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Crash course in blackpowder reloading?

1K views 9 replies 6 participants last post by  X-Ring Services 
#1 ·
Evening folks. I am simply terrible at blackpowder. I do have a cap and ball revolver, and I've shot it successfully many times, but I've decided i want to go deeper and shoot one of my blackpowder rifles that previously was just a beautiful wall hanger. A Vetterli to be specific.

As i said. I'm terrible at blackpowder. For that cap and ball revolver i had pyrodex FFFFg (Which i know now to be less then stellar) but i was unimpressed by its performance, possibly because i had no idea what the grades of powder meant at the time.

I recently bought an order of 5lbs of various powders so i can jump into it fully. 1f, 1.5f, 2f, 3f(x2) of varied make from Goex, Swiss, Kik, and Shuetzen, just so i can have a wide taste of whats on the market. I'm not entirely sure what powder is best for what application though. I seen a rough description of recommended uses, but pistol was on all of them but 4f, so I took the list with a grain of salt. More to the point, the Vetterli uses a cartridge and after some research there seems to be much more complicated workings than my cap and ball revolver ever had.

I know nothing of these filler mediums other than its used to fill up the case to remove any airpockets, which some people seem to avoid jump by cramming the case full and tapping it down. I've never used wadding, let alone lubed wads, I'm not sure how effective a wad would be in a bottlenecked cartridge either.

I don't plan to stop at the Vetterli. Eventually I'll work up the courage for the Martini Henry, or Trapdoor springfield.


Guess i just want to hear from you instead of random youtubers loading cowboy loads and whatnot. I've already missed a ton of information, I'm sure theres more that could potentially kaboom me.
 
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#2 ·
I'm not familiar with specs of Vetterli ammo, but I have a couple of Trapdoors I reload for. Of first importance is ensuring there is no air space between powder and bullet base.
With the .45-70 Trapdoor ammo, 70 grains of powder needs to be compressed to the extent that a separate compression step is required just to make sufficient room to seat the entire length of the heavier infantry bullet. My Cavalry loads range from 50 to 60 grains (3F). I use a 405 grain hollow-base cavalry bullet that is a duplicate of the original Frankford Arsenal bullet. 50 grains of powder require a filler to compress the powder.

For filler you can use almost anything. I use a vegetable fiber wad made by CircleFly; you can use Dacron fiber (Dacron pillow stuffing) or even Cream of Wheat or Grits as a compression filler (especially in loading necked cases).

Compression: the heavier bullet Infantry loads were "highly" compressed, requiring a separate reloading compression step. The idea is to remove as much air between powder grains as possible. I've found that compressed loads burn cleaner, leaving less fouling than equivalent volume loads in muzzleloaders.

Look around at www.swissrifles.com, and also in the Swiss Weapons Forum of Gunboards.com for experienced reloading data and techniques.

As for Powder, generally 2F and 3F granulations will allow you to fire anything from .36 cal. pistol to .62 cal smoothbores; some Brown Bess shooters prefer the Swiss 1.5 granulation. You'll read articles by certain powder snobs who extoll the virtues of Swiss and Schützen while badmouthing Goex and KIK. In some circles, mere mention of Pyrodex gets you banished to stand out on a protruding rock in the middle of a swiftly running river.

Don't fall prey to all the prevailing BS; use a powder available to you whenever you need to buy more. I use Goex, because I can buy it whenever needed. Save your 1F and 1.5F for the day when you buy/build a smoothbore.

About that unsatisfactory Cap & Ball Revolver: I've been shooting Colts and Remingtons in .36 and .44 cal for close to 50 years now, and they're not only great fun to shoot, but every one is amazingly accurate. 17 grains 3F in a .36 cal. and 23 grains 3F in the .44 will give you accuracy beyond your expectations. If you need wrist-snapping recoil, either Dragoon or Walker will oblige, otherwise there's .357 and .44 mag for wrist abuse.

It's great fun to see the looks on a young girl's face when she shows her boyfriend (who brought her to the range & is ignoring her) her 2" group on a 50' pistol target from an 1858 or 1860 technological relic; usually the BF is busy trying to cover every available space on a target with holes, and can't even spell "group" ...

Oh yeah - I use 3F Goex and Pyrodex P interchangeably by volume in my Cap & Ball revolvers & accuracy and POI are identical.
 
#8 ·
I'm not familiar with specs of Vetterli ammo, but I have a couple of Trapdoors I reload for. Of first importance is ensuring there is no air space between powder and bullet base.
Or what?
I have been doing that the past 30+ years, burned more than 250lbs of BP and flung more than a ton of lead.
What is supposed to happen?
And what about the air surrounding the BP kernels? Is that OK but somehow a little more and SHTF?

No there is no problem in cartridges only when a bullet is short seated in a muzzle loader. Then a deflagration front can build and accumulate at the bottom of the bullet, and having nowhere to go but sideways it might bulge/bust the barrel.
There is simply not enough room for that in a cartridge!

If you dont believe me then by all means search the interweb and present proof of your statement, simple as that.
 
#4 ·
Just in case, I thought it worth mentioning that black power is a bit unstable - you do NOT want to use any plastics around it so as to avoid any static discharges.
 
#5 ·
Guess you'd better contact Goex and the black powder manufacturers immediately to express your concern about the possibility of static discharge from their plastic containers setting off their product.

Studies conducted have already debunked this once popular myth about the 'hazard' of static discharge. It's old news.

Black powder is not unstable. It is classified as an explosive and it does have a low ignition point.
 
#9 ·
It's been known for a couple hundred years that a patched ball, shot wads or Minie balls need to be firmly seated. It was known by your forebears, but the word needs to be reiterated. Loose, uncompressed powder can detonate, causing bulged barrels or worse. You don't need to believe, me - it's not my idea, however it is common knowledge among muzzleloader shooters and experienced blackpowder shooters.

Don't challenge me to school you on basic elements of safety, rather get your head outta the sand and get up to speed with proper and safe techniques.
 
#10 ·
AZshooter, you need to re-read Chickenthief's post again; he says the airspace is a problem in muzzleloaders but not in cartridge guns (which is the subject of the thread.....Swiss Vetterli). He's correct, to a point, & up to a certain percentage of airspace in BP cartridges was recognized as appropriate by a number of 19th century gunmakers, most notably WW Greener in his book 'The Gun & its Development' (published 1881). The blanket rule of no airspace with blackpowder is yet another 'urban/internet myth', right up there with only measure BP by volume, not weight!
 
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