4F in a rifle or revolver

[roundball]

gonna try about 15 gr 4f in my .32 caplock

Let us know what you experience...I'm no authority but from my own tests I wouldn't expect any remarkably different / dangerous pressures with that tiny charge.

 

[BrownBear]

Huh?

 

[robinsroost]

Wow, I certainly didn't intend to open a can of worms, when I asked this question. For the record, I have not used 4F, for anything other than priming powder in my .54 cal GPR flintlock, and probably won't. It just seemed, to me, to be a logical question, that needed to be asked...........Robin

 

[BrownBear]

...logical....

There's your problem! :rotf:

 

[rodwha]

:idunno:

That's what happens when people make blanket statements such as that. They include them all.

Some how I think they'd be a bit miffed...

 

[rodwha]

Miffed”¦ Actually I think some would be quite upset with your statement, as I am.

 

[Shine]

I have a friend that has a small percussion rifle made out of an old .22 barrel off an old stevens crackshot. He uses a measure made from .22 mag casing. He uses a measure of that full of 4ffg and a .22 airgun pellet. Kind of like a small mini ball. Accurate little thing. I watched him shoot a starling off a power line. Not enough was found to feed the cat. :grin: I hate starlings.

 

[rodwha]

I guess his beer can is off to the side, especially since he has about filled that small chamber up?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ptTCAcpbe0

 

[Dphar]

But the users of T7 don't want to hear that T7 is hot stuff designed for inlines and not really intended for sidelock guns and produces high pressures. This is how it produces velocity much higher than BP will in inlines and other BP firearms. If the projectile is moving faster then the pressure is higher.

I would also point out that I doubt that large revolver cartridges like 45 Colt used "Revolver" granulation. In fact these often shoot best with FF when handloaded.
The problem with fine grained powder is that the pressure RISE is hard on soft bullets and may deform them enough the effect accuracy. Too much pressure as the bullet is jumping the cyl gap can cause accuracy problems. But if shooting 10-15 grains of powder with a bullet and a paper/foil cartridge then its necessary to shoot a fast powder to get some effectiveness from it.
Commercial loaders like to use powders that give the performance with a lighter charge weight, powder is sold by the pound and if loading 10000000 rounds...
I would not use FFFF in a Colt Army since I know it will likely shoot best with FFF or maybe FF. FFF is the best trade off IMO decent performance and good to excellent accuracy on C&B revolvers.

Dan

 

[M. De Land]

I once believe that myth myself roundball and heard from another shooter that it was false so I tested it for myself in my wet box I use for bluing where I can control the heat and humidity.
4F did not pick up humidity any faster than 2 and 3F did in an open pan along side each other in lines. They all still worked after prolonged exposure to humidity that had reached the dew point that left condensation on the cabinet walls. I left the open pan in the wet box for and hour, pulled it out and test fired. I did this repeatedly for five 1 hour cycles and and the 4F actually fired better than the 2 and 3 F after the fifth hour of one hour cycles and test firings.
Also my cabinet has a circulating fan that insure evenness of humidity and temperature throughout.
The pan and flint was wiped clean after each test.
What happens is that once a rifle or pistol is fired the fouling from as little as one shot collects the humidity readily and often causes ignition failure not necessarily the powder.
It was flat out amazing to me how long the open powder in a pie tin, exposed to 100 percent humidity (dew point) would still readily fire in my flint pistol pan. Mike D.

 

[roundball]

4F did not pick up humidity any faster than 2 and 3F did in an open pan along side each other in lines.

LOL...well, I don't know about all your 'testing' but it's no myth in real life...you might want to recheck your "simulation"...sounds like you didn't have any humidity to speak of.

Years of hands on experience sitting hunting in the woods of North Carolina during periods of 70-95% humidity has clearly shown Goex 4F does indeed get affected by it...its simple to witness under actual conditions.

High humidity has such an effect on Goex 4F that it will cause the surface of the priming powder in the pan to develop a 'skin' over the top of it...similar to what the top of a cake looks like when its taken out of an oven.

As an example, sitting on a deer stand in high humidity I'll open the frizzen about every 15 minutes...slowly roll the Flintlock from one side to the other...before humidity takes it's toll, the 4F will easily slide back and forth in the pan, loose and dry kernels.

Then I'll find I have to tilt the Flintlock further and further before the prime will finally let go of the metal and start moving...and when it does, its no longer sloshing around loose and easy...what happens is that half of the 'cake' will break loose and slide, with an obvious shiny 'skin' on top of it.

