Charge measuring

[zimmerstutzen]

Measuring powder charges is probably one of the most inconsistent loading techniques for some shooters. How many of you have ever tested your consistency of measuring powder for your gun?

Stand as you normally do at the range and measure five charges, pouring them into separate containers (Obviously don't smoke or have sparks near by) Then one by one, measure those charges on a reloading scale to see how consistent you are.

An old timer suggested I do that many years ago. Back the first time, my 70 grain loads varied by about 3 grains. Pretty sloppy! I haven't repeated it in years. Did it Sunday afternoon with 2fg Goex.

 

[bpd303]

I've checked mine like that several times over the years. Always pretty consistent.

My biggest problem is when pouring the charge down the bore, several grains seem to always get stuck on the muzzle especially if it's windy. I really need one of those small funnels.

 

[George]

I can usually get within a couple of grains, plus or minus. For me, as a hunter, that is of little consequence. I've proven to myself many times that the change in trajectory from such a variance is well within my shooting error. Same thing for weighing balls, a few grains plus or minus has a very small effect, not important in the field.

I still work hard to be consistent in my powder measuring, entertain myself by weighing balls to close tolerance, but I know i'm mostly kidding myself.

The game boys play. :grin:

Spence

 

[Vaino]

Have reloaded CF cartridges since I was 15 yrs old....my parents indulged me in this pastime because it would keep me off street corners. They succeeded.

By the time I was an adult and until not too many years ago, I reloaded 5-8 different CF cartridges for extreme accuracy...is there any other kind?

After building my first MLer and having assembled a TC Hawken kit, I was amazed at how easily I achieved small groups w/ the above 2 rifles.

Because of my previous CF experience, I weighed the charges and one day realized that because of the low pressure generated by BP, weighing was not req'd for "head hitting" squirrels.

Took my powder measure and varied the amount of "taps" to throw a consistent charge which were checked by weighing on my ultra sensive scale.

Having done that, no longer do I weigh any charges.....the powder measure throws w/in 4 grs and the accuracy is all that is needed for my hunting.

My most accurate rifle was a 19 lb bench rifle in .22/.250 w/ a 20 power Unertl 'scope. After spending a year developing the most accurate load, the Mlers surprised me by producing highly accrate loads w/o all the complications.....really like to keep things simple......Fred

 

[jamesthomas]

Not worried about it. :youcrazy:

 

[nchawkeye]

Never weighed balls or powder, do well enough without it...

 

[tenngun]

My chargers are antler or wood, and I used salt to mesure out my charge and to mark it before cutting off the top. You say 3 grain difference, I hope mine are that good. A lot of the old times seam to have poured powder in to thier palm, how close did they come shot to shot?
I saw justin wilson the cajon cook back in the 70s threw 1,1 1/2, 2 and 3 tsp of salt on his tv cooking show by pouring in his hand. I guess it comes down to what you need your gun to do, The more consistant the better shooting, but hand made chargers give me a taste of the past.

 

[longcruise]

Did extensive testing and found that my 90 gr measure with a leveling funnel came in at an extreme spread of just over 2 gr. When the measure was tapped to settle the charge, the spread went down.

Preweighed charges showed no measurable group improvement. Decided life is too short to worry about it

 

[necchi]

My experience is exactly the same as marmontslayer, only with 70grns.
The spread was 2gr's max, and tapping it went down.
Now I don't bother and don't even tap, I just pour.
I do notice a difference in the groups when I'm down to the bottom of the jug of powder and start getting a lot of the "shake"/finings of the powder. I won't use it if I'm in stiff competition and burn that stuff up on range time.

 

[Kapow]

It's not the weight that matters but the way you pour it down the barrel... :stir:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

An old timer suggested I do that many years ago. Back the first time, my 70 grain loads varied by about 3 grains. Pretty sloppy! I haven't repeated it in years. Did it Sunday afternoon with 2fg Goex.

If you were talking smokless powder and target shooting at 600-1000 yards, then yes very sloppy...

But the medium is black powder, and 3 grains or less variation may not have a very significant effect on muzzle velocity, plus the fact that most folks do not shoot beyond 100 yards for meat or targets.

Probably better to do some test pours, note the variations, and then chronograph the results from your firearm to see if it makes much of a difference in MV, and then look at the grouping downrange.


LD

 

[Rifleman1776]

Using a charger is pretty consistent. Some have mentioned 2-3 grains variance. I believe it is actually much less for a practiced shooter. Lately I have been using the cut-off style brass measure and believe that would make for very consistent measures.
If you want to learn how to get really nutso :youcrazy: obsessed consistent with measures to watch the slug gun shooters sometime. :shocked2:

 

[ohio ramrod]

I did some testing a few years back when I won some KIK powder just to compare it to my usual Geox. While I did not weigh the charge I did run chrony tests on velocity. I found that with my horn measure and a "finger scrape" to level,my muzzle velocities were with in 25 fps from high to low for five shots. :idunno: :idunno: Just for the record the geox was 40fps.from high to low. :idunno: :hmm:

 

[BrownBear]

I did some fiddling, fool yourself and call it "testing" if you want to think I did it scientifically.

But I found lots more variation in charges from "fat" measures compared to skinny ones. My guess is that it comes down to how level is level as you finish measuring a charge, with the amount of variation being larger on the larger surface of a fat measure, compared to a skinny one. If you follow that thinking.

I've also noticed a lot less tendency to spill powder when going to the bore with a skinny measure.

