How much black powder is too much?

A while back I got into a debate with a number of forum members on what amounts of powder was too much. At the time we were talking about my 69 caliber pistol and my 70gr charge for bare ball and 65gr charge for patched ball. The common belief was that this was too much powder and most of it was simply being burnt outside of the barrel.

I recently started shooting an 8-bore rifle with black powder and this conversation came back to mind. My 8-bore is an original W.J. Jeffery double barrel rifle made on October 21st of either 1895 or 1896 (the ledger date is hard to read). Now the gun is a cartridge gun, so I won't go too much into the gun. However, this gun has short barrels at just 24" and the regulating load (provided by the original ledger) is 10 drams of powder under a ball.

So, my question is how can 70gr of powder be "too much" for an 8" 69 caliber barrel but 273gr is fine for a 24" 85 caliber barrel? I get 24" is three times longer than 8", but 273gr is more than three times the powder load! W.J. Jeffery was a major player in the hunting industry in the late 19th and early 20th century and would not have used a poor performing load for their gun. Black powder of the late 19th century would have been as potent, if not more potent than modern powder.

For the record, I've been using 274gr of Schuetzen 2F under an 85 caliber ball and it works great in my 8-bore double. The two barrels regulate well and hitting a pie plate out to 50 yards is no issue. The gun shoots even better with a 1200gr conical, but that is a story for another forum.

Your thoughts?

Short answer.....you're wasting powder when using more than required for your desired results.

Another thing to consider in determining how much is too much is the strength of the wood in your breech, neck, or grip. The barrel will take most anything, wood can be less forgiving.

Matt85 said:

So, my question is how can 70gr of powder be "too much" for an 8" 69 caliber barrel but 273gr is fine for a 24" 85 caliber barrel? I get 24" is three times longer than 8", but 273gr is more than three times the powder load!

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The lighter 69 caliber roundball (just under 500 grains) will consume or burn much less powder in a short 8” long bore than a .835 diameter 1200 grain conical will consume or burn in a 24” long bore. That confusing physics thing.

Shoot the load the gun is regulated for and accurate with. Unlikely there will be much tracking involved with most any hit on a pie plate. Historically, they are known not to run when hit.

Your best answer may be to evaluate the loads scientifically, starting with a chronograph. You know the projectile weights. Get the velocities with various charges and calculate the kinetic energy as your likely best metric for your efficiency. I think you’ll eventually reach a point of diminishing returns.

The other thing, equally important, is an objective measure of accuracy with the various loads. More is not always better.

Finally, consider your target. Paper, steel, or hide and hair? It doesn’t take much powder to punch paper, maybe a little more to ring a gong or knock over a silhouette at longer range, and depending on what’s wearing the hide and hair, you might want all the firepower you can get.

There have always been recoil junkies, and I’m not name calling and I’ll apologize if anybody is offended by that. It’s just that some people seem to get off on the kick. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that… I’m just not one of them.

Some people want to load heavily, others would just as soon burn the least powder required to get the job done.

Modern muzzleloaders, when new, usually come with manuals that advise how to load. These generally specify maximum recommended loads. Maybe lawyers dictate the necessity of this, but maximum recommended loads are invariably more than I would want to shoot.

One guy’s opinion, respectfully submitted.

Notchy Bob

One way to tell if you are blowing UN-burned powder out of the muzzle is to shoot it over clean snow or a white sheet and see if there are grains of powder on the ground. An old timer told me that long ago but I've never tried it.

SDSmlf said:

The lighter 69 caliber roundball (just under 500 grains) will consume or burn much less powder in a short 8” long bore than a .835 diameter 1200 grain conical will consume or burn in a 24” long bore. That confusing physics thing.

Shoot the load the gun is regulated for and accurate with. Unlikely there will be much tracking involved with most any hit on a pie plate. Historically, they are known not to run when hit.

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Your ball vs conical statement is correct, but you may have misread my post a little. I am only referring to ball loads here. The regulating load for the gun is 273gr of powder under an 85 caliber round ball. I should not have mentioned the conical in my thread to confuse things, I apologize for that.

In the case of my 69 caliber pistol, I wanted an accurate reproduction of the historic loads. The recommended load for this gun produced "airsoft toy" levels of speed (300fps or so) that would not represent loads used by the French military and would certainly not be lethal. My load of 70gr under a 65 caliber ball produced around 600fps which could actually be used as a properly lethal cartridge. I also use a larger 68 caliber patched ball over 65gr of powder to get excellent accuracy while still having the appropriate amount of power to be lethal.

As for the wood failing, I have hundreds of rounds fired through the pistol and the rifle has likely seen thousands of rounds over the last century. The only problem the pistol has is poor inletting around the breech has led to the tang hole becoming slightly oval, this reached a certain point and stopped a long time ago, once it settled into place.

For the statement on recoil junkies, that is fair. I would easily qualify as someone who enjoys recoil from his rifles (ironically, I am not a fan of heavy recoiling pistols). I'm sure my 8-bore could be loaded down to levels where its "gentle", but it wouldn't regulate, and this would defeat the point of owning such a gun. The felt recoil of a gun is a part of the experience and if you only ever shoot reduced loads, then you have no idea what its actually like to shoot your gun.

8 bore is an African big game hunting rifle. It is for shooting very large targets at very short ranges. Likely that it was made to be as powerful as possible with no real concern as to accuracy.

Matt85 said:

A while back I got into a debate with a number of forum members on what amounts of powder was too much. At the time we were talking about my 69 caliber pistol and my 70gr charge for bare ball and 65gr charge for patched ball. The common belief was that this was too much powder and most of it was simply being burnt outside of the barrel.

I recently started shooting an 8-bore rifle with black powder and this conversation came back to mind. My 8-bore is an original W.J. Jeffery double barrel rifle made on October 21st of either 1895 or 1896 (the ledger date is hard to read). Now the gun is a cartridge gun, so I won't go too much into the gun. However, this gun has short barrels at just 24" and the regulating load (provided by the original ledger) is 10 drams of powder under a ball.

So, my question is how can 70gr of powder be "too much" for an 8" 69 caliber barrel but 273gr is fine for a 24" 85 caliber barrel? I get 24" is three times longer than 8", but 273gr is more than three times the powder load! W.J. Jeffery was a major player in the hunting industry in the late 19th and early 20th century and would not have used a poor performing load for their gun. Black powder of the late 19th century would have been as potent, if not more potent than modern powder.

For the record, I've been using 274gr of Schuetzen 2F under an 85 caliber ball and it works great in my 8-bore double. The two barrels regulate well and hitting a pie plate out to 50 yards is no issue. The gun shoots even better with a 1200gr conical, but that is a story for another forum.

Your thoughts?

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So there are a few other factors. The larger bore, PLUS you are swaging a bullet, round or otherwise, onto the rifling in your gun, thus there is a split second when that resistance aids the burning of the powder, when with your patched ball in your pistol you never have that resistance, nor pressure spike. Black powder is rather inefficient regardless, so you may be shooting "too much" powder from the long gun as well, but the manufacturer has a reputation based on results. So the manufacturer may have known that a) If the load doesn't knock down the dangerous game, the gun will get a bad rep, which is bad for business and b) IF the rifle doesn't feel like it's shooting a stout load when tested on the range by the buyer, then the buyer won't risk it in the bush, and again, the product will get a bad rep. So the recommended load doesn't necessarily conform to our thought process in this century

LD

How much powder?

How high is Up?

First of all there is not a ‘too much’ as long as your gun and shoulder can take it.
Try shooting some 2x4 nailed together, see how many your .69 ball will go through. Start at 40 and work up. You’ll continue to improve on your penatration even past seventy grains, but you will get diminished returns.
You’ll note this if you tried a chronograph, you’ll always get an increase in velocity but as your charges get higher your payoff gets lower
Second consider the bore size
We see twelve gage guns, twelve was an important number in the past that is still remembered today, 12 ball to the pound
24 ball to the pound is .58, a long popular caliber, 48 ball to the pound is a .44 and 96 a .36.
I THINK those caliber were popular because of its relationship to twelve.
By the by a 20 bore in English works out to a 24 bore in the old French pound.
.36 is half of .72, but the .72 is eight times bigger then the .36
In your 8 bore you have about twice the surface area, and even though you have greatly increased your charge volume your column of powder is less then twice as high as your charge in the smaller bore. So there is a greater surface area to burn through
Then there is the inertia of the ball. Your eight bore is about twice as heavy as your .69. There is a coresponding greater pressure built up behind the ball before the ball starts to move. The heavier ball lets you get more work from the powder.
Thirdly it’s your gun
Ain’t no one’s business how much you dhoot in it.
If you ask for advice I would tell you I would use less, if you try it you might find it gives tge same preface at say fifty grains
For me seventy would be a waste of powder but it ain’t my powder ain’t my gun and what you and I want from the experience may not be the same

Finances come into this - at least with me. A 500g tub of powder over here costs me 75 Euros (about 68 USD). With my rifles, I find that the same amount of grains for the calibre of the gun works pretty well, and I have heard people on here say that this is as good a guide as any. 45 grains is perfectly adequate for me to punch a hole in a paper target accurately at 100 yards with either of my two Hawkens. If I were to shoot anything living, Wild Boar being the biggest and toughest beasts round here, I would probably up this to 55. But then, on an average hunt I don't suppose I would be blasting away to the same degree I would when shooting at paper, cans or soda bottles. I load my revolvers with 15 - 20 grains depending on whether the target is 25 yards or 50. Again, perfectly adequate for the job in hand. Blasting away at something 25 yards away with 30 grains is to me a waste of an expensive resource.

bpd303 said:

One way to tell if you are blowing UN-burned powder out of the muzzle is to shoot it over clean snow or a white sheet and see if there are grains of powder on the ground. An old timer told me that long ago but I've never tried it.