So in real life, during very high humidity I've learned to refresh the prime every 20-30 minutes...otherwise I refresh it every hour on the hour.

 

[BrownBear]

That pretty much reflects my experience. We do a lot of our hunting in the rain, and 4f is a non-starter in the pan.

Even if I was willing to use 4f in a bore, I'd still have to carry 3f for the pan. I don't like to carry separate horn and charger, so it's just not for me.

I gave away my last two cans of 4f, and proud to see them go. Others mileage will most certainly vary, and they're welcome to their own way of doing things.

 

[M. De Land]

How do you know it wouldn't fire if you changed it from the appearance?
I think the problem is with the sparking not the powder. If the flint or frizzen is damp than spark generation being inhibited is most likely the culprit not the powder absorption of moisture.
As I said, in the powder test I did, the cabinet wall was covered with water droplets and the air was being circulated. It was impossible for the powder to avoid the humidity and still it did not absorb enough to make it miss fire after 5 hours of exposure. It was retrieved from the cabinet and tested after each hour of exposure and then put back into the wet cabinet until the next hour. This went on for five cycles.
The test for each granulation was done in a clean and dry flint pistol and the 4 F never once failed to fire. The 3 F was slow to fire on two occasions in the fifth hour of testing but it still ignited.
The difference in my opinion is the humidity accumulation on the flint and frizzen thus impeding spark generation, not the powder, as is usually blamed. Mike D

 

[Billnpatti]

I'm reminded of what Davy Crockett used to say "Be sure you're right, then go ahead." :hatsoff:

 

[hanshi]

Interestingly, I've never experienced 4F getting wet in the pan unless the gun had already been fired. I've been out in rain, humidity and fog while hunting with nary a problem. But just fire the gun once and major problems. I once went to a rendezvous on a day that was extremely humid. I fired all targets on the trail walk and had no problems with the prime - I guess because there wasn't that much elapsed time between stations. Afterwards when I started cleaning my rifle, the bore was a soupy mess and liquid actually dripped out the muzzle. The pan was gloopy, too. but except for a fired gun the pan (4F) stayed dry until fired.

 

[roundball]

How do you know it wouldn't fire if you changed it from the appearance?

Uhhhh...because I've been at this for a while...have had failures...and fully understand cause & affect relationships, etc. By contrast, you just admitted you have no personal experience with it...so please...go get a few years hands on experience...keyboard theory means nothing.

NOTE: You can also check with your next door neighbor BrownBear there in Alaska, he lives and actually goes out hunting all the time so he too has real life experience hunting 4F in wet / high humidity conditions

 

[Zonie]

When I did my experiment and wrote the results in "Is It Soup Yet?", I got about the same answers that you did.

4F powder on a clean surface and subjected to 100 percent humidity for over 20 hours did not get "soupy" but it did clump together somewhat like roundball mentions.

My test of this still damp but lumpy 4F proved it would fire nicely.

I also tested the 4F powder by placing it on a powder fouled surface.

The fouling gathered the humidity and transferred it to the loose powder to such an extent that the now wet powder failed to ignite.

Based on this I decided that any fouling in the pan or on the underside of the closed frizzen could cause the 4F powder to fail.

Here's a link to my write-up.
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/195260/post/283953/fromsearch/1/

 

[M. De Land]

I'm reminded of an old Glazier story (glass cutter and installer) insisting that the way he did a certain technique was correct even in the face of new and better evidence.The old,(I've been doing it this way for 40 year sonny)routine. Trouble was he had been wrong for those whole 40 years as well!
His observations were based on a faulty premise that he had embraced his whole career and refused to give up, even though he could have learned a better way and yet his pride kept him bound in the chains of ignorance. Mike D.

 

[rodwha]

I'm just completely appalled by the quickness to not just disrespect one person, but a whole generation of people with such lowly comments as "Here, hold my beer”¦" Knowing that the intent is some drunken foolishness that only idiots would conceive of doing. It's quite offensive!

 

[M. De Land]

I apologize for the offense.I am very often to blunt! The truth often does that when our pet ideas are proven to be false but it could be said in a more palatable way than I have done.
I also believed the same misinformation for many of my 64 years and it was based on ignorance, assumption and faulty premise.
Is it better to go on believing and passing along an untruth or to learn the reality and making a change? Mike D.