Blackpowder & 243, 308, 223, 30-30 case capacity, velocity is it working?

[AJG]

I do not know.

A 308 Mossberg MVP Flex is about 800$ in the US. + a 200$ scope should be sufficient (here you can anyways just get scope to about 400$. Rangefinder (basically any up to 1000 Yards will do it) are about 209$. Considered the gun you have anyways (regardless of factory ammo or reloads) the Long range Equipment costs you only about max 500$.
If you have an "high power" rifle a rangefinder you will have to have anyways. So basically there are no additional costs involved regardless you shoot medium range or Long range.

[AJG]

https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-Scou...ds=rangefinder

[M-Tecs]

Try one on a flat surface and see how the works. All the low cost laser range finders split the beam so on flatland they have a hard time. Animals have hair and are not very reflective and again a challenge for the low cost range finders. I have built guns for some serious long range hunters. They haven't found anything that works under $2,000.00

You are stating up to 4 kilometer shots

As well we have a high water tank from which I very well would be able to set up an "snipers nest" and shoot anything from there a few miles (3 to 4 Kilometers).

with a 308 with cast using black powder????????? Your $200 scope will not have the elevation required and chances of it tracking and repeating for any length of time is slim to none.

You will need very good spotting scope for the spotter to see bullet impacts at distance. Again not cheap.

Reading the wind. You will need a wind speed monitor. Again not cheap.

A 308 Federal Match with a 175 will drop 3184 inches (265.5 feet) at 2,000 yards. Wind drift will be 446 inches 37.16 feet) at 2,000 yards. Your BP cast will be at least three times more than that.

Maybe we are talking different things. I am talking about being able to hit what you are shooting at. If you just wanting to shoot at them just use your 22. It will carry 3 kilometers and will be just as effective (at 1,000 meters plus) as the setup that your are proposing.

Ammunition accuracy. Commercial match 308 should be 1/2 MOA or better. Hunting ammo 1 MOA is normal. Some will do better and some not that good. Surplus can be good to poor. For a new caster/reloader/BP shooter 2 MOA would be very good.

Comparing 500 meters to 1,000 meters. A 1,000 meters is way more than twice as difficult as 500 meters.

I have shot lots of cleans at 800 and 900 at Palma matches. I have yet to shoot a clean at a 1,000 during an Palma match. Difficulty increase greatly as the distance increases.

Were are you coming up with "1000 meters is medium range"?

[mcdaniel.mac]

I do not know.

A 308 Mossberg MVP Flex is about 800$ in the US. + a 200$ scope should be sufficient (here you can anyways just get scope to about 400$. Rangefinder (basically any up to 1000 Yards will do it) are about 209$. Considered the gun you have anyways (regardless of factory ammo or reloads) the Long range Equipment costs you only about max 500$.
If you have an "high power" rifle a rangefinder you will have to have anyways. So basically there are no additional costs involved regardless you shoot medium range or Long range.

An MVP Flex is not stacking up 1000m cold-bore shots, nor is a cheap scope. Assuming your BP loads can be 2MOA accurate, and assuming you do everything perfectly, you're looking at a 20" spread, about a half meter, at that distance.

4000 meters is not long range. That's out of range for precision rifles. That is crew-served mortar range.

[gandydancer]

ANYONE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE LOADING Black Powder in 223, 243, 308, 30-30?
REAL LIFE experience please.

Why would anyone want to in those calibers?

[Ballistics in Scotland]

AJG

For the average hunter/shooter on large hogs (300 pounds plus) using modern 308 or 30/06 cartridges 300 meters is about the effective distance limit. With cast and top quality BP half that is realistic.

To accomplish you goals your will need a high end laser ranger finder, very high end optics and equipment that is sub MOA. For optics clarity isn't the issue. Its tracking and repeatability that is the major shortcoming of optics.

You will also need a spotter and lots experience of shooting long distance with a spotter or shoot lots of Long Range competition. Wind reading will be your greatest challenge.

Given our location, experience and lack of components in my opinion your are facing insurmountable challenges.

I think this is pretty good advice, and .45-70 or .444 Marlin are the best way to go.

In the last days of .450 and .461 match rifles in the UK they got at least as good accuracy at 1200 yards as with any of the early smokeless smallbores. The cartridges often used heavier bullets than the .45-70 and only slightly higher velocity, and were undoubtedly transonic. The important thing is that they were so meticulously loaded that they were transonic at a closely defined point on the trajectory, and the trajectory, although extremely high, was very closely predictable at an exactly known range.

