Powder Pellets

[birdaug]

Where in in this great country can I find powder pellets for a souave 58 cal muzzle loader. Seams like I could find them somewhere????
Thanks,
birdaug

 

[tg]

I don't think the pellets were made for original/traditional type guns, and may not work well with out the rear igntion blast.

 

[Emet Huntsman]

I have a friend who tried pellets (I assume you're talking about Pyrodex or some similar?) in a traditional Hawken style rifle. They worked okay, but he was not as satisfied with the results as he was with BP.

 

[jtmattison]

I've never seen those horrid things in other than .50 cal.

HD

 

[renovato]

If you insist on using pellets in your gun (real black powder works way better), be careful not to crush them when you load. They don't come in .58 caliber and the .50 caliber ones will want to crumble if you don't load carefully. They aren't designed to be crumbled and will raise breech pressure, perhaps high enough to be dangerous. If you can't buy real black powder locally, you can easily mail order it and it's cheaper too. Otherwise, you might be better off using Pyrodex powder or something.

 

[Zonie]

Most of the pellets I've seen have a 'starter' of real black powder at the rear of them.
That starter is at the rear to work in in-lines or other guns where the nipples flame channel comes in from the rear.

Most of the sidelock guns work very poorly with the pellet style powder charges.
Use loose powder in your gun.

 

[BrownBear]

They come in 54 cal but not 58 cal.

I tried them just cuzz I hate dogma, but found they're a bad deal, at least in our climate.

Under the best of circumstances (brand new box just opened) ignition was okay with #11 caps.

After a couple of weeks sitting in my dry, heated storage area, ignition turned really erratic. Some delays, even a few failures to fire. Sounds changed from shot to shot and even got some fireballs. All pretty sure signs of lots of variation in ignition, even without turning on the chronograph.

Switching to musket primers helped eliminate the failures to fire, but I still got a couple of fireballs.

After two months in dry storage, the remainder of the pellets failed to fire. Period.

Those things were designed for best performance with #209 shotgun primers. They also have to be kept really, really, REALLY dry in storage if you live in a humid climate. The only way I can see that I could use them would be to store the box in a ziploc with desicant packs.

Way too much trouble and expense for something that isn't going to work as well as anything loose, whether real black or another sub.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

agreed, I had some (Pyrodex)for my '58 Remmy that 'went south' after I had them stored in my gun cabinet for few months.
seems they degraded to where it is difficult to ignite them when loaded.
convenient though for fast loads, but hardly worth the trouble to keep 'em airtight. I used them when hunting.
now I take along several brass shell cases (7.62X39 caseful) of pre-measured powder charge capped with plastic tubing caps

 

[wetpowder]

A true Mountain Man would never use them "pilgram turds" in his smoke pole. :nono: A lung full of real blackpowder smoke, now thats a high. :rotf:

 

[birdaug]

Thanks much guys, I really appreciate the feedback, has been very helpful.
birdaug

 

[omarick1948]

A true Mountain Man would never use them "pilgram turds" in his smoke pole. :nono: A lung full of real blackpowder smoke, now thats a high. :rotf:

That must be the reason ya don't see true Mountain Men anymore?...... :hmm: :shocked2: