New BP shooter need some guidance

[hogstad7]

Hi. I am new to BP shooting and have borrowed a Springfield Trapdoor 45-70. I am about to handload my first BP cartridges. I will be using Pyrodex RS. Do I need magnum primers? I am planning to buy a LEE two cavity mould, any recommendations? Is it likely that I need lubecakes under the bullet or will i be fine just using Lyman BP Gold on the bullet?

[country gent]

Ive never really worke with pyrodex just honest black powder, 2 f in doses to fill the case with slight compression ( 1/16" - 1/8") a lyman 457125 ( 510 grn roundnose), 535 grn postell or a brooks 500 grn Paper Patched bullet. I use these 3 bullets mostly. I have some PP cast from an old Ballard mold also. Heres how I am loading black powder rounds. Expand case necks enough to hand seat bullet, Prime with a consistent primer I use a primer wad under the primer. (newsprint or light aluminum foil). You want to experiment with diffrent primers right now I have a lot # of remingtons thats performing very well. Charge with powder. You can use a drop tube or pour in slowly thru a small caliber funnel. Insert wad ( playing cards, milk cartoons, felt, cork or gasket material) and lightly press down on powder With a die for compressing powder compress powder to allow bullet to set in place on wad by hand. With sizing die size just enough to hold bullet in place, my rounds the bullet can still be spun by hand. with the sizing die just lightly seat the bullet a few (.010) deeper now to insure everything is together with no airspace. Again this is Goex BLACK POWDER not pyrodex

[PTS]

Of the trapdoor, rolling block and sharps, the trapdoor does not tolerate the higher pressures that the other two do. Make sure that your loading info reflects that you are loading for a trapdoor. At first just use the bullets grease grooves for the lube; you can try lubecakes later if desired. If I remember correctly I think you have to download Pyrodex by 15%. In other words if load data calls for 100 gr of BP, the you would use 85 gr of Pyrodex. I’m trusting my memory here; hopefully someone will confirm or deny this.

[chill45100]

Pyrodex can be loaded either volume or weight. As said use 85% by weight or equal volume. I have not had much luck with heavily compressed powder charges and my rifle needed to have the bore wiped each shot to manage fouling which can be very hard. Again with my rifle didn't seem to care if there were over powder wads or not. Let your rifle tell you what it wants.

[CanoeRoller]

Is this an original trapdoor or a replica? If it is original, you may want to have a gunsmith check that it is in good condition. Trapdoors are not able to withstand modern pressures, so you will want to keep your loads down to levels that the weapon was designed to handle.

You load pyrodex the same way that you load BP, by volume. You want to put enough powder in the cartridge so that there will be no air spaces between the boolit, the wad and the powder. Generally, I have found that pyrodex works best with a very slight compression, about 1/16th of an inch or less (about 1.5mm). You can then weigh this amount of powder so you know what you need for your next loading session. You should not be after a specific weight of powder to start, but a specific depth of powder in the case.

The quantity of the powder will vary depending on the design of the boolit, how deeply you set it in the case, the type of wad you use, and the brand of brass you choose.

If you do not know how much powder to use, you will want to test the depth that your boolit will sit in the case, and then experiment with amount of powder until you have 1-2 mm of powder above the level of the base of the boolit and your wad combined. When you seat to slug, you should compress just a tiny amount of powder. You can make the wad out of tablet backing, cardstock, even the paper box in which your primers were sold. To make certain that your powder does not settle in the case after you complete the load, most BP cartridge shooters use some method of settling the powder prior to seating the boolit. For most beginners, this is with a drop tube, though vibrating the case will settle the power as well. That is the point that you want to measure the distance from the powder to the top of the cartridge case.

Pyrodex fouling is a bit harder than BP, so you will probably want to use a blow tube between rounds, unless you wish to clean the barrel each shot.

You do not need magnum primers, but pyrodex is harder to ignite than regular BP, and you may find accuracy improves with magnum primers. Lyman BP gold ought to work just fine, particularly if you are shooting on a cool and slightly damp day.

There is a lot of good information about loading BP cartridges on the internet. It is wise to read up as much as you can if you do not have someone to teach you first hand the differences between BP and smokeless.

[hogstad7]

It is an original trapdoor in good condition from before 1890. It have been shot before. I am puzzled about bulletmould choice. Lee has a 459-405FN-HB mould. Is it possible to seat this bullet without a airpocket between the bulletbase and the powder? Could I fill the hollowbase with f.ex beeswax and use a papercard between the bullet and the powder to make sure no air is left inside the case?

[chill45100]

Hodstad7. The 405 grain bullet was originally designed for use in the carbines with a lighter powder charge. In a rifle as I recall the original loading was a 500 grain flat base bullet with 70 grains of powder. My rifles liked the larger bullets with a 60-65 grain powder charge and a fiber wad thick enough to allow the powder to be compressed slightly. The larger bullets I had at the time allowed more lube be carried to help with fouling management. With true black powder there is a ratio of about 8 grains or more of bullet weight to one grain of powder weight that seems to allow a cleaner burn and less fouling. My experience with Pyrodex showed similar results with the powder to bullet weight ratio. Your experience may be different.
Those old rifles are very fun to use, enjoy!
chill45100

[StrawHat]

The is some misinformation in some of the posts.

The original Arsenal 1873 rifle loading was the 405 grain soft lead round nosed bullet over 70 grains of blackpowder. The original Arsenal carbine (also 1873) was the same 405 grain bullet over 55 grains of blackpowder, with either a cardboard tube or two card wads between the powder and bullet to take up the space of the 15 grains of omitted powder. These loads incorporated an "R" or "C" in the headstamp to identify them in the field. Starting in 1882, the Arsenal loaded the 500 grain bullet in the rifle load, the carbine loading remained the same, as did the headstamps. In 1886, the arsenal omitted the cardboard in the carbine load and seated the 405 grain bullet down on the powder. From 1887 on, the "R" and "C" were also omitted from the headstamps as the two cartridges were now visually different.

Between April 1898 and June 1898, the Arsenal developed a smokeless powder load for the 45-70 but the needs of the Spanish-American war shelved that project.

As for Pyrodex, it is more corrosive than blackpowder. If you can not obtain blackpowder, there are several acceptable smokelss powder recipes that produce proper pressures and acceptable accuracy int he Springfield Single Shot Rifle.

A good book to read is found here

http://www.4570book.info/

It is full of good information about loading the 45-70 with black powder. Some of the information is dated and other information is no longer considered necessary but it is a good source.

[CanoeRoller]

Strawhat is correct. One issue many beginners with BP have is taking the modern names of cartridges too literally. That is why you want to develop a load around your equipment. The Lee mould you mention lacks one feature that most BP (and Pyrodex) shooters feel is needed for effective loads; wide grease grooves. As BP leaves a great deal of residue behind, you need a relatively large amount of lube to keep fouling soft between shots. This is assuming you are not wiping you barrel after each shot. Here is a photo of original military slugs. You will note they have wide grease grooves, and hollow bases.

You will find that you want a great deal of lube in each round in order to prepare your barrel for the next shot.

[CanoeRoller]

Here are some boolits that most black powder shooters would use without too much trouble, the middle one is an original 500 grain boolit from the 1880's. What they all have in common is wide grease grooves, a substantial bearing surface and rather heavy weight, the lightest is about 480 grains, the heaviest, about 530. If you are planning to shoot targets, you will move toward longer heavier slugs. If you are planning to hunt, then you will probably be happier with the smaller 400 grain slug, typically with a rather flat nose.

[chill45100]

Straw hat, thank you for the information. Well said and appreciated.
chill45100

[Old Caster]

The most important thing about Pyrodex is how you put it into your case although this method can and should be used for Goex and other black powders also except it isn't necessary with Swiss.

When pouring these powders into a case, many use a drop tube to make the level of powder more consistent but in reality, the speed you install it is way more important. Take some Pyrodex and just pour it into a case through a powder funnel until it is full and wipe the case off even. Next pour it back out into your scale pan and then pour it through the funnel into the case again but pour it as slowly as you can, possibly stretching it out to as long as 15 or more seconds. Notice how much lower it is in the case. Pyrodex is the worst of all the powders for being uneven because of the way it stacks and if you try this with Swiss, there will be no difference no matter what the speed. With Goex it will be a bit but not as bad as the Pyrodex.

I only shot this in a 40/65 but paid no attention to how much weight of powder was used but wanted the bullet to sit in a certain spot and adjusted the amount of powder to fit this scenario so with different bullets the powder charge was different. Also with the Pyrodex, I wanted a compression of .180 and with the Swiss, only .060 thousandths. I never experimented enough with Goex to say what would be right but would guess in the order of .080 to .100.

When you do this, the accuracy will go way up. I installed powder in the cases through a short drop tube with a funnel on the top with a plug in the funnel with a hole of the size that would allow the particular powder I was using to fall into the case in about 18 seconds. It would only fall through the hole when vibrated and this was accomplished with a hair dryer motor bolted to the tube and run off of a transformer with diodes that had a small off center washer attached to the motor shaft. A push button made it so I could just run it until the funnel was empty each time. By doing this, my compression was very accurate. Before you get into all this, just pour it as slow as you can and be as consistent as you can and just fill it until it is .180 higher than you want it after you compress it with the bullet when you are seating it.

Without doing the Pyrodex this way, it just wasn't accurate by any stretch and I was told that it couldn't be done but proved them wrong. While I was shooting competitively I never told anyone about this except one of my close friends also making him a vibrating tube. The real advantage to this is that I didn't need to use a blow tube between shots and could shoot a whole match that consisted of about 70 to 80 rounds depending on the number of sighters needed and had more time to read wind and make adjustments.

Pyrodex is more corrosive than black but if it is cleaned every time after shooting, it doesn't make any difference. I don't remember it being any harder to clean than the black was.

When I cleaned the cases (the same day) I would put them in water with dish soap and spin a plastic bore brush in the inside after they were deprimed and when dried I just used corn media and vibrated them. Just when I was about to no longer compete, I started to use ceramic cleaner which seemed like it might be a good deal but never used it long enough to say one way or another.