4f bp

[Black Powder]

A friend just gave me 2 cans of 4f powder and 3 cans of pyrodex.I can use the pyrodex in my 58 Remingtons. But 2lbs of 4f is alot of pan primer. Is there any other use for 4f? Also Does anyone know the shelf life of pyrodex? Thanks B. P.

 

[roundball]

A friend just gave me 2 cans of 4f powder and 3 cans of pyrodex.I can use the pyrodex in my 58 Remingtons. But 2lbs of 4f is alot of pan primer. Is there any other use for 4f? Also Does anyone know the shelf life of pyrodex? Thanks B. P.

I normally use Goex but had a spare can of Elephant 4F last year and decided to experiment with it as main charges in some Flintlocks.

30/40/50grns of 4F proved to be excellent main charges with round balls in various calibers, extremely accurate, clean burning, almost no trace of fouling residue.

A couple of things:
1)
If you seat a patched ball as fast and firmly as normal the compressed air will blow most of the fine 4F out of the vent...I plugged the vent with a pipe cleaner every time and seated the ball slowly;

2)I would only use it as a main charge at the range...4F attracts moisture so easily that it might become contaminated if you tried to use it for hunting, having it in the bore a long time.

Probably not something you'd want to fool with routinely, but just to use up the powder, 30/40/50grn main charges are excellent, with 40grns being a good middle of the road charge.

 

[JWP]

If I were determined to use 4f as a main charge - I would cut my load down by a third, maybe even half. Just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions :bull:

 

[whitetrash078]

You could send it to me so that it would get disposed of properly :haha:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Why not trade it to another flint shooter, who needs a pound of it to last a lifetime of shooting, for FFFg or FFg powder that you can use now in your gun? Are you totally out of touch with other BP shooters? Usually, you can post a notice on a club bulletin board announcing that you have 4Fg powder to trade for whatever you want and you will get a call, and maybe a new hunting buddy.

 

[faw3]

TO Anyone... ALL :bull: aside this old guy did work up loads over 30 years useing 4f and had some unreal results in his book, but he never used it in a flintlock only USA made CVA Mountain rifles Id be guessing but he was on to WEIGHT OF ABOUT 35 to 40 grs with a round ball and DID kill a deer at a bit over 200yards. (know his wife it is a true story) Fred :hatsoff: still Id watch it, bevel Brothers tryed it + it didnt work as good they used to much and had a vent hole to lose press ect from. I wouldnt if I was you, I did with a 54 CVA and it worked great!!! FRED :hatsoff:

 

[Boomer]

4f also works well in BP revolvers. You will notices a mite more jump & report. I assume shes pushing the ball faster but never shot one over a chrony.
I went through 2 cans of 4f w/ my 1860 & 1851 with no ill effects.
I probably wouldnt recomend it with brass frames though.

If you are shooting a 1858 I wouldnt be the least bit concerned. Its amazing how much extra strenght that top strap adds.

 

IMHO you guys are playing with fire [so to speak]. Not long ago, ffg was classed as rifle powder, fffg as pistol powder and ffffg as priming powder [we shoot fg in our cannons]. ffffg develops much higher pressures and is NOT recommended as a rifle or pistol powder. Use it at your own risk [and not around me, please].

 

[paulvallandigham]

Guys I really do have to agree with Mike Roberts. 4Fg powder generates very high pressures very quickly. That is why it is not recommended by GOEX for use in anyyhing other than as priming powder. I would not worry so much about velocity, as pressure. Its the pressure that will wear out the metal( have you heard of metal fatique?) in a cylinder, and cause it to burst. I am less concerned about a barrel bursting these days, simply because the alloys used, but that vent liner may not stay in place, and I have seen nipples take an unexpected hike even with 3Fg powder!

Guys who use BP as a " booster " to ignite subs are using a trick that was used in cartridge guns when the primers were not all that good( mercury fulminate.) But a cartridge has its own tensile strength, to add to the chamber to protect the gun and shooter from excess pressures in the chamber, and of course, a brass casing is a " closed " system, where neither flintlocks, or really, percussion caps are.( You have only the weight of the mainspring holding the hammer on the nipple to keep the gases in the chamber from venting out the nipple. )

I cannot recommend to other shooters, and to new shooters that they ever use 4Fg powder in their barrels, even in percussion guns. That is like using large loads of Bullseye smokeless powder in a gun, mistaking it for Unique, or green dot, or 2400, or some of the other flake powders. I have seen modern magnum revolver cylinders burst using this propellant. I can assure you that the cylinders on BP replica revolvers are not heat treated, nor made from the same steels as are magnum revolvers.

