Which 'Swiss' for .44 Cap & Ball Revolver?

[Oyeboten]

Looking on "Buffalo Arms" Black Powder page, I notice they have several different 'Swiss' powders.

Viz:

http://www.buffaloarms.com/Content.aspx?PAGE=Black%20Powder

What advice in which one to elect for .44 Cap & Ball Revolver?

Granted, "3F" would be the granulation I would think...but they have different kinds of 'Swiss' Powders, and I am not familiar with them, so...puzzling on which one to order!

[rodwha]

3F is the one most use. Some prefer 2F. Historically 4F was even used during the Civil War in their paper cartridges and well into the cartridge days.

3F will give great performance and is what I use in all of my arms (I like to keep it simple). And no manufacturer will tell you (other than Ruger) that 4F is ok to use.

[Omnivore]

I've used the regular Swiss, but haven't tried the "Caviar". Dunno. I've been using quite a lot of Old Eynsford, which is very close to the regular Swiss in performance and it costs a lot less. All in 3F.

From my experience, I'd say try some Old Eynsford 3F, or try 'em all and let us know what works best for you. Swiss and Old E, by the way, are both more dense than regular Goex. If you're dispensing them from a flask spout or other volumetric measure, you'll get more total impulse from the same volume of Swiss or Old E than from Goex. If you're using the same actual weight in each powder, then I'm not sure there's that much difference. I have yet to chrono loads in an attempt to answer that question.

[square butte]

Never heard of Swiss "Caviar" . Will have to check it out. Swiss 3f is what I use

[Earlwb]

yes I concur, for pistols you would typically use 3F powder. Now you can use 2F if you want. 2F burns a little slower and is meant for long rifle barrels, but it will work in a pistol too. You would lose a little muzzle velocity using 2F in a pistol. But it isn't all that bad though.

[Oyeboten]

Thank you all very much!

I will give the "Olde Eynsford" a try, along with the regular 3 F Swiss of course.

Now to find a source of Remington #11 Caps..! ( May as well Order a thousand, just to ease that hefty Hazmat fee ).

[Omnivore]

#11 huh? I've been using 10s exclusively on all my revolvers for years. Maybe we should talk about that. On the other hand; if you've tried Remington 11s on your gun(s) and like them, you're good to go.

[dromia]

I use Swiss ffg and fffg in my revolvers and both shoot equally accurately, have not done velocity measurements though, so if that is important to you may want to check as I suspect there may be a few fps more from the fffg.

[swathdiver]

As for me and my house, we've settled on Olde Eynsford for all grades but 4F as they did not offer it when our last purchase was made. We did however acquire several pounds of Swiss 4fg.

For cap and ball revolvers in .36 and .44 caliber, the old time use of 4f was 1/10 of conical bullet weight. So if your conical bullet weighs 240 grains, you'd use a 24 grain charge of 4fg.

If you have a steel frame pocket revolver in .31 caliber, you can load those up all the way under a round ball with 4Fg.

Such use of course is for maximum performance in terms of velocity and knock down power.

3F is plenty fine for plinking and target shooting.

[Omnivore]

Such use of course is for maximum performance in terms of velocity...

4F is the fine granulation, not the course. :kidding: