Black Powder

[Taylor]

777 and Pyrodex and 45 colt and maybe someday a 45.70.Is there anything basic I should be aware of before I get too far into this? Right now I don't know what questions to ask.Other than muzzleloaders, I have no experience with BP cartridge's,never even fired one,or seen one!

[Boz330]

777 and Pyrodex and 45 colt and maybe someday a 45.70.Is there anything basic I should be aware of before I get too far into this? Right now I don't know what questions to ask.Other than muzzleloaders, I have no experience with BP cartridge's,never even fired one,or seen one!

The biggest thing to be aware of is that it is fun and challenging. The best thing to do is read through some of the threads here that say something about newby. You will get some of the basics and then you will understand what is being talked about. Real BP is the only way to go though.

Bob

[NickSS]

I agree with BOZ 330 but will add one thing. Whether you are using a BP substitute or BP fill the case up enough so that the bullet base at least slightly compresses the load. Believe me when I say that you can not get enough black powder or BP substitute into the case to cause pressure to be too high. If you do not at least slightly compress the powder you will have a lot more fouling and poor accuracy. I have found that some powder/ rifle combinations like a lot of compression. I have one sharps that when I shoot GOEX black in it I have to compress it .4" to get it to shoot and other combinations do will with a 1/16 inch compression so experiment with compression and note the loads that do well.

[Taylor]

I have been reseaching the threads here,and have found plenty of info.One plan is to order Venturino's book from Track of the Wolf and give that a good read.I do not, in the near future anyway,plan to buy real black powder.But--I do have a can of Goex that was given to me. What I have is enough 777 and RS to last a good while,been getting in on Walmarts after the season sale at $5 a can.I do dread the clean up,and I suppose that dedicating some case's would not be a bad idea. One other thing is during my reading's that there is a lot of "discussion" on whether a uniflow will work for black,most of them start with substitute's but then seem to gear toward the real black and the answer being no,but never really provide a definite answer for 777 or RS.Most of the discussion is based on materials used to make the uniflow.Now if 30 grains by volume is weighed and is 25 grains,then would 25 grains weighed not be 30 grains by volume?

[montana_charlie]

You can use a bench-type powder measure for BP substitutes...if they will flow through freely. They are meant to be 'bulky' in order to correctly fill a hand held measure, so I don't know how well they will pass through.

The easiest thing is to simply forget about how much the BP substitute weighs.
You can adjust a bench-type to throw the same volume as a hand held measure.
Throwing a BP sub charge is all about the volume it occupies...and nothing at all about how much it might weigh.

If you insist in calibrating the bench measure for a specific weight...carefully weigh the amount of BP substitute held in the (say) "30 Grain" hand-held measure. If that volume of powder weighs 21 grains..then set your bench measure to throw 21 grains of that propellant.

But, don't ever let the issue become confused so that you forget which is which, or what came from where...

CM