Elephant powder, how good?

[rickpa]

The FIL of a friend passed away recently and my friend has to sell his ML accessories. The FIL mostly shot the unmentionable rifles but he did have 7 or 8 cans of 2 F Elephant powder....I've never used Elephant, always made sure I had enough DuPont or later GOEX on hand but he's willing to give it to me. I got a pound just to try and after comparing it with my GOEX 2F and 3F it looks like Elephant falls in between the two as far as grain size goes. Haven't had a chance to actually shoot it yet, just got it last night........Has any one had experience with this powder? Clean burning? Accurate? I would take the rest of the powder if it's worth shooting..........Edit.... I informed him it's illegal for him to sell the powder if I don't take it. Thanks in advance.

 

[Rudyard]

At the risk of getting persued by the Elephant Company. I found Elephant the worst powder I've known. needed more, shot foul & wouldn't want anymore . It could suit some guns of other shooters but didn't perform for me .reenactors wont care so it will go no doubt . Rudyard

 

[Cruzatte]

My experience mirrors that of Rudyard's. The stuff was the dirtiest, most fouling stuff I've ever used. I didn't like it at all.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

At the risk of getting persued by the Elephant Company. I found Elephant the worst powder I've known. needed more, shot foul & wouldn't want anymore . It could suit some guns of other shooters but didn't perform for me .reenactors wont care so it will go no doubt . Rudyard

That would be a good trick for Elephant, since they are now defunct.

They morphed into Diamondback powder..., still filthy.

Elephant brand powder...,

LD

 

[Leadball loader]

It would seem to me that free powder is not to be rejected simply because you have to clean more often. It will still give you the enjoyment of Muzzleloading and you can save the better quality stuff for real precise shooting.
I used a couple cans years ago and do not recall any issues with shooting it.
Just my thoughts on elephant.
LBL

 

[tenngun]

I had several pounds. Would fill a cup a quarter full, then another cup with GO a quarter. Place a table spoon full of elephant, then another quarter of GO, another tablespoon of elephant. Repeat till I have a cup.
Pour in to horn.
Shake horn well when using. It’s mixed one in four Elephant three parts GO
I swab between shots and never had any trouble with it.

 

[hanshi]

Years back I used a fair amount of Elephant in my guns. While not the finest powder it is black powder and it works. I shot targets, killed deer and had no complaints. Use it and enjoy!

 

[Ames]

Fill your cannon once a year, 4th of July, and booooom.
You will need the other 364 to clean the cannon.

 

[Zonie]

I never had a problem getting it to fire but if it was being used as a main powder charge, it did leave a lot more fouling than any other black powder I ever used.

Mad Max wrote that one of the reasons for this is, Elephant did not debark the wood they used to make their charcoal so the charcoal would leave a lot of unburned material behind. Supposedly they changed their methods at his urging and their powder improved. That might be the reason some people say they didn't have a problem with fouling while others, like me, did.

In any case, Elephant powder is weaker than powders like GOEX. This is proven by looking at the Lyman "BLACK POWDER HANDBOOK & LOADING MANUAL" 2nd Ed.

Taking just one example in a .45 caliber barrel shooting a patched roundball,
GOEX 3Fg: 60 grains = 1719 fps, 70 grains = 1790 fps, 80 grains = 1861 fps
Elephant 3Fg: 60 grains = 1609 fps, 70 grains = 7173 fps, 80 grains = 1817 fps

 

[Rudyard]

If you consider making smoke the point of shooting muzzle loaders then fine. But if you have aberrant notions of getting consistency and reliable performance then Elephant didn't rate .Never look a gift horse in the mouth, Ten guns option seems to improuve it but for my records it got more failures as a powder than it was worth used straight as expected . Rudyard

 

[rickpa]

Gentlemen, thank you for your replies. Since I already have a pound of it I might experiment with mixing small amounts of Goex and Elephant together to see the result. I am more interested in accuracy and performance than making smoke. The date on the can is 2000 if that's any indication of how it will act. Thanks again.

 

[toot]

black is Beautiful & ELEPHANTS are nice!

 

[Cowboy]

 

[Ranch 13]

If you can figure out how to deal with the fouling, it will shoot ok, velocity is on the low side. But hey free powder is free powder, and will give you something new to play with.

 

[Cowboy]

It is nasty stuff and leaves a lot more residue compared to Swiss, Goex. I know that one for a fact my friend.

Want to be sure to give the muzzleloader a thorough cleaning above routine cleaning after shooting Elephant brand.

Respectfully, Cowboy

 

[dave951]

Give it to a reenactor you don't like too much

 

[Kansas Kid]

Won a lot of matches with Elephant. Is or was it the best,no. Is it real black powder that works, yes it is. No reason not to use it straight up.

 

[Cowboy]

Give it to a reenactor you don't like too much

Oh! Reenactment Powder is in another topic that was started. I have yet to go to the gentleman’s house? Will be going on the 18th of this month to check out 25 lb’s of that stuff. If I buy I’ll shoot it up too! LOL. ( Seriously)

Respectfully, Cowboy

 

[Kansas Jake]

If it was given to me I would shoot it and deal with the fouling/cleaning issue. That is a lot of powder and a lot of shooting. What could be bad about that?

 

[ZUG]

Early manufactured Elephant powder was dirty and somewhat weaker than GOEX because of the charcoal being used. a few years later they changed to a better quality of charcoal during manufacturing process and those lots were MUCH better and cleaner. Not long after that they went out of business. You must remember that after the GOEX plant was destroyed by an explosion Elephant powder was the only black powder you could get.

Here is some info that will tell the story: Taken from "The Cherrytree Family History of Black Powder"

"The first work with this method of measuring bore fouling involved a look at 3 years production of Elephant black powder. Knowing the little differences in the formulation and processing of the three different production run there were gut feelings as to what one might find.

The test rifle selected for this work is the same rifle used to do chronograph work with 3f powders. A Tennessee Valley Manufacturing (TVM) Southern Mountain Rifle in .45 caliber with a 35.25 inch internal length barrel and a flat face breech plug. With flintlock ignition. The balls used were .440 Speer with shooting patches cut from .020" #40 cotton drill which are then lubed with Lehigh Valley Shooting Patch Lubricant.

In the first round of testing using Elephant 3Fg.
1998 production, 3.8% of the original charge weight as recovered bore fouling.
1999 production, 2.3% of the original charge weight as recovered bore fouling.
2000 production, 2.5% of the original charge weight as recovered bore fouling.

The 1998 lots of Elephant had been noted for an excessive amount of dust and fines. This excess of dust and fines contribute materially to bore fouling in the guns.
The 1999 lots of Elephant came to be known as the "factory socked" Elephant. The plant in Brazil putting a lot of effort into cleaning the powder just prior to it being packaged. They had also speeded up the burn rate from that of a musket powder to that of a rifle powder. The increased burn rate and elimination of dust and fines giving the reduction in bore fouling.
The 2000 lots of Elephant were prepared with a charcoal having a slightly higher fixed carbon content than the charcoal used in the 1999 production. As later testing showed, the 0.2% difference may reflect the slight difference in charcoal or be the level of experimental error in this type of test method. But the difference in the results shown in the 1999 versus 1998 production become clearly visible when it comes to dealing with the fouling left by the two powders.
Over the past 5 or 6 years Elephant has advertised that they were constantly making efforts to reduce bore fouling with their powder. This is simply another form of proof of that claim."