Short and fat is certainly less bulky than long and skinny, but if you care about consistent measuring the convenience comes at a price.

Of course, there's the bigger question of whether or not more consistent measuring made the paper holes closer. Certainly not with larger charges used for hunting. Mebbe so with lighter target loads, but those are for someone else to talk about.

 

[Billnpatti]

I, too, was curious about that and I ran a test to determine how accurate my powder measuring was. I used a Treso adjustable powder measure with a swing over funnel. To weigh my powder charges, I used a Lyman LE-300 electronic scale. First, I measured 10 charges of each setting of my powder measure. I used settings ranging from a low of 55 grains to a high of 85 grains in 5 grain increments. The powder used for this experiment was Goex 3f. I measured my powder by carefully filling the measure and scraping off the excess with the funnel. I made sure not to jiggle or shake the measure to settle the powder in any way. Then I weighed each charge on the scale to see what the exact amount of powder was. The results follow:

volume **avg. weight **std. dev.

55gr******53.59gr******0.3gr
60gr******58.13gr******0.2gr
65gr******63.24gr******0.2gr
70gr******67.84gr******0.2gr
75gr******72.98gr******0.1gr
80gr******76.63gr******0.3gr
85gr******84.06gr******0.2gr

Next, I wanted to determine how much difference it made if I tapped the side of the measure to settle the charge in the measure before scraping off the excess powder. To do this, I chose a powder setting of 80 grains. I used the same measure and scale to do this test. I measured 10 charges of Goex 3f powder, settling each charge by tapping on the side of the measure with my finger tips until the powder quit settling and there was a small mound left on top to scrape off. I found that with a setting of 80 grains, I got an average of 80.42 grains by weight with a standard deviation of 0.2 grains.

I concluded that no matter whether you settled the powder or not, if the measurement was made carefully and consistently, the powder charge will not vary significantly. At least, not enough to make any difference in accuracy. However, by settling the powder in the measure, you will get much closer to the amount of powder indicated by the setting on the powder measure.

Note: I had to use asterisks to separate my headings and my data because the program wanted to run everything together.

 

[Melnic]

I'm a reloader, but I'm new (since last fall) ML shooter. I'm learning something new almost every week thanks to this forum and other methods.
One thing we do in the CF reloading is the OCW method. You shoot different loads but you pick the load that is in the middle of 3 loads that all have nearly the same Point of Impact. The idea is that if you use a load that is tolerant of powder changes, your groups will be consistent with other environmental changes and the like.

I think if your load is not sensitive to powder changes, then well, measuring becomes less of an issue.

I'm personally weighing all of my charges. But I'm doing it out of convenience at the range. Loading is faster and cleaner loading into little plastic vials. Plus I can see that all the powder went in. The vials are small and easy to aim into the muzzle. I weigh at home cause weighing on the scale is quick and clean and I already have the stuff from CF reloading. I will take the powder and weigh 50grains (by volume) about 5 times, take the average then I know the ratio. If I want I can say take a 70 grain (by volume) load and weigh that (BP is pretty close to 1:1). Be careful using weight cause many subs are lighter and if you weigh 100 grains of Sub, you may end up with 140 grains by volume of it and suffer the consequences. I have more time at night than I do at the range. In the summer, I have 2 1/2 hour sessions a morning (30 mins between cease fire) then I have to get to work.

When reloading CF using a volumetric powder dispenser, constancy is key. How much you have in the measure, how much you rotate the handle, any taps etc. I'm sure the same thing goes with BP dispensers. Also the size of the grains and brand etc.
But if your load is tolerant, not much to worry about as far as the powder is there?

 

[Billnpatti]

Traditionally, black powder is measured by volume, not weight. The measure is calibrated to deliver a specific amount of powder. Actually, I do not know what granulation of powder the measures are calibrated with but if one measures a set volume of the different granulations, the actual weight will vary. So, we set our measures to the 80 grain setting, for instance. A person may have spent the time to determine that 80 grains gives him the best accuracy or he may have just selected that amount of powder because someone told him that was the best amount. At any rate, as long as he uses that setting consistently, it actually makes no difference what the actual weight is, he will say that he is using 80 grains. If he changes to one of the substitutes, he should expect to get similar ballistics from the substitute that he did from the black powder even though the actual weight will be significantly less. That is why, when using any of the substitutes, you do not use a given weight of the substitute that is equal to the weight of black powder, but rather, you use a "volume equivalent" of the black powder charge.

Modern smokeless powders are, as you know, progressive burning powders. Because of that, small incremental differences in the actual weight of the powder makes a significant difference in the ballistics. On the other hand, black powder is not a progressive burning powder and, therefore, does not produce the same significant ballistic changes with slight variations in powder weight. This is why one can simply use a particular volume of powder and as long as his measurements are consistently done, he can expect to have no significant changes in the ballistics.

Bottom line is weigh if you wish, it certainly doesn't hurt but you can just as well simply use a set volume providing your measurements are done in a consistent manner.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Thanks for the testing.
I believe you proved consistency in how we load is what is important.

 

[larry wv]

I have always noticed that my finger took a bit of extra powder off the measure because it is flesh and not solid. A hard surface (blade?)does a better job of being square with the top instead of slightly dished. I don't worry about it either way. It's about as scientific as BBs fiddling. Larry

 

[hoochiepapa]

I really don't think it matters. With cf's, yes, but not with blackpowder. I "experimented", and found there was not ,much difference, I still couldn't hit anything. :shake: