Powder vs Pellets vs Substitute

[bavarialand]

Now that a couple of decades have past since the introduction of Black powder Substitutes. have they "improved" the reliability? I seem to remember Triple 7 always seemed to fowl and the pellets had "iffy" ignition in cap or flint locks.

since Black Powder is an explosive, it seems it is getting harder to find. and I know one shop that even wants the buyer to get a NCIC check before buying it.

thank for the info.
Dave

 

[don hepler]

I shoot flintlock rifles and pistols, and I also shoot cap lock rifles and pistols. With the flintlocks, the spark is so critical to ignition, that only the real black powder is reliable enough. I'm not going in to any duplex loads, of mixing powder.

Now, my cap locks are a different story, and a long story. I have used almost all of the sub's and only the loose powdered sub's can be considered. The pellets, are only reliable in guns designed for them. I think TC even made some flintlock carbines, designed to use back powder in the pan and pellets in the main charge. I would not call them traditional.

One powder, has caught my attention, and that is Black MZ. I live close to Alliant Powder, who brought out Black MZ, so I guess my experience using their other powders, in my modern guns, lead me to trust them.
I shoot Black MZ, is my cap lock pistols, and smaller caliber cap lock rifles. There is very little fowling, which is great in .32 and .36 cals. and the accuracy is very good. The powder must be packed tight, per factory recommendations to be consistent. And, no ignition problems, low pressure, easy to clean up, and lowest price of all subs. at 9.99 at Sportsman's Warehouse.

 

[Onojutta]

since Black Powder is an explosive, it seems it is getting harder to find. and I know one shop that even wants the buyer to get a NCIC check before buying it.

thank for the info.
Dave

Do us all a favor and boycott that shop. Dollars cast powerful votes.

 

[mooman76]

I've never had a problem with Pyrodex. I have 777 and Black MZ which I have heard good things about but yet to try. Blackhorn 209 is suppose to be super clean but harder to ignite and real expensive so they all basically have their good and bad points.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

For flinters,

Most Black Powder brands :thumbsup:

Diamondback Black powder :td: (for both flinters and caplocks... :nono

Substitute powders :barf: :td:

As for improvements for the caplock folks, the pellets seem in some cases to be made with a layer of BP which you are supposed to load toward the breech, but, if they were such improvements, then why that little bit of BP, and why have all of the modern type rifles gone to regular and magnum primers to get ignition, when traditional folks can use a caplock, pyrodex, and a cap?

:idunno:

LD

 

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

Pellets should never be used in sidelocks unless properly designed to use them.

I am not a T7 fan at all. In all of my life I think I've shot a total of 3 lbs of it and only 1 rifle ever did good with it.

It builds up a hard nasty crust in the bore which is one reason why I hate it and #2, it was always inconsistent for me.

 

[Zonie]

No, they haven't improved the synthetic black powders over the years.

The loose synthetic powders usually work OK but they still can have a delay between the cap firing and the main charge going off.

Cap & Ball revolvers and underhammer rifles with the nipple going directly into the powder charge work better than the guns with long flame channel holes.

The pellets are worst of all.
They need the real black powder charge that's on the rear of the pellet to even get it to fire.

To light this BP charge, the flame from the cap must come in from the rear of the pellet.
The long flame channel in "patent breech" style guns like most of the factory made guns tends to cool the flame from the cap.
That and the long distance from the nipple to the back of the pellet usually ends up with no ignition.

Side drum style guns with the flame channel coming into the bore above the breech plug usually direct the flame from the cap into the side of the pellet above the BP starter on their base.
That results in a failure to fire.

All in all, leave the pellets on the dealers shelf if you are shooting a traditional style rifle.

 

[azmntman]

Pellets are INSANELY priced too :shocked2: , I once bought em for the ROA but accuracy suffered so that was the only time. They are for things not mentioned here.

 

[AZbpBurner]

I've been using BP and Pyrodex in cap & ball & some caplock rifles interchangeably for many years. The 2 vary by weight, and for me, are nearly equivalent in performance by volume. I use the same powder measures for either. I've tried duplex loads in flint & it works fine, but is much easier to simply use BP.

The Alliant and T3 powders don't impress me with either cost or performance.

 

[rodwha]

Funny you say that as I've used some old Pyrodex P through my revolvers, and compared to the T7 (3F) I didn't notice enough of a difference. That is except for the sticky-like fouling produced from Pyrodex, which I didn't care for. But then shooting at just 15 yds wouldn't show much of a difference in POI. But chronographed results have. I'd take T7 over Pyro P every time, if for no other reason than the fouling. But I like Olde E for the price and use it mostly.

 

[Patocazador]

I am not a fan of any of the substitutes and have never tried Black MZ or pellets. I do like Blackhorn 209 but only centerfire primers will ignite it reliably.

Everyone could do themselves a big favor and buy 5+ lbs. of real black powder for their muzzleloaders. After all they are called "black powder guns".

 

[rodwha]

I could see the benefit of using a cleaner substitute in a small caliber rifle as I've often read of the issues with fouling. Otherwise, and especially for the cost, I prefer and shoot mostly Olde Eynsford.

 

[Okie Hog]

i did myself a favor by using all the black powder on hand to blast stumps. Except for Swiss, which is very expensive, blackpowder is very cruddy and corrosive stuff: To me it's not worth the hassle.

 

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

I shoot a lot of the jim shockeys gold super powder in the percussion guns. I got 5lbs of it last year and still have 3lbs left for this year. Its clean and consistent and does the job on the range for me.

 

[excess650]

Blackhorn 209 is the ONLY "substitute" that I will use, and it requires a sealed breech and 209 primers for ignition with muzzleloaders.

My flintlocks need REAL blackpowder, and that is what they get.

Most, if not all of the substitutes have a limited shelf life. I opened a sealed bottle of Black Canyon some years back and it was a single lump that could only be removed by cutting the plastic bottle away. I placed that turd in my shrubs and it was still there 6 months later.

The perclorates in Pyrodex make it far more corrosive than blackpowder.

 

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

so clean it after shooting :haha:

After all the rust buckets i seen at rendezvous and the foolish comments about cleaning them once a year, i figure i better get in gear and start shooting at the blanket shoots with my finely scrubbed bores :rotf:

 

[Mean Gene]

In my area I haven't been able to find bp (California) so I have used pyrodex in stead, I have had no negative results using it.

 

[cynthialee]

If you put some loose powder down you barrel first, you can load one of them pellets in a traditional gun with out issues. Just got to have enough loose powder in there to fill the breach.
Sort of like a duplex load.

 

[Patocazador]

Uuuh, why bother? Just use the real stuff in powder form.

 

[cynthialee]

Uuuh, why bother? Just use the real stuff in powder form.

I tend to agree. But if you have the pellets and don't like the idea of throwing things away...then I just gave a functional solution.