Blackpowder in metallic cartridges

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digitalblue

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Okay, so lately, I've been having a weird obsession with BP and I'm interested to see what it'll do in modern metallic cartridges.

How can this be done safely?

From what I've read, it's simply a matter of packing the case full of BP and sticking the bullet on.
I'll probably be using my SKS and a pulling a few 7.62x39 rounds for the case and bullet.

I've loaded BP shotshells before so I'm fully aware of the mess it makes.
Considering that the SKS will need a boiling water bath after shooting corrosive surplus anyways, BP fouling shouldn't be too much extra work.

UPDATE(04/05/2013): See post #14 for the results of this experiment
 
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I'm not sure how well that's going to work, black powder cartridges usually have bullets lubed with BP lube so they don't gum up the gun with fowling. I suppose if you could get .311 cast bullets with lube grooves then put BP lube in them it could work.

I would be interested to see how many shots you could fire before black powder fowling jams up the gas piston.
 
digitalblue said:
Okay, so lately, I've been having a weird obsession with BP and I'm interested to see what it'll do in modern metallic cartridges.

How can this be done safely?

From what I've read, it's simply a matter of packing the case full of BP and sticking the bullet on.
I'll probably be using my SKS and a pulling a few 7.62x39 rounds for the case and bullet.

I've loaded BP shotshells before so I'm fully aware of the mess it makes.
Considering that the SKS will need a boiling water bath after shooting corrosive surplus anyways, BP fouling shouldn't be too much extra work.
Click to expand...

i would recommend against using black powder in a semi auto. not unless you like going to the craft store to buy pipe cleaners to clean your gas system completely from the ground up. if you think surplus ammo is hard to clean up after. black-powder in a semi is going to be 100x's worse.

as for stuffing a case full. id really not recommend it. do some googleing and see if you can find a load for the round you want to shoot. cuz loading a compressed load of blackpowder in a shell you don't know the proper weight sounds like a "Here hold my beer and watch this !" type of idea.
 
Aries- said:
i would recommend against using black powder in a semi auto. not unless you like going to the craft store to buy pipe cleaners to clean your gas system completely from the ground up. if you think surplus ammo is hard to clean up after. black-powder in a semi is going to be 100x's worse.

as for stuffing a case full. id really not recommend it. do some googleing and see if you can find a load for the round you want to shoot. cuz loading a compressed load of blackpowder in a shell you don't know the proper weight sounds like a "Here hold my beer and watch this !" type of idea.
Click to expand...

While normally I'd agree with you a 7.62x39 cartridge should hold around 32 grains of loose 3f powder.* I don't have my lyman data handy but I can't see that generating more then 51,488 psi (the rating of 7.62x39)


*Density of black powder from here;http://www.tbullock.com/bpsg.html
*volume of 7.62x39 case frome here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×39mm
 
there is no set load for BP you should figure out where the base of a seated bullet will be then fill case with enough powder so that it will be slightly compressed by the bullet
 
bugs said:
there is no set load for BP you should figure out where the base of a seated bullet will be then fill case with enough powder so that it will be slightly compressed by the bullet
Click to expand...

Less than slightly compressed loads of BP are a no-no.

An interesting experiment, but the use of BP in an SKS will not catch on!
 
if you do go about doing it. fire the rounds one at a time. and check the bore between. there should be enough umph behind the black powder to fire it. but it would be bad to blow up a barrel because a bullet didnt exit.

the cleaning will be fun afterwards. gonna be a heck of a lot dirtier than corrosive ammo is.
 
Any more than 2 shots and the barrel will get gummed up with BP residue. From my first and last time being stupid with a muzzle loader and BP was 6 shots consecutively. The first 2 no problem. The third and fourth bullets were hard to cram down the barrel and I had to reduce the load because the gun kept kicking harder and harder from I'm assuming the unburnt BP in the barrel compounding. The fifth one was reduced load again and it hurt. The 6th bullet got stuck in the barrel. Took a lot of work, I got it down, shot it- I kept all my fingers and ill never try that crap again.

In a metallic case like the old 45-70 I'm sure the bulk of the residue stays in the case so maybe no problems. But with a jacketed bullet and BP I'd be careful.

Do experiment
But keep in mind to check the barrel every shot

Now could you plug the gas chamber and run the Sks as a bolt action of sorts by manually ejecting every round?
 
The more I think about it, the more I think you might be better off using .308 bullets, they're undersized so fowling shouldn't be as big an issue as quickly. I still think the gas piston will seize up long before fowling becomes a major problem though.

