Trail Boss In Muzzle Loaders

Dean2

Dean2

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TB makes a great backpowder substitute in rounds from 45 Colt to 50-120. Has anyone ever tried it as a blackpowder subsitute in Flintlock or percussion muzzle loaders? On another front, lots of guys ar using 4759, 4227 and the like as blacck powder rep[lacement and the one sticky that discusses that extensivley talks about the fact they can get the same velocity at LOWER than BP pressures. Given how much easier smokeless is to clean up, I would also be interested in peoples experience using these in a Flintlock 32 caliber rifle or cap and ball revolvers.
 
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I think you would not be able to ignite Trail Boss or any of the smokeless powders reliably with flint ignition. You would almost certainly have to start out with say 10 grains of black under the main charge.

Far more important relative to smokeless, is that their burn rates increase exponentially and a relatively small increase in powder could potentially give you a major increase in pressure. Further there are no tables to give you data for such loadings and you be playing with fire trying to build up one in a muzzle loader.

I do shoot smokeless in black powder cartridges but I also measure my powder with a commercial powder thrower and a beam balance very precisely and I refer to load tables. That is very different from loading the powder by volume and by guess into a muzzle loader

cheers mooncoon
 
Don't even think of trying it in a muzzleloader. Part of Trailboss's burn characteristics comes from the little donut shape. Compressing TB causes the donuts to break and sustantially increases pressure.
 
If you want to shoot smokeless in a muzzel loader buy a savage ML110 as they are the ONLY ones desinged for it
 
Yup! As others have stated, do not even dream about trying it in a muzzle loader. Trail Boss has a very fast burn rate, similar to Bullseye.
 
I am about to say something that practically got me banned from another more "conservative" forum: there is no technical reason what Trail Boss could not be used in a muzzleloader.

If:

a. it could be effectively ignited;
b. it was used in a quantity that produced a peak pressure within the limits of the firearm; and
c. it could be loaded such that it was not compressed (but a small air gap would be tolerable unlike with Black Powder).

The above is true for all firearm types. "c." is the difficult part for a muzzleloader, and for that reason I'd avoid it.
 
Andy said:
c. it could be loaded such that it was not compressed (but a small air gap would be tolerable unlike with Black Powder).

The above is true for all firearm types. "c." is the difficult part for a muzzleloader, and for that reason I'd avoid it.
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There was an article about Trail Boss in the Doublegun Journal a few issues ago. Bottom line is that it can be compressed and shot but the big question in my mind is why would you want to unless you had several pounds that you wanted to use up. The toughest part is how much to use as there are no tables that are applicable and you might or might not have to use a small igniting charge of black powder below the TB

cheers mooncoon
 
mooncoon said:
There was an article about Trail Boss in the Doublegun Journal a few issues ago. Bottom line is that it can be compressed and shot but the big question in my mind is why would you want to unless you had several pounds that you wanted to use up. The toughest part is how much to use as there are no tables that are applicable and you might or might not have to use a small igniting charge of black powder below the TB

cheers mooncoon
Click to expand...

Anyone shooting smokeless in antiques is faced with this. We have a sticky that provides a start.

There are many firearms for which there is no published load data - I have several. It's not difficult to contrive safe loads for any of them - which I have also done.
 
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