Pyrodex

[deermanok]

I've used pyrodex RS in a few of my rifles without any problems. Although I don't think pyrodex has the same umph as real black powder, it works ok. Just clean your gun at the end of the day.

 

[N.Y. Yankee]

Always wondered, if guys dislike reading about a certain topic, THEN WHY DO YOU OPEN THE THREAD IN THE FIRST PLACE?! Just pass on to the next one. It's simple.

 

[Omahkapi'si]

Triple 7 seems to clean with water any temperature. Pyrodex cleaned right out last night when I boiled the water. Don’t know but seemed to work.

 

[Omahkapi'si]

Always wondered, if guys dislike reading about a certain topic, THEN WHY DO YOU OPEN THE THREAD IN THE FIRST PLACE?! Just pass on to the next one. It's simple.

Wondered that myself. If the topic is Pyrodex then expect to hear all about it.

 

[Idaho Ron]

I started using black back in the 1970's I don't know the exact year but our local stores quit carrying black. I switched to Pyrodex RS. I used that until about 15 years ago about the same time I got my first Green Mountain barrels. I had a rifle that was hanging up a bit on firing and switched to Pyrodex P. At the same time I switched my loading behavior to rolling the rifle over to make the lock face down and tap on the stock to get the finer grains of the pyrodex P to flow into the snail.
But sometimes even this is not enough to cure a problem. This Green mountain barrel was brand new. Not one shot through it. I found a blockage from the powder chamber to the snail.

After some work it was removed

Now if I would have came on here and said my rifle hang fires the first thing everyone would have said was its the pyrodex. And not knowing what nipple was being used I might have blamed the powder and nipple combination. The fact is there are a lot of reasons for ignition troubles. Understanding more about your system in your particular gun is one way to solve ignition troubles. Having tools to help diagnose the trouble is another.

These barrels are all stainless steel, and I have several. I use an endoscope to check my barrels regularly and they are in perfect condition. Not a bit of corrosion or problems from cleaning. My accuracy with Pyrodex P has been documented.

When talking about Pyrodex one topic is that it is harder to ignite. That is true without a doubt. Regular black can be ignited with a nipple that has a flash hole of .026 this is the size of the hot shot nipples from track of the wolf, and also the platinum lined nipples. TC Hot Shot nipples run .034 It is my opinion that TC at some point knew that pyrodex was being used in their guns and tried to mitigate the problem with hang fire by giving the powder more fire to set off the charge. I'm assuming that about the time they did this a lot of casual shooters were switching to Pyrodex. I have found that when a nipple reaches .0385 it is shot out. This window of prime time shooting is pretty slim. If you are using a hot shot nipple measuring .034, and shooting big heavy conical's the number of shots you get are really limited.

I'm disappointed in people saying that using Pyrodex will ruin your barrel in no time flat. Like others have stated improper cleaning will ruin any barrel. Even smokeless powder guns can and will rust with enough neglect. The amount of neglect is the hot button.
Some say literally in minutes the barrel is done. This kind of false information is just not productive. Guys that can't buy black locally have to order it. The price of ordering it is ridiculously expensive for the average low round count shooter. So the new guy that doesn't know any better thinks I don't want to ruin my gun but I can't get black, well I just wont shoot it.

This rifle is a TC Hawken that my barber asked me to fix. He had loaded a bullet that is still unknown to me. He had it loaded for over 20 years with this bullet and a load of Pyrodex RS under the bullet. He was scared to fire it and didn't know what to do. So I tried to pull it. I could not get it to pull, and I didn't want to put a screw hole through the projectile making it harder to remove. So after my first try at pulling failed I got out my long zerk.

I gave it a couple of pumps and it popped out to the muzzle. I screwed the ball puller in again and it came out.

This is what the barrel and breech plug looked like after over 20 years of neglect.

So I went to work with steel wool. Then I switched to JB bore paste and got after it.
This was the barrel after it was polished. The white patch makes it look a lot better but what I didn't see was pitting in the barrel.

