Sakdog
12-07-2012, 06:18 PM
Not too long ago I got a pound of FFFg free as part of a package deal. I was intrigued by the prospect of possibly loading some some .38spls with the stuff and giving it a go. I rolled about 60 of them and a dozen or so snake shot shells for fun
The projos were loaded with:
~16 gravimetric grains of powder (GOEX FFFg)
A cardboard disk that was wax soaked was placed on the powder
a 150 grain lee round nose non tumble lube bullet that was indeed tumble lubed topped the cake
This came out to roughly .1" compression when assembled.
The snake shot was:
.7cc Goex FFFg
2 thin cardboard wads (fabbed from a used Small FRB)
.7cc of #7 or 8 shot
another wad, crimped and glued
this is all being fired in a modern J-frame style gun so not purist by any means not that I care but..
I've never shot blackpowder in my life so this is all new to me. after the first shot my mind wandered to a scene: A factory that uses human hair to make wigs, A tire factory and an acre of filled-to-the-brim porta potties are all next to each other and on fire... That is what it smells like. There was an instant where I was like "oh smells like model rockets like when I was a kid" the novelty was short lived as the throbbing headache set in. that was just after firing a few of the shotshells.
Moving on I load er on up with the projo rounds and give er a whirl; definitely a much deeper and bass-i-er report than with smokeless which I admit was cool. Did I hit what I was shooting at? not sure! gotta wait until the smoke clears.. hmm looks like that plastic bottle moved a little over there on the berm.. guess so.. I waited for the wind to pick up a little so as to help scavenge the 12.6 million cubic feet of smoke created by each blast, coincidentally I also found that by strafing side to side I could kind of see what I was hitting too. Ill have to get a hold of the local airport and see if maybe they would let me set up a little range at the end of the runway when a 747 is running up its engines..but was it fun? Indeed I must admit that it was!
I fired probably 15 rounds at a time and swabbed the bore with a wet patch between and amazingly enough that crud wiped out pretty easily no leading to speak of.
That is certainly a smell that will linger, in my truck and range bag for a while but it was a blast. When I got home it was into the ultrasonic cleaner for the whole gun sans grips, and then the brass boy that water was putrid after all that.
I might try em again without the wax disk next time to see if it makes a difference...
Wouldn't say that I could justify using black all the time, but there is an allure to all that smoke and the deep roar that each shot I can kind of see what its all about.
YMMV
The projos were loaded with:
~16 gravimetric grains of powder (GOEX FFFg)
A cardboard disk that was wax soaked was placed on the powder
a 150 grain lee round nose non tumble lube bullet that was indeed tumble lubed topped the cake
This came out to roughly .1" compression when assembled.
The snake shot was:
.7cc Goex FFFg
2 thin cardboard wads (fabbed from a used Small FRB)
.7cc of #7 or 8 shot
another wad, crimped and glued
this is all being fired in a modern J-frame style gun so not purist by any means not that I care but..
I've never shot blackpowder in my life so this is all new to me. after the first shot my mind wandered to a scene: A factory that uses human hair to make wigs, A tire factory and an acre of filled-to-the-brim porta potties are all next to each other and on fire... That is what it smells like. There was an instant where I was like "oh smells like model rockets like when I was a kid" the novelty was short lived as the throbbing headache set in. that was just after firing a few of the shotshells.
Moving on I load er on up with the projo rounds and give er a whirl; definitely a much deeper and bass-i-er report than with smokeless which I admit was cool. Did I hit what I was shooting at? not sure! gotta wait until the smoke clears.. hmm looks like that plastic bottle moved a little over there on the berm.. guess so.. I waited for the wind to pick up a little so as to help scavenge the 12.6 million cubic feet of smoke created by each blast, coincidentally I also found that by strafing side to side I could kind of see what I was hitting too. Ill have to get a hold of the local airport and see if maybe they would let me set up a little range at the end of the runway when a 747 is running up its engines..but was it fun? Indeed I must admit that it was!
I fired probably 15 rounds at a time and swabbed the bore with a wet patch between and amazingly enough that crud wiped out pretty easily no leading to speak of.
That is certainly a smell that will linger, in my truck and range bag for a while but it was a blast. When I got home it was into the ultrasonic cleaner for the whole gun sans grips, and then the brass boy that water was putrid after all that.
I might try em again without the wax disk next time to see if it makes a difference...
Wouldn't say that I could justify using black all the time, but there is an allure to all that smoke and the deep roar that each shot I can kind of see what its all about.
YMMV