how much powder for lil kid?

[Slake]

I've taught many kids how to shoot and for the most part they were all teens or preteens so we used 50 grs or so and all seemes fine. I'm faced with turning a 7 yer old on to it and have no small cal rifles, we'll be shooting 50's. How low can I go and still have a good shot so the kid can be accurate at 25 yd? This kid a small framed girl that wants to try the pee wee class at a shoot

 

[JWP]

If I were you, I would take the gun to the practice range and see just what you are able to drop to and the re-coil that your getting. You don't want to practice using the girl and possibly turn her off to blackpowder shooting.
Alot depends on the gun (actual weight of the gun)and re-coil with different loads.
Hope this helps :hatsoff:

 

[Roy]

You could easily take it to 30 to 35 grains pretty easy. :thumbsup:

 

[Rebel]

Hey Roy, if you do it easy easily, doesn't that make it difficult? :grin:

 

[crgabel]

My grandson shoots my 50 cal using 35 gr ,and his 40cal at 30 gr. He has no problem with it and has a real good time shooting.
Craig

 

[Big John]

Taught my wife to shoot my .50cal with 30gr. for 25yds. and 40gr. for 50yds. Nothing bad for recoil and can shoot 10's right away.

 

[bwhoffman]

I shot my 50 last weekend at the 25yd aggregate target using 25gr 3F goex, merely for bowel movements and high pitched laughing!(sounds like pits&giggles)
no recoil tospeak of, dang good group! (most touching) 22 mags give more reaction than this load did! figure were just punching paper and not doing heart/lung shots

FWIW,

Brett

 

[musketman]

how much powder for lil kid?

This also brings up another question, how much powder should a kid carry in a horn/flask if they were allowed to do so while hunting/shooting?

Quarter full, more, less?

(This question is based on a pre-teen/teen showing enough reasonability to properly load and handle a muzzleloading firearm while adhearing to the safety guidelines)

 

[Bountyhunter]

I use 38 grains of FFFg in my .45 Colt. Under a 270 gr soft lead bullet, that is a heck of a load. That is the old Elmer Keith load. Way too much for such a fragile child.

I got to thinkin and dug out some info here that is pretty amazing. Now before we get into it, the thing we dont know is what rifle that you're planning on using, and we do not know how it is breeched. So, do you have a ridge on the inside that is gonna prevent the ball from seating down on the powder if we go too low? That you are going to have to check out to see just how low you can go.

Now here is the neat stuff. I have an old book on .45-70 original loads. They use a gallery load for the .45 using a round ball for OUTDOOR practice that may be what you are looking for. Dont forget to check that chamber volume, cause if'n ya get some air space in there, its on you, not on me. You might want to put some filler on top of the powder. Using a lubricated .457 round ball with no patch, and 7.5 grains of 3Fg, they were getting 680 fps. With 10 grains of 3FG, 815 fps. That was producing 2-3" groups at 50 yards. (They were pushing that RB down into the cartridge and jumpin it into the rifling, so they didnt have to worry about the chamber. They did have problems with air spaces if they did not twist the ball when they pushed it in to get the air out from under it.)

INDOOR loads of four to six grains were commonly used with 5 grains of FFg yielding 570 fps, and 5 grains of FFFg yielding 630 fps. This load with unpatched .45 RB yielded 1 to 1-1/2" groups at 75 feet with no smoke and very little sound.

They used 230 gr pistol bullets over 20 grains of 3Fg for 870 fps. 25 gr-950, and 30gr-1020. These loads being used at 50 and 100 yards for practice.

The only thing that would bother me here is whether you can load clear to the bottom of your chamber. That is a must check. But, this sure clears up some loads and velocities. I realize that you are talkin about a .50, so I suppose that it would be a little slower than the .45, but this information should get you into the ball park.

If'n you guys were to use some filler, what would you use, corn meal? I'd sure patch that ball also, to keep from leading the barrel. They said that 25 shots will lead the snot outta your barrel and then you gotta clean it good. But, you can go as low as it will push the ball out the barrel. It looks like your sweet spot is going to be between 10 and 25 grains of 3Fg.

Hope this helps.

Bill

 

[roo shooter]

My 10 year old daughter shot my .50 Hawken at 25 yards with a .490 ball, .012 patch and 20 grains of Wanno 3F, still kicked a bit for her but she thought it was great fun.

 

[Roy]

38 grains in a pistol is a healthy load I agree, but in most rifles the weight is there to tame a lot of that down. I believe Slake was asking about consistant accuracy as well, and I was partially addressing that too. Not saying it is the lowest possible charge in a .50 to obtain accuracy, just thats what I have had luck with in the past. Now his gun may shoot well with half of what my guns did, who knows?

 

[Bountyhunter]

Yes, those loads I listed are derived from Frankfort Arsenal tests for gallery practice. Those 1 to 1-1/2" groups at 75 feet would be pretty consistently accurate for a 7 year old, dont ya think?

There isnt any doubt that 30 grains or so would work. I have used that in my .53 for plinkin. I just got to thinkin that pistol loads might work good for the little ones and then remembered reading about these gallery loads. It just shows that you should be able to tune them down to where the little one is comfortable with it, and do it safely. 5 grains is not a very large volume of powder but it still gives decent 25 yard accuracy. Or, you could tune it up to whatever she would like. I just thought it was interesting, because my granddaughter is wanting to shoot, and that gives me a place to start with her.

 

[peter]

Ran low on powder once so I started reducing my load. Went from 80 gr. 2f down to 20gr. 3f, and noticed a varying recoil that at some reduced loads was very harsh, much worse at 50 gr. than at 80 or 30gr..stopped at 20 gr. only because thats the lowest my measure would go. Another effect was shooting off to one side at certain loads and dead on at other loads. I now shoot with 20 gr 3f and 300gr lee real out of a 54 cal Lyman GPR with a hunter barrel. Kicks like a bb gun. Never had a paper target run away yet.