Maximum speed with Black powder.

[dtknowles]

The point of diminishing returns starts to bite pretty seriously with a round ball gun from 1800fps - other things matter too - fr instance where did that 2800fps 36cal ball go? dont matter how fast it went if it missed the target.
Patch material? easy, simple and cheap under 1800..

whats the point here ? round ball has woeful ballistics and the smaller the more so. If hunting is the purpose proly find a bigger calibre (heavier) ball over the same powder charge deliver more ooomph at hunting ranges ?

Yep. That was figured out over a century ago, almost 2 centuries ago. Not just hunting but fighting. No point in pushing a round ball over 1800 fps except to say you did it. Not necessarily a bigger caliber, 45 cal. is big enough. These days even the 50 cal. shoot 45 cal. bullets in sabots. For smaller game .32 or .36 caliber is plenty big enough.
Tim

[freakonaleash]

Speed doesn't kill with black powder and a round ball, mass does.

[Brimstone]

Sure. You can push a thick wall heavy barreled Kentucky with a platinum vent liner to 2,100 fps. Those sort of heavy fine grain charges will tear up a steel vent liner very quick like.

My cousin has hit right at 2,100 with his custom heavy barrel rifle. Need a strong thick ticking patch, very tight fit and very good lube to avoid blowing out the patch. A felt wad between powder and patch also helps reduce patch blowout.

As for my light little Kentucky, nooo. 1,800 fps is plenty fast. More than that is masochistic bruising and flinch inducing as though the flintlock needs more of that.

[Adam Helmer]

Sandro,

Lots of smarter folks here will assist you in your quest. Are you a muzzleloader as I am with a dozen favorites from .45 to .58 caliber? It is interesting to know how fast a BP projectile can fly, but speed is not a province of accurate ML shooting. I got a chronograph for under $100 a few years ago and it was fun finding out such questions.

Be well.

Adam

[Sandro_ventania]

Guys, you can't take your focus off ball and patch. High speed shooting will certainly be with conical and paper patch. The question here is not knowing what kills more. It's just a mental exercise to discover the limits of black powder. It's finding out what you can really do with BP in a muzzleloader. regardless of whether the benefit of this will be hunting, a paper target or just to look at the chronograph and say wow... I never thought BP could kick so fast!

[indian joe]

Guys, you can't take your focus off ball and patch. High speed shooting will certainly be with conical and paper patch. The question here is not knowing what kills more. It's just a mental exercise to discover the limits of black powder. It's finding out what you can really do with BP in a muzzleloader. regardless of whether the benefit of this will be hunting, a paper target or just to look at the chronograph and say wow... I never thought BP could kick so fast!

my take
You wont get what you want with an open system (percussion or flintlock)
so cartridge gun (has to be a wildcat along the lines of a 50 BMG case necked down to something 30's clibre)
OR a long barrel inline ? - you would want at least a 40 inch barrel ........................

not my cup of tea but might be fun watching at the end

[Sandro_ventania]

That's it Joe, I think you get it!

[charlie b]

16inch Navy gun, 2500fps. Uses black powder.

[Bigslug]

16inch Navy gun, 2500fps. Uses black powder.

That, and the .303 British example (& Eduard Rubin's experiments that led to it) are possibly something of a guide. I guess we'd have to lay some ground rules as to determining a "practical" maximum, because on the large extreme, most of us don't have a turbine-powered battleship to carry our hunting rifle for us, and on the small extreme a highly overbore cartridge pushing a light .22 at what would still be well shy of smokeless speeds wouldn't be suitable for medium/large game or military purposes. For anybody wanting to experiment, I guess it should be something you'd be comfortable taking a deer with.

As part of the U.S.S. Iowa's museum displays, they have an inert shell set in front of a stack of inert powder bags. Any red-blooded American kid is going to look at that propellant to projectile ratio and immediately see a scaled-up .30-06 or .50 BMG. The very short-lived era of compressed black powder behind a jacketed bullet showed us an overbore bottlenecked case with a highly compressed charge. This was also in the era of longer barrel = longer bayonet platform, so you'd have that working for you.

