Blackpowder & 243, 308, 223, 30-30 case capacity, velocity is it working?

[AJG]

Hi all,

I plan in starting Trials for my Black Powder again with lab grade KNO3 and activated Carbon for charcoal.
Now I am loading it (if it works) into my 38 spl and 357 Magnum cases. 357 mag seems to have about 27 grains of water capacity. 223 rem seems to have 31 grain water capacity and 243 win and 308 win has about 54 grains of water capacity. 30-30 Win has about 45 grains of water capacity (30 grains should be normal as states as well the Name of the caliber).

Which one will lend itself best for use with Black Powder (considered normal weigth bullets for each caliber)? I am Living in Southamerica and can not buy any powder for reloading.

I would think the biggest case volume is best for Black Powder. Is that rigth? Can I fill any of them rigth full with Black Powder wihtout blowing up the gun?
223, 30-30 has the best gun I am interested in (future gun buy for use with Balck Powder and reloading) but have small case capacities.

Which velocities do you guys get with Maximum Charge of Black Powder in each above or similar calibers?

[rfd]

i do believe that black powder likes reasonably straight walled cases over easily identifiable bottle neck cases.

[Vann]

I'd say that your best bet will be the 30-30.

[AJG]

why would be the 30-30 win the best of These for Black powder?
Have you PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with it?

I read some article and post they state with 30-30 win full of black powder they get up to 1300 fps velocity. That is slow. I would want about 1800 to 2000 fps with Black powder for reasonable energy Levels (1300 fps seems to be an energy Level of about 563 ft-lbs energy or similar as an 357 Magnum full power). I would want to ask for an energy Level of about 900 ft-lbs.

ANYONE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN REAL LIFE?

[victorfox]

Man, a .30 170gr lead boolit with the SD it possesses @ 1300fps would pass tru a deer lengthwise (I might be exaggerating... 1600 would be best), but it's not weak by any means. A regular 44-40 is 200gr at 1100fps and have killed a bunch of men and animals alike.

Energy means very little in real life. If it was so, the muzzleloaders wouldn't kill anything. Or the .22lr...

Also, case capacity of the 30-30 is larger so BP would be very feasible, a full case wouldn't damage the gun. The .223 on black powder would work too, but then a small bullet in a small case... You would get maybe 22 magnum performance?

[country gent]

Most of the black powder cartridges were running in the 1200-1400fps range as originally loaded. "Power" was increased by increasing bullet weight at the same velocity. Black powder takes more increase to see a change in velocity than smokless does. On the 38 spl I would expect velocities in the 600-700 fps range. The 357 700-800 fps. The 223 may get 900-1000 fps. The 243 and 308 are posibbly in the 1300 fps range if you can get compression right thru th smaller neck shoulder. The 30-30 has a less defined shoulder ( more in line with the BP bottle necked cases a longer neck to work with and a decent capacity. Getting coarser granulation of powders to flow thru the smaller necks may be a chore also. As stated above a 170-180 grn bullet at 1300 FPS will be very effective. Issues loading the bottle necked cartridges will be compression ( the plug will be much smaller than the powder column) On the 223, 243, and 308 the short neck may leave alot of bullet below the neck / shoulder. And Air space in the case due to this. Start very conservative and work up slowly be safe

[AJG]

Victorfox

Have you PERSONAL (no hearsay) experience in reloading 44-40 Win with Black powder?

44 is the 44 caliber bullet and 40 stands for 40 grains of Black Powder.
So 44-40 filled with Black powder gets to 1100 fps? That gives you with an ballistic coefficient of about .224, bullet is 200 grain an muzzle velocity of 537 ft-lbs. So about the same as a 30-30 Win will have at an max Black Powder velocity of 1300 fps and bullet is 150 grain.

It is still ONLY in the power Levels of an 357 Magnum.

If I have a rifle I want to shoot 1000 meters. 1000 meters is medium range here and the most Minimum is about 400 meters.
Calculating: 200 grain bullet with ballistic coefficient of .224 and 1100 fps you have an Maximum range of about 210 meters and by that distance you are at 5 mil dots on such an rifle scope already and at 210 meters you have an energy of 375 ft-lbs (about a strong 9mm energy Level) and a bullet drop of 39". It is very short range but retains very good the energy and is suitable for home defense but ONLY SHORT RANGE HUNTING.

[AJG]

ANYONE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE LOADING Black Powder in 223, 243, 308, 30-30?

REAL LIFE experience please.

[mcdaniel.mac]

Victorfox

Have you PERSONAL (no hearsay) experience in reloading 44-40 Win with Black powder?

44 is the 44 caliber bullet and 40 stands for 40 grains of Black Powder.
So 44-40 filled with Black powder gets to 1100 fps? That gives you with an ballistic coefficient of about .224, bullet is 200 grain an muzzle velocity of 537 ft-lbs. So about the same as a 30-30 Win will have at an max Black Powder velocity of 1300 fps and bullet is 150 grain.