On your own fields you can spend a day or two measuring the distance to various landmarks, which would be a help in extending the range, especially if you can practice on targets distributed there. I would use another of my hobbies, surveyor's theodolites which fall into the gap between modern and antique. Best of all, perhaps, would be to leave farm machinery, sacks etc. lying around, and once the local wildlife is used to them, lie under cover. I knew someone who got a couple of egg-stealing crows by becoming a scarecrow they had learned to ignore.

[nekshot]

As a sniper using black powder you won't get many shots off till they see the smoke! Why not try get some military ammo and get the powder from those rounds whatever it might be. If you have plenty of centerfire primers you could practice a lot till you feel comfortable you have the best amount of powder for given cartridge.

[country gent]

The old timers did very well at longer distances with the various 40s,45s and 50s using black powder. Using heavy for caliber bullets ( 400grn in 40 cal, 500-550 in 45 cal and not sure on the 50) they made solid hits at extreme ranges using BP loads and cast bullets. There are several here who shoot to 1000 yds with both grease groove and Paper Patched bullets. It can be done but takes alot of practice and knowing exact ranges and the zeros for same. There is little room for error when doing this. At the drop angle of the bullet at long range aiming popint may need to be adjusted slightly to get bullet to pass thru the vitals. I dont have the sight settings note books handy right now. You will need good accurate loads with a low extreme spread standard deviation. Range markers will work in place of a range finder. Out to 500-600 yds every 100yds, 500-1000yds every 50 yds, and 1000+ every 25 yds is going to be needed. One thing is that these low velocity rounds ( sub sonic) with heavy bullets dont loose velocity like high velocity rounds do. While a 308 with 168 grn bullet may go sub sonic at 800 - 900 yds a 45 - 70 or 45-90 starting out at 1200 fps may still be traveling around 800-900 fps at 1000 fps with no transition to worry about. If possible watch the ram line at a shilouetter match and see those big 45 cal bullets bounce the rams around at 500 meters. In a good spotting scope or binoculars you can see the bullets disturbance and watch it walk into the target, seeing the drop angle and or trajectory of the bullet and the impact it makes. I have done this at 1000yds with my spotting scope scoring at 1000yds in High power matches. a 308 at 2650- 2700 Has a time of flight of around 2 secs. In the scope from about 600 yds you see the trace and it looks like it will hit 10 ft high and 8 targets over then the wind catches it and drop comes into play and like running on a banked curve it walks back into the target. Seeing this really is enlightening.

[Tracy]

AJG, did you get your homebrew black powder to even work yet?

[victorfox]

It's just me, but if the pigs were a problem in my area, I'd set a stand over a nice bait of dry corn close to their path and would sit there every occasion I could and would pop them with my pump 12... If the infestation is small, that would soon thin the herd.

[AJG]

No I did not get to work the Black Powder.
I had not a Chance to try it out.

Seems the governement is Controlling KNO3 as well and has dryed out the market for it (companies do not have it).
So they try to make it imposible for People to make Black Powder.
No hogs are not that many around. They have to be chased after.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

You might get it from a supplier of meat processing supplies. It is used in corned beef, a trade Argentina seems to have lost to Brazil, and sometimes on domestic hogs to make them stay pink after processing. Its additive E number in Europe and INS number elsewhere is 252.

[AJG]

KNO3 is controlled by the national gun agency.
However chemistry supplyers have Natrium nitrate availlable (that is not controlled) which is 99.5% pure as they told me. It Comes in bags of 25 Kg (and it Comes in granules not powder and is not specially airtight-vacuum packaged). I fear it will collect moisture from air since on the Internet Natrium nitrate black powder is of Lower grade (may work or not) as KNO3 based BP.

But other Option is Potassium Nitrate fertilizer but I have no idea how pure it is (it is the stuff I used to date but the bag was at open air at leas half a year already).

Argentina seems to not gotten along well with "international Iluminati-Rothschild Banking and believe-financial systems" in the past. But with new president Macri he is pro international Banking and an elitist (right wing) so he agrees to everything the international Banks tell hin in order to get international credits again.
Argentina was known to be the Southamerican United States of America and with it's pool of italian european People to be the most progressive and richest Country here. But after 1945 this dream has vanished slowly and continuously due to whatever reasons. One reason seems to me the bad relation to the anglo-american countries about the Malvinas conflict (Falkland Islands). Brasil as I have understood made good Money with the Chinese bypassing the USA and so they seems to get attacked economically by the US superpower paying their "treasonry" to Big Daddy. Obviously These are just speculations but very well may the main reason for These Events.

[victorfox]

wow man I can't see how Mr. Macri, who is trying to bring Argentina back to its tracks can be elitist, specislly when you know that old witch Christina is filthy rich and her govt had strong connections with the Latin Communist forum and also with iranian terrorists...

Macri in Argentina is about the same as Trump in America or Bolsonaro in Brazil. The only choices available to fix a liberal/communist/democrat problem. They aren't perfect but they are the current options.

Sorry for bringing this much off topic politics.

[Tracy]

If I couldn't buy potassium nitrate, I would make it. It's not that difficult; can be done in a backyard. Especially since I have chickens and a garden; my "nitrate production facility" would be a compost pile.

[AJG]

Yes tracy,

messin' around with pee, manure and lots of hope it will turn out in a year or so.
We have dairy cows and obviously chicken and garden too much. I have an tomato production facility as well (few greenhouses).

If I make my own potash it is even way more variables which can and I fear will go wrong.

First of all once I have Money i will order some activated charcoal (powder) and then buy an new bag of Potassium nitrate fertilizer. We will see how that works out.
More important however for now is to get my lead bullet molds imported.

[M-Tecs]

What are your going to do for primers?

[AJG]

primers are not a Problem.

They can be ordered directly from the US.
I ordered 10000 and reserved myself 6000 by my local gun shop.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Here is quite a bit of information on the production of potassium nitrate, and also on the use of sodium nitrate as a blasting powder. That means it has power, but less abrupt power, as the requirement in quarrying is usually to lift off large slabs of rock without undue shattering. It might be possible to load cartridges with it, possibly with quite different design in case capacity and bullet weight, and more or even less fouling. A muzzle-loader would cut the cost of finding out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder

I wouldn't worry too much about its being available only in granules. No commercial grades of those chemicals, or of sulphur, is as fine as you would have to reduce them to, for black powder. Being so strongly hygroscopic is troublesome, but I think the moisture could be driven out by heat, or probably absorbed by silica gel or calcium chloride, which is so much more powerfully hygroscopic that it will dissolve itself to drops of solution. Wikipedia tells us how the moisture absorption of the powder was reduced by long-term tumbling with more graphite than usual. Tumbling glazing of powder used to make it very hot, through friction, which should help.

A reaction used to produce potassium nitrate in industry is as follows. As it is all done in solution, I doubt if it requires dangerous temperatures, catalysts etc. But I don't know how they separate out the sodium chloride afterwards. Sodium chloride melts at a much higher temperature, so if slow evaporation produces pure crystals, it might be that you could melt one and filter out the other. But there may be an easier chemical method.

NaNO₃ + KCl → NaCl + KNO₃

There is also a reaction which ought to be very easy, but dangerous and probably expensive, by the reaction of potassium hydroxide and nitric acid. It is a strongly exothermic reaction, and I should recommend a small valve and a long string. It has the merit that when litmus paper indicates neutral, you have nothing but potassium nitrate solution. In the UK potassium nitrate is easy to get, but nitric acid has recently been banned for private users. I use it for etching steel, but I have enough to last a while.

KOH + HNO₃ → KNO₃ + H₂O

The gunpowder industry eventually became extremely good at what it did, but 99.5% purity of ingredients would once have seemed like an impossible dream. In the seventeenth century the British government had its saltpetre man, with authority to dig up stables and cellars, and having once been 100% of my university's eighteenth century French literature class, I know a thing or two about staff toilet facilities which would explain the latter. But he was notorious for exaggerating his powers in order to extort bribes. Queen Elizabeth I got all she needed by a secret deal to exchange arms with the Sultan of Morocco. Nothing really changes.

http://www.researchvault.co.uk/index...1-saltpetreman

Yes, the story of modern Argentina has been a tragic one. It was once not only the wealthiest country in Latin America, with natural resources wisely exploited, but had some of the most civilized values until power-politics became too seductive. There has never been animosity in the UK against individual Argentinos, who have at times been seen as ineptly exploited. It was largely British management and capital that built the Argentine beef industry, and although a lot of that was sold off to finance the Second World War, there were expropriations as well. It was all so unnecessary, as a steady flow of immigrants were taking Argentine nationality, and native ownership could just as easily have happened in the course of nature, as it did in Colorado.

[scattershot]

1000 yards medium range? 3-4 km from an elevated stand with BLACK POWDERin a case not designed for it? I can't help but think somebody is pulling somebody's leg around here.