My lady came to Orangeville gun show last Sunday to share some of my love of old arms. I'm no novice when it comes to firearms and edged weapons, but I confess to a woeful lack of practical knowledge when it comes to old black powder arms. Case in point; one gentleman had a lovely matched set of cased Westley Richards dueling pistols. They looked to be about .45 cal. The girlfriend asked if I'd be interested in buying them (like I've got thirteen grand to spare!), and agreed that they were indeed beautiful examples of the gunsmiths art. She asked how much powder it took to charge them, and then I realized that I had no idea. Years ago, I'd read where a guy got his hands on his grandad's old muzzle loader, refurbished it, and worked up the load for it. He did so by putting a ball on a level surface and trickling powder over it until the ball was just covered by a cone of powder. He weighed the charge, and used that as his start load. With his experience regarding old arms, he tweaked the charge upwards until it went off with what he called the distinctive "crack" that told him that he had reached the right load. To me, with no practical black powder experience, it seemed a rather iffy way to determine the correct charge. Are there charts or tables available that tell a novice which black powder or other equivalent propellant to use and in what grain weight? Any good info would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Determining the correct powder charge!
- Thread starter LawrenceN
- Start date
- Location
- Ft. Mac. Alberta
" kentucky measure" is grain weight for ball diameter, so the .45's would take 45 grains of FFFG.
However, the other way of trickling powder over the ball is what is commonly called " frontier measure" or western measure, and that would be a max charge for a rifle , in the case of my .58 Hawken, when held in my hand, it comes out to close to 130 grains of FFG.
Cat
However, the other way of trickling powder over the ball is what is commonly called " frontier measure" or western measure, and that would be a max charge for a rifle , in the case of my .58 Hawken, when held in my hand, it comes out to close to 130 grains of FFG.
Cat
Here's a good reference at Goex powders load chart
http://www.goexpowder.com/load-chart.html
Cheers nessy
Most M/L round ball rifles shoot most accurately with a charge of 1.0 - 1.5 times the caliber, i.e.;50 to 75 grains of BP for a 50 cal. Pistols usually take about half that much powder. My 45 cal long rifle likes 75 grains whereas my best accuracy from a 45 cal. TC Patriot pistol is 30 grains. Trial and error at the range is the route to best accuracy.
Buy a copy of Lyman's BP Handbook and Loading Manual. Good read with lots of info.
The 'cover the bullet' thing, usually in the palm of your hand, is mentioned in it as not being even close to correct or safe.
BP is measured in grains, but by volume, not weight.
The 'cover the bullet' thing, usually in the palm of your hand, is mentioned in it as not being even close to correct or safe.
BP is measured in grains, but by volume, not weight.
- Location
- Ft. Mac. Alberta
You should try it sometime with 4 different calibers of ball - it;s amazing how close it actually is.
Why is it not safe?
Cat
- Location
- Golden Lake
In Sam Fadala's book "Black Powder Loading Manual" he test fires and chronographs several .45 cal. replica pistols. He recommends 20 to 30 grs. of FFF with a patched round ball of .440 diameter. He also recommends 30 grs. of Pyrodex P.
The 20 gr. FFF load chronographed at 946 fps, the 30 gr. FFF at 1047 fps, the 30 gr. Pyrodex P at 1031 fps. This was from a 9 3/4" barrel.
I would hesitate to actually shoot such valuable antique firearms as those. At least they should be checked out by a good gunsmith. A friend of mine shot an antique cap lock rifle once - the nipple blew out and took off a chunk of his ear! He had previously "proof fired" it by putting it in a tire and pulling the trigger with a string and it seemed OK but the next shot proved too much for the old rifle.
The 20 gr. FFF load chronographed at 946 fps, the 30 gr. FFF at 1047 fps, the 30 gr. Pyrodex P at 1031 fps. This was from a 9 3/4" barrel.
I would hesitate to actually shoot such valuable antique firearms as those. At least they should be checked out by a good gunsmith. A friend of mine shot an antique cap lock rifle once - the nipple blew out and took off a chunk of his ear! He had previously "proof fired" it by putting it in a tire and pulling the trigger with a string and it seemed OK but the next shot proved too much for the old rifle.
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I had a 45 Kentucky pistol and a 45 Tower pistol (repro's). I found that they shot best with 22-25 gr. and round ball. That is also the load I used to shoot RB out of my rifles. It would take the head off a grouse at 20 yds. or so, consistently. I found that anything over 40 gr. of fffG with RB in my rifles started to cause a drop in accuracy. With maxi-balls, my pet load was 70 gr. of fffG. It would group about 4-5" offhand at 100 yds. consistently. Anything over that would start to open up.