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Those black specs on the snow are cinders from the burnt grains of black powder. If you gather up those black specs, they won't be able to be ignited. Nonetheless, they are telling you that the powder isn't being turned to ash in the barrel. There is a bit of information to be gained from that observation.

A better indicator is recording the velocity of the ball or bullet and the powder charge. When the velocity increases as the powder charge increases begins to fall off, then you are using too much powder.

Seems silly that we still debate/parrot the "unburnt powder" nonsense after all the years of testing.

I have a 5inch 12bore Derringer. 50gr 3ff gives 550fps...150gr 3f will clear 1000fps..in 5 inches(!).

Too much powder for the rifle is when the stock breaks.
Too much powder for the shooter is when he breaks.

This is fun to play around with. https://www.p-max.uk/cgi-bin/black_powder.cgi

Here is the data for my 58cal w/44" barrel. 500grs will surely break the stock and "me"....but she's still burning all of the powder.


Pour the coal to the 8bore...she'll be very efficient at burning powder.

Wow .....

Always write down your loads before you shoot . When that load blows apart your firearm and or a piece of it goes through your eye into your brain the next person will know to drop the load ten grains first . Black powder firearms are not toys , they are firearms and are dangerous . If any of you are $+upid enough to try any of these rediculously high loads mentioned in this post ... Go ahead , blow your he@d$ off , no loss . What dip$#its . Not long ago a supper nice guy got hurt bad by over loading his muzzle loader , and come to find out it was most likely a double load , neither load was measured , handful of powder and shot thrown in ... So ...this load rips the barrel from the stock and out of his hands ...a chunk of wood shoved into his eye .He is blind now in that eye ...few more inches he would have been dead . Keep f+&%ing around with stupid loads . I sure hope it mentions you were screwing with incredibly high loads in your obituary so I won't feel sorry for you or your loved ones that will be mourning your death . Mistakes happen but stupidity in your loadings is incredibly ignorant . My two friends Bob and Randy were hunting two Muzzleloader sessions ago . They were in the same blind .They got bored and were talking about Bobs inline . Something Bob said seemed a miss to Randy so Randy asked to see Bobs rifle . The ramrod only went half way down the barrel . Later they brought it to me ...There were multiple loads in it . Couple with smokeless . If Bob had seen a deer they would have both been killed or maimed for life . Quit being stup!d . These aren't toys .

I’ve found that with black powder, it’s diminishing returns. Like someone mentioned earlier, you soon begin wasting it. Hunting with my .54, I never use more than 85-90 grains of FFG.

Sir Boniface Harrison said:

Finances come into this - at least with me. A 500g tub of powder over here costs me 75 Euros (about 68 USD). With my rifles, I find that the same amount of grains for the calibre of the gun works pretty well, and I have heard people on here say that this is as good a guide as any. 45 grains is perfectly adequate for me to punch a hole in a paper target accurately at 100 yards with either of my two Hawkens.

Click to expand...

Right you are, less is often a good solution for powder usage. The $25/pound I paid a couple weeks ago would calc to be about $62 with your prices. I'll never gripe again about the cost, and I'm sorry you have those extreme costs.

Matt85 said:

A while back I got into a debate with a number of forum members on what amounts of powder was too much. At the time we were talking about my 69 caliber pistol and my 70gr charge for bare ball and 65gr charge for patched ball. The common belief was that this was too much powder and most of it was simply being burnt outside of the barrel.

I recently started shooting an 8-bore rifle with black powder and this conversation came back to mind. My 8-bore is an original W.J. Jeffery double barrel rifle made on October 21st of either 1895 or 1896 (the ledger date is hard to read). Now the gun is a cartridge gun, so I won't go too much into the gun. However, this gun has short barrels at just 24" and the regulating load (provided by the original ledger) is 10 drams of powder under a ball.

So, my question is how can 70gr of powder be "too much" for an 8" 69 caliber barrel but 273gr is fine for a 24" 85 caliber barrel? I get 24" is three times longer than 8", but 273gr is more than three times the powder load! W.J. Jeffery was a major player in the hunting industry in the late 19th and early 20th century and would not have used a poor performing load for their gun. Black powder of the late 19th century would have been as potent, if not more potent than modern powder.

For the record, I've been using 274gr of Schuetzen 2F under an 85 caliber ball and it works great in my 8-bore double. The two barrels regulate well and hitting a pie plate out to 50 yards is no issue. The gun shoots even better with a 1200gr conical, but that is a story for another forum.

Your thoughts?

Click to expand...

Black Powder is a very specific formula; given today's technical advancements, I can't think that powder was 'better' back in the historical times.