huge amount about the gun over all that time and had found the best loads for it. I had learned huge lessons that apply to all my guns/shooting/loads. The chronograph data clearly showed extremely low velocity SDs and the velocities were right in the area of where I had predicted. Those few chrony tests in one afternoon showed that all that vertical was NOT velocity related! It likely was barrel harmonics, forend pressure and point of rest related when shooting off the bench. Sure enough!!!! I re-did the forend and partially bedded it. In one more range session I found the best point of rest for that barrel/forend and all that vertical went away and now the groups are true circular clusters. If I had just shot it thru the chrony from the beginning- the solution was hiding in plain sight.

[RMulhern]

bigted

No offense intended but all the 'manual' you'll need is right here at your fingertips! There are guys on this forum and also the Shiloh Forum that have forgotten more about loading blackpowder and how to make it work than probably all of the folks that wrote the old manuals! I have lots of info in old manuals but 98% of it relates to the loading of revolver cartridges and is about as useless as tits on a boar hog for BPCR!

[montana_charlie]

At 50 yards the groups for both types were on the order of zero horizontal and up to 3-4 inches vertical. At 100 yards the horizontal was holding steady at 1/2 minute but the vertical was scaling to 6-8 inches.
All I can say is you were chasing your tail because you didn't know as much about the mechanics of your gun as you thought you did.

I have seen a number of conversations about stringing like you describe, and invariably the poster asks what he can do to reduce barrel 'whip' or muzzle 'jump' or 'bouncing whatever'. They never come in thinking it's a velocity problem.

So, you must never have been exposed to the fact that vertical stringing of such a magnitude, at 50 and 100 yards, is certainly NOT from varying muzzle velocity. There simply isn't enough distance involved for SD or ES to show up in that amount.

CM

[405]

MC,
Well I guess I just don't have the experience nor intellect to predict the root cause of a particular shaped group on paper (as obviously several on this forum claim to). Over several months and many, many tests NOT ALL groups fired were obviously extreme vertical and near zero horizontal only those last few as I homed in on what I thought were the best.... sans the vertical extreme. The point of the anecdote was that using the chronograph from the start would have suggested barrel harmonics, bedding, point of rest as the possible root cause and not velocity SD. To think or suggest that predicting or fully understanding barrel harmonics or bedding is old hat for sages and an easily understood or predicted phenomenon seems a little foolish and best suited for the truly gullible.

[RMulhern]

Going back over 50 years I learned early on that if one wished for a rifle to be able to deliver it's maximum accuracy that it had to be accurized; made no difference whether it was an '03 Springfield, M1 Garand, M721 Remington, etc. This meant bedding the action, floating the forearm so no wood was touching the barrel, and a number of other things being required! This had to be done FIRST! I have never had an 'out of the box' factory rifle do for me what I wanted it to do! Another way of saying this is that I wanted no rifle that I could outshoot!! Which means that when I see or call a good shot...there's one particular place that bullet should hit and if it's not there....then something is either wrong with the rifle or the load! With this being said...it just makes sense to me in shooting a BPCR rifle that the same requirement is somewhat the order of the day! There's only so much that can be done to a BPCR rifle concerning this issue; basically what I do is with the M1874 Shiloh is I clear the rear of the forearm from contacting the front of the receiver about the width (thickness) of a playing card and I install somewhat of a rubberized washer/phenolic type in the bottom of the forearm slot to move the wood away from the barrel. Years ago when I first started shooting these rifles I found that this improved accuracy right away. The remaining part of chasing the Holy Grail of Accuracy....is and has been spent in load testing!

[montana_charlie]

MC,
Well I guess I just don't have the experience nor intellect
Sorry you took it that way, Bud.

I was commiserating with you, not ridiculing you.
In the future I'll be more careful with you, and your 'instant victim' syndrome.

CM

[Hank45]

I know that the original cartridge was loaded with 30 gr. of 1 f black with a 120 boolit. My question is do I have to reduce the black powder load if I use the 136 gr. boolit, thanks Hank:?:

[bigted]

this is all true...im just spending money and trying to get by cheap on not buying a chronagragh. guess i should just break down n get one then i can write my own book on each rifle i have....wowwww what a thought huh...bet you all wish you had an origanal thought like this huh...lol

naaa i just pruse thru loading books when the fancy strikes while im dreaming of "the next perfect rifle project". i load n shoot for tests like everyone except i am just too dang cheap to buy the needed chrony that ive been stalling on for all these years. ive prolly spent hundreds on books n stuff when a c-note would have purchased a chronny and been the answer to most of my questions for all these years.

i did find and order the "spg" book tho and didnt have to pay 30 for it either...cant imagine the greed and then to boot they wanted 29.95 for shipping up here...what a rip. the shame is that this price gouging came from non other then "buffalo arms". went to tow and 21.99 got the book and 5.50 shipped it here. what a difference huh?



got the "SPG" book and have proceeded to read it cover to cover. informative and will be usefull for a few things but i have to agree about the "starting place" it offers. i like the intent in their book that quote..."we dont claim to know it all but this is a good starting place". its a good read and offers stuff ive read here on these pages with nothing really new except for the ballistics and starting loads for a few calibers.

i also broke into my piggy bank and purchased an "rcbs" chronny. when it gets warm enough ill unwrap it and give it a try...looking forward to this as ive put off the purchase of this tool for long enough...around 30 years id guess...who says procrastination dosnt work?:popcorn:

well i would recomend this little book for others as a reference along with the other books in my library including all the lyman offerings that have helped me along as well as members of this forum and the sometimes cranky individules who live here...thanks all and never change your outlook and demeaner as im not gonna either for i feel that it takes us all to make a village...just the way we are....:coffee:...[smilie=s:

[EDK]

Mike Venturino's SHOOTING BUFFALO RIFLES OF THE OLD WEST is another book to get, as is Randolph Wright's LOADING AND SHOOTING PAPER PATCH BULLETS, A BEGINNERS GUIDE. Both profusely illustrated and written on a easy to understand level. These and the SPG books are a good basic library.

Yoiu've been here...now become a regular at shilohrifle.com/forums and BPCR.net.

Tons of information and opinions out there. Do some reading..."trust but verify" the information with multiple sources and fine-tune your BS detector. The guys will save your a lot of time and wasted components.

:Fire::cbpour::redneck:

[bigted]

so i did sign up at the shiloh forum site. it is a bit diff in regard to the format but think ill be able to muck thru and become a pain there as well...thanks for the suggestion edk.

[Col4570]

Been Shooting 405 Grain Hollow based Bullets in my Pedersoli Silhouette, straight on top of 60 Grains Swiss No3 with reasonable success on still days but experienced a lot of wind drift on windy days at distances over 200 Yards..Recently started using the Lyman 535 Grain Postel Bullet.Using the same Powder Charge plus a Card under the Postel, with Weighed Charges and Bullets and using a Blow Tube my accuracy has improved considerably at distances up to my Club limit of 500 Yards. The extra 135 Grains of the Lyman Lead creates quite a Recoil. Strangely my sight settings are very close between the lighter and heavier bullets.This has to be about the best and most absorbing pastime. Any thing better "he kept it for himself".