Home made black powder loading

[Buckbrush]

Merry Christmas and happy new year to all.
Okay I'm trying to load home made black powder in a marlin 38-55.
I have multiple questions but I want to ask the 3 that I'm dealing
With right now. My black powder has been pressed as tight as I could get
It with out a 2 ton press. I used a meat press for sausage making. Anyway it was pressed
And grated to 2f to 3f. I used it in my front stuffer and velocity was 100 fps
Slower than pyrodex using the same 70 gr by volume weight. So my 1st question is
Do I need to use a drop tube if I'm using a compression die.
#2 what differance would it make if I used 3f or 2f and compressed it as tight as I could
Get it with out bulging the case. Would this cause unsafe condition?
#3 I have 1/4 in felt wads for shotgun reloads I was going to split them into 1/8" wads
And rub some bore butter on them. Would this work for a grease cookie?
I'm just puttering around for the holidays and trying not buy anything to make this work.
Just what I have avalible. Thanks for any information for a newbie in black powder cartridge.

[cwtebay]

No advice from me, but following to hear what others have to offer.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

[Nobade]

Yep, what he said...

[Buckbrush]

Okay thank you. I need to use the grease cookie because I'm loading paper patched
Boolits. Still don't understand the purpose of the drop tube if I'm compressing and adding
More powder and compressing again. I might just be a little slow but what purpose does
The drop tube give at that point? Anybody have a good homemade grease cookie recipe.
I have beeswax perifinwax and bore butter.

[Buckbrush]

Yeah okay That makes more sense to me. My black powder isn't all that dense started with 43 gr by weight and stopped at 48gr. At 48gr it was almost to the top of my 2.125" bass case. I compressed it down till I could fit a cereal box card and a 1/8" felt grease cookie with another cereal box card on top of that. But what I have found out is that when I put bore butter in the felt wad it swells up and when I went to seat the bullet all the grease was coming out. Your right this is a pain in the ass. Anyway I've got 8 loaded after messing around for a few hours. Now if the wind and snow would stop I could go shoot em.
I think if I load anymore black I'm gonna scrap the paper patch and buy a grease grooved bullet mold.
I've got good results with the paper patch and imr3031 and rl-7. But this compressing and cards and all is just to much going on. I don't know how them old timers did it with out getting pissed off and just throwing the whole thing in the fire. Hahaha thanks for your help.

[Buckbrush]

Thank you Indian joe. I'll write that # down I can't find any bullet molds that I want right now. I kind of guess I screwd the powder height up when my lube was oosing out. Oh well live and learn. How do you dissamble lead boolits that have been crimped. I guess with a bullet puller and recast scrap bullets. Never tried pulling lead boolits. Now the black powder is so compacted I can't get all the black powder out. Thinking of putting a trail of powder leading into the case and seeing if it acts like a bottle rocket.
Hahaha. I sure wish the powder and reloading shortages would stop.

[Buckbrush]

Well that was fun. It kinda acted like a bottle rocket. Only made it a foot and blew the primer out of the case. Childish I know but I never grew up so ya know. Drink more coffee do stupid stuff faster with more energy. On with the next project.