Compression in black powder cartridges?? PLEASE READ ALL ANTIQUE SHOOTERS

jethunter said:
My 2 pennies worth, I stopped using trailboss, bullseye, or any of these fast pistol powder in antique handguns. The pressure curve on these is much more abrupt than 3f black.

I use unique for most of my antique revolvers now. It's close to 3f burn speed.
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I've heard some of the BPCR guys will use 2400, 5744, 4198 and those kinds of slower powders for 38-40's, 44-40's, and 45-70's in original black powder era guns, since apparently 2400 is slower than 2F burn rate. Have you ever tried those slower powders in a pistol cartridge?
 
appleorangefish said:
I've heard some of the BPCR guys will use 2400, 5744, 4198 and those kinds of slower powders for 38-40's, 44-40's, and 45-70's in original black powder era guns, since apparently 2400 is slower than 2F burn rate. Have you ever tried those slower powders in a pistol cartridge?
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This is my current way of thinking with the larger capacity cases. Unique in smaller pistol cartridges still. Using actual black powder is a perfectly viable option too.

It's sometimes hard to decide if the convenience of smokeless and reduced likely hood of causing more corrosion is worth the risk of using smokeless and all the work involved in creating load data without published information to work from. I've gone both ways and sometimes it depends on the individual gun.
 
appleorangefish said:
I've heard some of the BPCR guys will use 2400, 5744, 4198 and those kinds of slower powders for 38-40's, 44-40's, and 45-70's in original black powder era guns, since apparently 2400 is slower than 2F burn rate. Have you ever tried those slower powders in a pistol cartridge?
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Those powders can work well in rifles. IMR 4198 downloads well but still far too slow for low pressure, low case-capacity pistol cartridges. 2400 is quite close to 2f burn speed, but that's also dependent on the load itself as smokeless powders burn progressively faster as pressure increases. I've never tried imr4198 for a 10k webley load but i don't expect it would be a successful experiment. :)

The slowest powder I've used in smaller case capacity antique loads is 800x in 44 russian and 45 schofield. Unique is easier and seems to be more consistent in the pressure range antique handguns were designed for.
 
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vagrantviking said:
This is my current way of thinking with the larger capacity cases. Unique in smaller pistol cartridges still. Using actual black powder is a perfectly viable option too.

It's sometimes hard to decide if the convenience of smokeless and reduced likely hood of causing more corrosion is worth the risk of using smokeless and all the work involved in creating load data without published information to work from. I've gone both ways and sometimes it depends on the individual gun.
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Thanks guys, looks like Unique is the way to go then! Makes sense since Unique was released in 1900: or basically before Colt and S&W had warrantied many of their pistols for smokeless
 
uglydukwling said:
Was the .303 British originally designed for compressed black powder, or is that another myth?
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It wasn't designed for BP but the British smokeless wasn't quite ready when needed so a BP version was created. It contained a compressed pellet with central opening and it can't be replicated by simply reloading with loose black powder. The British had been experimenting with compressed black powder for some time and had found it superior to loose powder volume for volume.

milsurpo
 
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