bubba15301
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anybody use elephant brand powder? found a can of 4fand 3f today
powder
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I believe they went out of business a number of years ago now....seems lot-to-lot quality had some pretty wide variances...some good, some bad...I bought a few cans of '99 / 3F to use in Flintlocks, couldn't even use it in caplocks...ended pouring it out in lines on the ground and burning off the remaining 4.75 cans of it...bought some Goex and never looked back.bubba15301 said:
Mine was only one experience, and if somebody had some they were going to "give" to you, by all means try it...but if you found some left over somewhere that you're thinking of buying, I'd advise against it as you don't know what you'd be getting...and all sales are final on gun powder of course.
bubba15301
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no found it with my muzzleloading stuff forgot i had it . never used it
I still have a can of 4F and a can of 3F that I keep "just in case".
Just in case of what I haven't decided but I hear that the potassium nitrate makes pretty good plant food and the sulfur will add some acid to our very alkaline soil out here in the desert. :hmm:
Just in case of what I haven't decided but I hear that the potassium nitrate makes pretty good plant food and the sulfur will add some acid to our very alkaline soil out here in the desert. :hmm:
I would certainly try any before buying it, I bought a case of mixed 2f and 3f sometime around the same time as Rounball bought his and got lucky and got a good batch of run numbers, when it was all gone I swithced back to Goex, there was enough hostile chatter about the Elefunt brand that I did not want to push my luck, lots of talk about plant re-locations, explosions,injured or dead employees, 300FPS difference out of the same can when loaded the same as an earlier can on the same day, lots of horror stories and from solid sources, like the Mad Monk and others who make a living shooting/testing all of the types of BP that were available at the time.
I guess my experience with it pretty much echoes the others. It was horribly dirty and gave terrible accuracy. It's the crappiest powder I've ever had the misfortune to run into. Try it and see how it works for you. Maybe you got lucky. I sure didn't.
I've still got 2-3 pounds and never had any problems with the rest that I shot up. Yes, it was pretty dirty, but once the load was worked out, it seemed to be pretty consistent. I am going to use what I have for cannon fodder and blanks. Just shoot yours and see how it performs, then when it is all gone just stick with the tried and true black powders. I like Goex and Schuetzen, Swiss is just too expensive for a retired old timer.
To say something good about it, it is real black powder.
It will work in a Flintlock which is more than I can say for the synthetic black powders.
If one wanted to shoot the synthetic black powders in their flintlock they could use Elephant in the pan and 10 grains or so of it in the barrel under the fake stuff as a "starter" for the pseudo black powders.
As most of the synthetic powders don't build up a lot of fouling, the 10 grain starter probably wouldn't foul the barrel very much.
As for the company that made it, as I understand it the land values in the area in Brazil where Elephant powder was made caused the land to become more valuable than the company's building so they shut it down and sold off the property.
It will work in a Flintlock which is more than I can say for the synthetic black powders.
If one wanted to shoot the synthetic black powders in their flintlock they could use Elephant in the pan and 10 grains or so of it in the barrel under the fake stuff as a "starter" for the pseudo black powders.
As most of the synthetic powders don't build up a lot of fouling, the 10 grain starter probably wouldn't foul the barrel very much.
As for the company that made it, as I understand it the land values in the area in Brazil where Elephant powder was made caused the land to become more valuable than the company's building so they shut it down and sold off the property.
Blizzard of '93
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I bought a can of 3F years back - it was so dirty compared to Goex I didn't buy anymore.
it lit off OK though.
it lit off OK though.
That's all I could find (locally) for a while. They've switched to Schuetzen. Haven't had a chance to try it. It is dirty, but my experience is limited. I've found on good, dry days that 2f will fire 2f quickly, 3f will fire 3f quickly, ...... Have taken bear and deer with both. YMMV
paulvallandigham
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You might want to look at the McMaster-Carr.com site, and buy some screens to screen that " dirty " powder. Removing the fines. They sell a 40 x 40 mesh, which can be used to screen 3Fg powder, and a 50 x 50 mesh that will screen 4Fg powder.
With the fine dust removed- much of which is only graphite-- the powder should shoot " cleaner".
The industry standard for the 4 grades of powder normally used in MLers are:
Fg: minimum mesh size is 14 x 14 mesh per inch.
FFg; minimum mesh is 24 -24 mesh per inch.
FFFg: minimum mesh is 46 x 46 mesh per inch.
4Fg: minimum mesh is 60 x 60 mesh per inch.
I found 14 mesh,& 24, mesh screen at McMasters, but they did not have 46 or 60 mesh sizes. The closest I could find was the 40 mesh and the 50 mesh. Note my reference above to the MINIMUM mesh size for each powder. This information comes from the Hodgdon Data manual( Hodgdon was the original maker of Pyrodex).
With the fine dust removed- much of which is only graphite-- the powder should shoot " cleaner".
The industry standard for the 4 grades of powder normally used in MLers are:
Fg: minimum mesh size is 14 x 14 mesh per inch.
FFg; minimum mesh is 24 -24 mesh per inch.
FFFg: minimum mesh is 46 x 46 mesh per inch.
4Fg: minimum mesh is 60 x 60 mesh per inch.
I found 14 mesh,& 24, mesh screen at McMasters, but they did not have 46 or 60 mesh sizes. The closest I could find was the 40 mesh and the 50 mesh. Note my reference above to the MINIMUM mesh size for each powder. This information comes from the Hodgdon Data manual( Hodgdon was the original maker of Pyrodex).
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Zonie said:
Reminds me...to be fair, I also had a can of Elephant 4F from a different lot#, but I never bothered using it after the poor results with their 3F...and when I switched to Goex I switched to Goex 4F too.
However, a few years later when I decided I wanted to conduct some controlled tests with 4F mini-charges, I found the Elephant 4F from a different lot# to work perfectly, very clean & accurate.
One can clean up the powder by cutting 2"x2" pieces of cotton socks and dumping some of the powder into a cardboard Quaker Oats container with the chunks of cotton and shake rattle and roll it, this will clean a lot of the dust out of it, a lot of folks were doing this ten years or more ago with Eleyfant powder.