It is still ONLY in the power Levels of an 357 Magnum.

If I have a rifle I want to shoot 1000 meters. 1000 meters is medium range here and the most Minimum is about 400 meters.
Calculating: 200 grain bullet with ballistic coefficient of .224 and 1100 fps you have an Maximum range of about 210 meters and by that distance you are at 5 mil dots on such an rifle scope already and at 210 meters you have an energy of 375 ft-lbs (about a strong 9mm energy Level) and a bullet drop of 39". It is very short range but retains very good the energy and is suitable for home defense but ONLY SHORT RANGE HUNTING.

Ah, i see you meant 100m.

You're getting too wrapped around energy numbers and disregarding the experience of people who kill with low-energy rounds and even bows. Arrows have very low muzzle energy!

Black powder is low-energy and has a slow burn rate. The burn rate determines how fast you can push a pressure wave, which determines your acceleration, which determines your velocity. That's physics. You don't get around the physics. Newton is your daddy.

Energy does not kill, it's merely one sliver of the equation along with shot placement, bullet design, and physiology that determines what happens upon impact.

[Harter66]

Your asking for a lot from BP in any of the cases mentioned.

Depending on what your 30-30 platform is will make a big difference in what you can do with it . The NOE 314-230 might work very well with the 30-30 if you have enough twist . It will raise the BC dramatically. Based on my calculations a start velocity of 1550 would carry over 1000 ftlb just past 100 meters . (Strelok calculator ) my 30 WCF doesn't have enough twist to do this consistently.

With BP I think there is a reason for the straight wall cases . I think it has to do with the shock wave of the powder burn . This I expect would lead to bad things in 223 and 243 . The 30 WCF looks like a scaled down 45-70 by comparison.

If we all have a 48th ed Lyman book you can find that within its trap door working limits the 45-110 with an extra 10" of bbl will match the 458 WM with the 405 JSP. I think chasing 1000 metres with BP in less than something on par case wise with the 40-65 and up is going to be less than satisfactory.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It may be that you mean activated charcoal, which just means charcoal with an intricate pore structure to permit easy absorption of chemicals it is desirable to remove from liquids. That sounds like it should be good, although I don't know if that structure would be better than ordinary charcoal after the process of extremely fine grinding and incorporation of the constituents, which undoubtedly is necessary. But I can't see it being worse.

You can't make really good black powder with pure carbon, if that is what you mean. Essentially gasoline etc. takes the oxygen for combustion or explosion from the air. Smokeless powder has it in the same molecule as the fuel elements, and black powder has it in other molecules in the mixture, i.e. the sulphur and charcoal take oxygen from the saltpetre.

But while the formulae we see read KNO3 + S + C, this doesn't actually work at the speed required of a firearm. It seems like ignition depends on other elements within the molecules of the charcoal.

Revolver and shotgun cartridges can work extremely well with black powder. In the 1930s, when the single action Colt was the standard way of firing the .45LC, the most powerful commercial load was a black powder one. With shotguns the only snag about not using smokeless powder are the smoke, which doesn't matter except maybe in organised shoots of driven game, and a slight increase in recoil.

But in a rifle it is different. A large case capacity will greatly increase fouling, and above a certain level you could make it as big as a Tabasco sauce bottle without increasing velocity. What a heavy charge does rather better (though also just up to a point) is enabling you to use a heavier bullet for the calibre. But a heavy bullet requires faster twist rifling, and that increases the tendency of the bore to foul. With black powder the slowest rifling twist that will stabilize the bullet is far more important than it is with smokeless.

If black powder is really important, you will very likely want to use cast bullets as well. For those a bullet with a long cylindrical surface engaging the rifling is best. The .223, for example, will be nearly limited to a small game rifle, and in this case a .22 Hornet would probably be better. The .32 Winchester Special, with its slower twist, had the reputation of being better with black powder than the .30-30, but I don't know if anyone makes a new rifle in that chambering now. I'd call a black powder .30-30 better for small deer or other game than large (Capybara, maybe?) For anything large, and most especially dangerous, I would rather trust a .45-70 or .444 Marlin.

[AJG]

no. I mean 210 meters according to federalpremium.com ballistics calculator. 210 meters is about max range in theory.
1000 meters (one thousand) is medium range here. We at least must reach about 400 meters here (considered short range).

[AJG]

Ballistics of Scotland,

We will continue our talk at evening. I got to get to work.

Ok.
have a nice one.

[AJG]

yes activated charcoal. In spanish: Carbono activado.
According to an chemist he suggests it and lab grade KNO3 (I do not know if Sulfur is neccesary) since supposed there is an issue with air or oxigen too much or too less (as I understood if any of those substances get air, it is oxigenized and will not work propperly).
Supposedly oxigen is the enemy of the Black Powder so it has to be sealed airtight all the time.

If there is an chemist amongst you please explain in more Details about the Black Powder issue (oxigen, water, etc eefects on Black powder).

[daschnoz]

ANYONE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE LOADING Black Powder in 223, 243, 308, 30-30?

REAL LIFE experience please.

I have loaded 308WIN with black powder.

• Goex FFFg
• 147gr FMJ bullet (M80 ball)
• Standard large rifle primer
• Average velocity at 25 yards - about 1600fps

I did this for 2 reasons:

1. Like you, I wanted to know if it could be done, and if so, how well would it perform.
2. For fun - you should see the look on someone's face when I sneak one of these into the magazine (he's shooting my gun, so calm down folks).

When you load, make sure that the bullet seats on the powder. A compressed charge is not a bad thing when using black powder, so fill the case with as much powder as possible while leaving enough room for the bullet. I pretty much filled the cases to the top of the case mouth, tapped the case gently to settle the powder, then seated the bullet. It ended up to be about 50gr of powder (! ! ! BY WEIGHT ! ! !).

I haven't loaded black powder into any other calibers. 308WIN is the only rifle I have that is a bolt action. All of my other rifles are gas operated semi-autos and cleaning up after black powder in those would be ugly. All of my pistols are semi-auto as well, so I haven't tried any pistol calibers either.

[M-Tecs]

If I have a rifle I want to shoot 1000 meters. 1000 meters is medium range here and the most Minimum is about 400 meters.

no. I mean 210 meters according to federalpremium.com ballistics calculator. 210 meters is about max range in theory.
1000 meters (one thousand) is medium range here. We at least must reach about 400 meters here (considered short range).

I am throwing the BS flag on this one. 1,000 meters is 1093.6133 yards (one kilometer or 5/8 of a mile). That is hardly medium range unless your targets are large buildings.

Since you are using the Federal Ballistic Calculator compare the Federal Match 308 with the 168 grain bullet to the 175. Out of a 20 inch service rifle the 168 go subsonic at around 850 yards. The buffeting tends to make them start to tumble. With a max load of smokeless in a longer barreled bolt gun you can get 168 Match Bullets to stay supersonic but just barely. The 175 will stay supersonic at a 1,000 yards. No way you are going to get close to the velocity required with BP.

What are you shooting at that you consider 1,000 meters medium range?

[victorfox]

I'm with M-Tecs. What are going to do with these loads? If I could have a rifle, it would be a 30-30, 308 or 30-06, because ammo availability and would use them up to 300, 400 meters (doubtfully!) hunting boar. Most shots occur around 30-150 meters in practice, and in our boar case, they would be limited to about 100 meters. So why would I want a rifle? 1) accuracy 2) power to humanely kill. But in this case a 12ga shotgun with good slugs would work fine.

If you check the long distance records of target shooting using BPCR, most are shot with some sort of .45 rifle (45-70, 90, 100, 120) or larger, as Countrygent puts on post #6, with BP you need a larger projectile to increase energy. That's why they shot elephants with 4-bores (about 1" diameter) in 19th century and now a "small" .458 bullet do the job.

I never loaded 44-40 with black powder, I'm using printed historical data to point out the figures. This guy, however, does quite good at 300 meters with a BP 44-40. Check: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxXomBwzm24

As for penetration, you can check the same guy here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awnotbWMFLw

HTH

[Harter66]

With out sulphur the ignition temperature of BP increases. It becomes harder to ignite, I'm sure a magnum primer would do the job most of the time. As to it oxidizing and breaking down . Through an oversight that is a rather drawn out story of it own I left a TC Hawken loaded for 11 months with just the hammer down on the nipple . The result? Cap , raise the hammer , set trigger , hold , clack bang and cling on steel in the expected impact area . Granted my annual average humidity is 24% so that helps I'm sure .

There are some cowboy shooters that do a thing called wild bunch that involves 1911s loaded with BP .

Based on information above I'd say the 308 with the NOE 230gr might get the job done .
I just ran the calculator out to 1000 YD it says with the NOE Bullet that a 500 yd drop ,started at 1550 fps is just over 400 INCHES and 1032 INCHES at 1000 YD 955 fps and 550 ftlb at 600 yd it has to survive the drop through trans-sonic. It would appear that the 308 can do this . At least for a while.

[M-Tecs]

Wild Bunch 1911 shooters normally shoot smokeless loads. http://www.sassnet.com/wildbunch/han...0Vers%209a.pdf

The 45 ACP was first loaded with Bullseye but the 19111 will function with BP.

The 303 British was originally loaded with BP. Velocity claims of the day were high compared to todays chronographed results. The 303 with Goex 3fg and over compressed gave me 1575 FPS with a 180-grain cast bullet.

The 303 case has about 2.7 grains water capacity more than the 308 so I would guess velocity would be less.

[Harter66]

Admission of having half the info ..... I wonder how I got it all crossed up...... to many articles not enough notes.