Having some issues with BH209

[death-junky]

I have a knight disc inline muzzleloader. It was shooting really well with 110 gr by volume charge. So I took it out this morning to test zero and anyways it's shooting 5" lower then it did before and the recoil and report is weak. I took 7 shots and it made a decent group at 100. Then after about 7 shots of weak feeling loads 1 goes of like normal and is right on where it should be and it has the normal stout recoil report. What could be causing this... I feel like I'm not pushing down on the ramrod any different and using lots of force. Could it be the sabots? The powder is a few years old but hadn't been used much it was tightly sealed after last use... any ideas?

 

[cosmic]

I've experienced the same thing with various muzzleloader powders. Turns out they are hygroscopic - the absorbed moisture gives poor ignition. So, one year, it works fine, the next, not so much.... I've solved the problem by baking the powder pellets at 225 F for 25 minutes. I also use stronger shotgun primers in colder weather.

 

[25_Straight]

I've experienced the same thing with various muzzleloader powders. Turns out they are hygroscopic - the absorbed moisture gives poor ignition. So, one year, it works fine, the next, not so much.... I've solved the problem by baking the powder pellets at 225 F for 25 minutes. I also use stronger shotgun primers in colder weather.

BH209 is non-hygroscopic as it’s a hollow extruded powder. Although I’ve never experienced the low recoil feel I have experienced delayed ignition due to either a dirty breech plug or not a hot enough primer. I would double check the primers and beech plug just in case.

 

[snowshoe]

I used a can of bh109 and it worked good. The second can I got would fire ok when first loaded, but after carrying for a couple of hours I got poor or no ignition. I tried it several times and got mixed results. I went back to triple 7 and have had great results. Bh109 is not worth the money for me.

 

[cosmic]

BH209 is non-hygroscopic as it’s a hollow extruded powder. Although I’ve never experienced the low recoil feel I have experienced delayed ignition due to either a dirty breech plug or not a hot enough primer. I would double check the primers and beech plug just in case.

Well - Court is out on that one. It may have a better surface to volume relationship than powder, making it less prone to moisture absorption. I would suggest the OP try to bake some in the oven to see if performance improves.