To clean it? You're gonna need a lot of pipe cleaners and balistol.
 
bandit86 said:
Any more than 2 shots and the barrel will get gummed up with BP residue. From my first and last time being stupid with a muzzle loader and BP was 6 shots consecutively. The first 2 no problem. The third and fourth bullets were hard to cram down the barrel and I had to reduce the load because the gun kept kicking harder and harder from I'm assuming the unburnt BP in the barrel compounding. The fifth one was reduced load again and it hurt. The 6th bullet got stuck in the barrel. Took a lot of work, I got it down, shot it- I kept all my fingers and ill never try that crap again.

In a metallic case like the old 45-70 I'm sure the bulk of the residue stays in the case so maybe no problems. But with a jacketed bullet and BP I'd be careful.

Do experiment
But keep in mind to check the barrel every shot

Now could you plug the gas chamber and run the Sks as a bolt action of sorts by manually ejecting every round?
Click to expand...

i have found that if you use a thin cardboard wad under a lead bullet it scrapes the walls a bit and helps seal better to increase the ammount of powder burnt.
with my muzzle loader there is half a thou per side on the buller (barrel sized is .451 bullets sized to .450) and using 120 grains of FFF i can load 4 or 5 before i need to use a nylon brush to scrub the barrel.
 
A few things come to mind with your proposal. The long range black powder cartridge rifle guys learned how to make duplex loads with smokeless powder against the primer and black on top. Load a cast bullet that has a gas check. Expect lots of elevation variations too. Finally, one of the simplest tricks they found to reduce fouling was a puff tube. Poke a length of rubber or vinyl hose into the breech immediately after firing to moisturize the bore with an exhaled breath.
 
Just in case anyone is interested; I successfully fired off 5 black powder rounds through my SKS today.
I took some brass cased surplus, pulled the bullet, dumped the powder and packed the case full of Goex 2F and stuffed the bullet back on.
All the rounds cycled the action; weakly, but nevertheless, they cycled. The bolt even locked back after the final round.
Fouling was not terrible, the bore was still fairly clean; I fired a regular smokeless round afterwards and the bore wasn't significantly cleaner.

If you were on the 50yd range at silverdale this morning, you might have witnessed it; one of the RO's on the 50yd range definitely took an interest.
I'll report back after cleaning and let you guys know if cleaning was any more intensive than usual.

While there's not too many practical applications for running BP in an SKS, it's certainly satisfied my curiosity.

Now I'm curious as to how many rounds can be fired before it stops working.
 
the higher the pressure the cleaner the burn

use 3f if you can get it

use a 24" drop tube, like an aluminum arrow, and SLOWLY trickle in the powder, until it is about 1/4" into the neck, then compress it, and seat.
 
I say go for it and then boil a big pot full of water so that the water line will go past the gas tube and then pump water through with a cleaning rod I do this with corrosive ammo and my BP guns the .30 cal bore may let you only get a few shots off. with bigger bores say .45 cal ive shot a about 20 rounds at without swabbing and could have shot more but I only had 20 cases
 
Cleaning the gun wasn't any more work than cleaning after firing corrosive.

The only time consuming part is cleaning the huge amount of soot in the barrel and gas system.
It only took some solvent and half a dozen patches to everything clean.
 
digitalblue said:
Cleaning the gun wasn't any more work than cleaning after firing corrosive.

The only time consuming part is cleaning the huge amount of soot in the barrel and gas system.
It only took some solvent and half a dozen patches to everything clean.
Click to expand...

I hope you cleaned with water first to break up any of that fouling also made sure there was no petroleum based oils in the gun that makes a tar when shot with BP
 
digitalblue said:
Cleaning the gun wasn't any more work than cleaning after firing corrosive.

The only time consuming part is cleaning the huge amount of soot in the barrel and gas system.
It only took some solvent and half a dozen patches to everything clean.
Click to expand...

for sure up the powder to 3f. 4f might be a little much it is quite fine. 2f is more for flintlocks. 3 is is better for caplocks and 4 is for the flash pan on flintlocks. stay completely away from 1f that is cannon powder. the finer the grind of powder the faster it will burn, 2 f is fairly slow burning. 3f will likely make it cycle faster and give better velocities.
 
Antiqueguy - My cleaning regimen after shooting corrosive involves a bath in boiling water, brake cleaner and bore solvent. Any tar that's formed is dissolved by the brake cleaner.

Aries - Thanks for the advice, I'll try to get my hands on some 3F. Even with 2F, there was no real residue, just soot.
 
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