Switch between BP and smokeless?

[crabo]

In the 45/70, can you switch back and forth between BP and smokeless, or do you have to clean between powders and lubes?

I am thinking about loading up some Unique loads for plinking and practicing offhand at shorter distances. I would be using Carnubua Red for the smokeless powders.

[Southern Son]

Crabo,
I think that there are many on here with a great deal more BP experience than me, however, I would be cleaning when you switch between BP and smokeless. Not so much for the lube side of things (I think that I read where Venturino used SPG with smokeless loads and had good results), but I reckon that the fowling from one would do nothing to help with the shooting of the other. A very large portion of shooting BP is controlling the fowling, and to leave the bore dirty from smokeless before you start shooting the BP would just be adding an uncontrolable variable that will do nothing to help you with getting consistant results. Just my 2 cents worth.

[NickSS]

I generally shoot one or the other and clean the rifle after I shoot it. One time I shot a bunch of smokeless loads just to get rid of them as they were not the most accurate load I have ever shot then went on to fire about 20 rounds of BP loads using a blow tube also to get rid of a less than steller load. I saw no difference in accuracy in my BP loads but then I was only blowing them down range to empty the brass. They did not shoot any different that when I was really trying. By the way I use the same BP lube with smokeless BP velocity loads without any problems.

[bubba.50]

in my opinion switching between powders wouldn't cause as much problem as switching between lubes. seems to me it would be about the same as shooting black with smokeless lubes as far as fouling goes. in other words-think the lube mixing would be one ginormous mess. black requires enough cleaning without compounding it. just my opinion, bubba.

[Freightman]

I shot some BP loads in my Veterlli and when I ran out of them I just ran a patch down the bore and switched to some smokeless loads didn't hurt the accuracy at all and cleanup was normal. Now if I had shot the smokeless first I have no idea if the cleanup would have been the same.

[Don McDowell]

If you use a good lube , such as Sagebrush Alox, or SPG, switching back and forth from smokeless to black isn't to bad, but it only takes a couple of seconds to swipe a patch down the bore and start fresh.

Would be good if you'ld consider a different powder than unique, its a good pistol powder and works like a champ in smaller rifle cartridges, but in the 45-70 slower burning powders like 5744, 2400,4227,sr4759,4198 or 3031 take up a bit more of the case and are less likely to ring a chamber or hangfire.