A blown-out, straight-walled, sharp-shouldered .30-06 Ackley case behind a long barrel and a slow twist would probably be about the most effective way to do this, provided some thought were put into the best way to compress the charge in a bottlenecked case, but any of the 29" barreled service rifles of the pre-WWI era would be valid test beds. If you have a Long Lee, uncut Krag, Gew '98, Swede '96, or comparable 7x57 and an inquisitive mind, you could figure this out easily enough.

[dondiego]

16inch Navy gun, 2500fps. Uses black powder.

Just for a primer charge. The bulk is smokeless powder.

[Sandro_ventania]

That, and the .303 British example (& Eduard Rubin's experiments that led to it) are possibly something of a guide. I guess we'd have to lay some ground rules as to determining a "practical" maximum, because on the large extreme, most of us don't have a turbine-powered battleship to carry our hunting rifle for us, and on the small extreme a highly overbore cartridge pushing a light .22 at what would still be well shy of smokeless speeds wouldn't be suitable for medium/large game or military purposes. For anybody wanting to experiment, I guess it should be something you'd be comfortable taking a deer with.

As part of the U.S.S. Iowa's museum displays, they have an inert shell set in front of a stack of inert powder bags. Any red-blooded American kid is going to look at that propellant to projectile ratio and immediately see a scaled-up .30-06 or .50 BMG. The very short-lived era of compressed black powder behind a jacketed bullet showed us an overbore bottlenecked case with a highly compressed charge. This was also in the era of longer barrel = longer bayonet platform, so you'd have that working for you.

A blown-out, straight-walled, sharp-shouldered .30-06 Ackley case behind a long barrel and a slow twist would probably be about the most effective way to do this, provided some thought were put into the best way to compress the charge in a bottlenecked case, but any of the 29" barreled service rifles of the pre-WWI era would be valid test beds. If you have a Long Lee, uncut Krag, Gew '98, Swede '96, or comparable 7x57 and an inquisitive mind, you could figure this out easily enough.

Where is the biggest limitation? In the required volume or at the speed of BP burning?

[HWooldridge]

I’m not sure where I read this, but seem to remember some writer claiming the early 303 rounds were necked after charging, which would have certainly made powder compression much easier. Supposedly, this was the process for both BP and cordite, and remained so until flake powders became common. I’ve seen old cutaway sketches that show a card wafer disc over cordite so this may have been the actual factory method. The 303 neck is not that much smaller than the body and probably could be done in one press cycle, perhaps just prior to seating the projectile.

[Woodnbow]

The point of diminishing returns starts to bite pretty seriously with a round ball gun from 1800fps - other things matter too - fr instance where did that 2800fps 36cal ball go? dont matter how fast it went if it missed the target.
Patch material? easy, simple and cheap under 1800..

whats the point here ? round ball has woeful ballistics and the smaller the more so. If hunting is the purpose proly find a bigger calibre (heavier) ball over the same powder charge deliver more ooomph at hunting ranges ?

The question was how fast. Not how fast with accuracy. Although I’m sure you could engineer a rifle/projectile system that could be accurate at speeds over 2500 fps. I don’t need the headache such a project would no doubt entail and I’m happy with long bullets loafing along less than 1500 fps. Even at that, the 40 and 45 caliber bullet shooters require platinum nipples as the higher pressure just eats steel nipples in as little as a dozen shots.

[john.k]

The 303 blackpowder round had a solid compressed pellet of blackpowder weighing 71grs ..........there is no way that much loose blackpowder could be loaded into the case ...........Both blackpowder and cordite 303 rounds were necked after the charge was inserted ........all this was done at the various explosive factories ,and was a source of some inconsistencies in the length of the loaded round ......which often would cause Lewis guns to jam,a bad situation in an airplane........In an interesting fact ,the 303 blackpowder charge generated more pressure than the replacement cordite charge ...around 19 tons/sq.inch.

[indian joe]

I’m not sure where I read this, but seem to remember some writer claiming the early 303 rounds were necked after charging, which would have certainly made powder compression much easier. Supposedly, this was the process for both BP and cordite, and remained so until flake powders became common. I’ve seen old cutaway sketches that show a card wafer disc over cordite so this may have been the actual factory method. The 303 neck is not that much smaller than the body and probably could be done in one press cycle, perhaps just prior to seating the projectile.

believe that is correct

[indian joe]

The question was how fast. Not how fast with accuracy. Although I’m sure you could engineer a rifle/projectile system that could be accurate at speeds over 2500 fps. I don’t need the headache such a project would no doubt entail and I’m happy with long bullets loafing along less than 1500 fps. Even at that, the 40 and 45 caliber bullet shooters require platinum nipples as the higher pressure just eats steel nipples in as little as a dozen shots.

its an interesting question (for some) ....but getting the answer a pretty pointless excercise .....if all you know at the end is how fast it went but no ide where it went ?????? whats that gain???

[Woodnbow]

its an interesting question (for some) ....but getting the answer a pretty pointless excercise .....if all you know at the end is how fast it went but no ide where it went ?????? whats that gain???

Not sure it’s pointless. All though I can see how some might think so.�� at any rate one question, how fast can it go go, if answered, leads to the next. How do we make it go where we want it to go? Data Watson, we need more data.


There’s a guy on YouTube who experiments with blackpowder. He loaded a number of .45 Colt rounds with a 405 grain bullet sized .452” over 25 grains of 3f Swiss powder. In a Ruger single action they were very consistent, clean burning, and accurate. Every single primer was flattened but with no extrusion. Obviously it can generate enough pressure to make very high velocity or move very heavy bullets at useful velocities. (Probably enough pressure to destroy a blackpowder rated revolver like an SAA or one of those clones.) Blackpowder is fascinating stuff, inefficient but the very inefficiencies make it also very consistent which makes it so very useful.

[Sandro_ventania]

its an interesting question (for some) ....but getting the answer a pretty pointless excercise .....if all you know at the end is how fast it went but no ide where it went ?????? whats that gain???

One thing at a time. First we find out how fast we can and then how fast accurately. Smokeless powder also faces these issues and to this day the development continues. Why should we end the issue with black powder?

[indian joe]

Not sure it’s pointless. All though I can see how some might think so.�� at any rate one question, how fast can it go go, if answered, leads to the next. How do we make it go where we want it to go? Data Watson, we need more data.


There’s a guy on YouTube who experiments with blackpowder. He loaded a number of .45 Colt rounds with a 405 grain bullet sized .452” over 25 grains of 3f Swiss powder. In a Ruger single action they were very consistent, clean burning, and accurate. Every single primer was flattened but with no extrusion. Obviously it can generate enough pressure to make very high velocity or move very heavy bullets at useful velocities. (Probably enough pressure to destroy a blackpowder rated revolver like an SAA or one of those clones.) Blackpowder is fascinating stuff, inefficient but the very inefficiencies make it also very consistent which makes it so very useful.

There is a myth (in some places) that blackpowder cannot generate high pressure - there is enough shredded steel down the pages of history to explode that myth (literally) yet it persists in some quarters. Where does that come from? unlike high explosives (or even modern smokeless powder) black needs to be heavily confined to do its best work - I dont know the full science but its about the burn rate - takes us straight back to longer barrels and heavy, slower moving projectiles.
Many years ago at a farm yard sale I bought a 50 pound bag of blasting grade BP (about 3/8 gravel size grains) and three post hole guns - NO - not the ones for splitting posts, these were designed for blowing post holes in inhospitable ground, powder chamber was about 12" long x 1" diameter (maybe 1&1/8th"), took a decent charge of powder and ignited with normal blasting fuse through a nipple at the end of the chamber - we would bash that thing into dry, hard, decomposed grainite, ten minutes or so with a 12 pound sledge hammer , lit it , drag a chunk of folded up carpet over top, about 20pound, to contain the blast. Kaboom ! the twenty inch gun would blow a post hole three feet deep that we could dig out the loose dirt with a shovel. Learnt a bit about the behaviour of black powder by time we burnt that bag of powder - also learnt a lot about soil types, this system was a waste of time for post holes in clay soil BUT in clay a longer gun that took a smaller charge would make a near perfect pre chamber for lifting a big old tree with a charge of nitro - a placed charge two feet deep right under the centre of the root system = brilliant result with minimum fuss

[indian joe]

From the Goex MSDS spec sheet 3/17/2009

2070fps

so if that is the burn speed of black powder - once the projectile is escaping at that velocitythe powder burn speed cant make it go any faster ?????