Remember, in addition to the hole in the back of each cylinder for the individual nipple, there are cylinder bolt cuts in the walls of the cylinder at the side of each chamber, making a very thin spot in the wall where that cylinder bolt notch is cut. If the cylinder is going to burst, that is most likely where it begins. The next place will be at the rear, blowing out the nipple where the threads are either improperly cut, or worn down through corrosion.

The shooter is standing behind that nipple. His hand is underneath that cylinder bolt notch. On a Colt 1851 Navy revolver, only the face of the hammer is between the shooter's face and that nipple coming loose.

 

[roundball]

Well, for sure, pressure has to be managed but as long as the charges are kept down low so there's no elevated pressure spike, it's still just black powder.

For my experiments I started with a .58cal rifle so it would have the largest bore/volume I had at the time, in consideration of pressure.

20grns was like shooting a BB gun / unusable;
30grns barely had any noticeable recoil at all;
40grns felt like a 50grn 3F target load;
50grns felt like a 70grn load;

Nothing about them were 'violent' or anything that would give you pause.

But I agree at some point enough 4F could cause an unsafe pressure spike, and based upon my own hands-on testing in good quality strong TC or GM octagon barrels decided, ifr I used any agian in the future I'd approach it as follows:

45cal = 30/40grns
50cal = 30/40grns
54/58cal = 40/50grns
With 40grns being a good all around choice for all of mine, just burning it up plinking at the range.

 

[Deadeye]

:hatsoff:

 

I don't know of any responsible manufacturer of either BP or MLers that condones the use of ffffg in rifles or shotguns. I don't know if there is an exact correspondence, but on BP cartridge discussion sites there are several recent topics on the use of ffffg in BP cartridges--with most people not recommending it even in modern strong actions. One story is that the makers of a modern Sharps rifle blew one up trying 4fg in a 40-70 rifle--it blew on the 4th cartridge loaded. According to old research BP is capable of producing over 86,000 psi pressures under "ideal" conditions. Many BP MLing rifles on the market today may have good steel, but they still have points of weakness in breech threads, nipples, etc. I don't think ffffg is a good idea as a main load. Play with it outside, keep the kids inside and warn me first so I can clear out.

 

[54ball]

Hello,
CVA and Thompson Center still cast a long shadow today with traditional and modern BP shooters. Their sidelock guns were THE muzzleloders of a generation, yes a generation ago. The CVA sidelocks are gone and Thompsons are in limited production. What remains from this era is the standard 2ff powder measure and the BP load books from this time.
The blackpowder load manuals spoon fed an uneducated public. The 2ff measure was standard, why confuse everybody with weights vs. volume vs. ffg vs. ffffg vs. Pyrodex and get people blown up in the process. They came out with simple and safe data that was safe then and now. The K.I.S.S. principle prevailed. It does raise some questions though.
Black powder is a mixture of sulfur,saltpeter and charcoal. When it is manufactured, the powder is sifted through a series of screens to get the different granulations. What makes fffg and especially ffffg so powerful? Is it because of the smaller granules, more air or oxygen is available around it to make it burn with more pressure? Wait a minute, the saltpeter provides the O2 and the sulfur and charcoal the fuel. There should be no differece in a grain of 4f vs. a grain of 1f by ratio of components. Fg should have more air around it than ffg. Here lies the key at least in my mind. The reason fffg and ffffg seem so powerful is because they are smaller and they compact. In a ffg volume measure, 80 grains of fffg may actually be 100 true grains by weight, thus having more pressure than 80 true grains ffg. Conversely ffff in a 80 grain ffg measure may be 150 plus grains by weight. This is close to a proof load. Does this explain the higher pressure? Is Roundball's 40 grain of ffffg load really just a 70 or 80 grain BP load by weight? :hmm:

 

I would submit that the main factor is the small granulation of the 4fg powder--giving a much greater surface area, speeding ignition.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

I have done some experimenting using 4f in a '58 Rem. and a Ruger OA, but just as a sort of priming charge as I dump a .25 acp caseful before the 3f top-off. Has noticeably more recoil. I haven't worked up the nerve to use a .32 acp caseful - yet. But I'm certain the Ruger will handle it no problem, and the '58 more than likely, seems I saw a post about someone that used 4f no problem in a C&P revolver, but I would have to see it to beleive it.

 

[Black Powder]

Thanks for all the replies. I remembered my neighbors father is a flinter so I'll give him 1 can. The guys I shoot with are all percussion shooters, and I can't convert them. Thanks again, B. P.

 

[faw3]

Im going to have to dig out this guys book some day he did all his by weight and 45 to 50 grs sounds like his top loads. He does hold 5 patentens on this shell/loader with 4f as the powder.???? I still wouldnt recomend it to anyone, just because Ive done it with a rifle I didnt care for at the time. I only shoot 2f out of the CVA Mountain the last ? 10 ? years after its workhorse as a 4f shooter and it shoots great.Fred :hatsoff: