dupont bulk shotgun powder...

[bushka]

I bought an 8oz can of dupont bulk shotgun powder at the show today.
Perfectly sealed spout you have to pry or cutoff.
Collectible can maybe,but I want to try the powder.
I`m thinking old time primed black P loads,at least to see if the stuff is still good,which I believe it is.Its says "printed in the usa" on the label,so I think it
was made near the end of its production.
Anyways,Ive pulled powder from prepubescent nazi cartridges that were duds,and the powder looked and performed "like new" ,as it were.

any suggestions on loads with this stuff?
or maybe flip it on gunbroker for 300% profit?

B:Fire:

[floodgate]

bushka:

A major problem withthe old duPont bulh shotgun smokeless is that the individual granules are bulked up, and are very fragile; if mis-handled, they break down into "fines" that burn quite a lot hotter. The old-timers often sieved the fines out for other uses (handgun cartridges, etc.), and used the unbroken grains for their shotshells - paper shells with nitro card and felt wads. If you must use the powder, proceed with care and load lightly. IMHO, the can is worth more if left intact and unopened.

floodgate

[Bent Ramrod]

Bushka,

I've done some experimenting with Dupont Bulk Shotgun in rifles and revolvers, having found 5 pounds of it at a swap meet back in the '80's. I also had a used copy of Roberts and Waters' The Breech Loading Single Shot Match Rifle where Ned Roberts had described his methods of sieving the fines and classifying Bulk Shotgun into FFg, Fg and Cg. Loads using this powder were featured in the Loading chapter, in which the previous owner had penciled: "Every one of these loads is too d---n HOT!!" "Do not use any of the loads in this book!!" "Shotgun Bulk is very touchy and builds up pressures quickly!" "GET RID of Shotgun Bulk!!"

Suitably advised and warned, (but by no means discouraged) I proceeded to investigate. I got two pieces of screen, one with 11 holes per inch and another with 24 holes per inch, and ran the whole 5 pounds through them. I got about 1-3/4 lbs of Cg, about 2-2/3 lbs of FG and the remainder the FFg.

Very cautiously I started loading. Except for the basic techniques, I didn't even bother with Roberts' loads as a guideline. Instead, I used Elmer Keith's dictum of going slowly like a three-legged coyote who suspects a leg trap. In the Stevens #107 in .32-35, I got up to 10.0 to 10.5 gr of Cg with the 165-grain boolit. The gun held together with this load, but there was obviously a lot of what the old timers called "head pressure" and velocities were such that you could see the boolit just before it hit the 100-yd target, as a silver streak about a foot long, when the light was right. The Fg would only get up to 8.5 gr before it maxed out. The breech pin on the Stevens actually bent after digesting a couple hundred of these sorts of loads. I made new pins of drill rod which have held up, but found that I couldn't do anything with Bulk Shotgun that I couldn't do just as well, or better, and at lower pressures, with 4759 or 4198.

In a Stevens #44-1/2 in .32-40 I used the same Cg loads and about max for accuracy was 10-11 grains behind either the 319247 or 319162. Accuracy was OK but I could do better with IMR 4227. The Fg of course showed pressure signs after 8.5 gr or so. In the .25-20 SS barrel that also came with the Stevens I used the Fg behind a breech-seated 86-grain Hoch Hudson boolit 1/8" ahead of the shell. The accuracy there was impressive: a 5/8 x 13/16" group at 100 yards.

I've kept the rest of the stuff and plan on checking it out in my .38-55 Highwall, if I can ever get the thing finished.

I also used Bulk Shotgun in my 16-gauge Ithaca shotgun. That was the only time I managed to scare myself loading; after using Unique and other dense powders the recommended amount of Bulk Shotgun looked like a horrendous amount of powder. But it worked just fine.

I used the FFg Bulk Shotgun a few grains at a time, for priming black powder loads or in round ball loads in revolvers. It has to be as "sudden" as Bullseye, at least in my estimation.

But the guy with the pencil who wrote in my book is right. Even when you sieve it, Bulk Shotgun builds up pressures very fast in rifles and pistols. I would treat every can as a law unto itself, whatever sieve size I got, and start with Whisper-type loads and go up slowly, over maybe three or four shooting sessions. I would not use anybody's loads as guidelines, particularly for starters, instead, I would start way, way low. By the way, the stuff does not "Bulk" up in a cartridge enough to fill it, so overcharges are definitely possible. Remember the three-legged coyote.

Loading such powders is definitely for risk-takers and nostalgia freaks; there is little likelihood of finding a world's record load for the stuff that can't be bettered with more modern powders. I am recommending nothing for anybody else; I do it myself because I gotta see how it was in ancient times. And, who knows, maybe to make up for the bungee-jumping and alligator wrestling I miss out on.:mrgreen:

It really is amazing what our predecessors had to put up with in order to get some shooting in. Truly "there were giants in the earth" in the Good Old Days.