The breech plug after it was cleaned.

I don't recall if he had a clean barrel first or if it had been fired. The breech was not as bad as I expected. I expected much worse. The gun is now back to useable condition and the barrel it's self is not in bad shape considering the amount of neglect.

Pyrodex is a good powder if you know how to use it.

 

[Justin.44]

Well said @Idaho Ron!

 

[Tb54]

I bought my ML to be able to hunt during BP season. I could care less as to what went down the barrel as long as it would push a ball out the end of the barrel safely and was dependable. That was in 1982. I used Pyrodex being it was all I could get locally.I followed the instruction down to a T and I haven't experienced the problems other seem to be having? I still shoot the same rifle and it is deadly accurate as it has always been?

 

[ugly old guy]

I haven't used Pyrodex (RS) since 1987 ...? ... 1988 ...?
I don't remember it being swab after each shot, or any harder to clean the barrel than DuPont real black was.
Have they changed the formula?

 

[SPQR70AD]

Always wondered, if guys dislike reading about a certain topic, THEN WHY DO YOU OPEN THE THREAD IN THE FIRST PLACE?! Just pass on to the next one. It's simple.

not only that some guys might have learned from the OP that when he used hot water the Pyrodex "problem" was solved. no matter how many times a subject is talked about some guys will learn a trick or two. that is the whole idea of a forum

 

[Crow-Feather]

Good morning Gents. Here I am with another question. As some of you may know, I have just recently started shooting my GPR after a rather long period and I got the bug again real bad. My question is, because real BP is so aggravating and expensive to acquire, and I am down to about a half pound, I am considering trying Pyrodex. I have never used it before so I need advice as to which grade to use. I understand that P grade is the equivalent to 3F which is what I now shoot and the R grade is 2F. Now, is it safe to use P in my .50 cal or do I need to use the R grade. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks and blessings TDP

If you order 5 pounds, Powder Inc sells Goex prett

Good morning Gents. Here I am with another question. As some of you may know, I have just recently started shooting my GPR after a rather long period and I got the bug again real bad. My question is, because real BP is so aggravating and expensive to acquire, and I am down to about a half pound, I am considering trying Pyrodex. I have never used it before so I need advice as to which grade to use. I understand that P grade is the equivalent to 3F which is what I now shoot and the R grade is 2F. Now, is it safe to use P in my .50 cal or do I need to use the R grade. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks and blessings TDP

Powder Inc. has 5 pounds for 33.00 per pound shipped and 10 pounds at 25.87 per pound shipped. If you can find some other shooters willing to share an order, powder ships on the 12th. The powder has increased, I recently bought 10 pounds and Goex was about 20.00 per pound.

 

[Omahkapi'si]

I haven't used Pyrodex (RS) since 1987 ...? ... 1988 ...?
I don't remember it being swab after each shot, or any harder to clean the barrel than DuPont real black was.
Have they changed the formula?

I was probably just overthinking it. It was much blacker than the Triple 7 after 1 shot, but likely could have just shot again a few more times. Anyhow, after cleaning it with BOILING water, the rifle was clean.

 

[OKAxeTosser]

I started using black back in the 1970's I don't know the exact year but our local stores quit carrying black. I switched to Pyrodex RS. I used that until about 15 years ago about the same time I got my first Green Mountain barrels. I had a rifle that was hanging up a bit on firing and switched to Pyrodex P. At the same time I switched my loading behavior to rolling the rifle over to make the lock face down and tap on the stock to get the finer grains of the pyrodex P to flow into the snail.
But sometimes even this is not enough to cure a problem. This Green mountain barrel was brand new. Not one shot through it. I found a blockage from the powder chamber to the snail.

After some work it was removed

Now if I would have came on here and said my rifle hang fires the first thing everyone would have said was its the pyrodex. And not knowing what nipple was being used I might have blamed the powder and nipple combination. The fact is there are a lot of reasons for ignition troubles. Understanding more about your system in your particular gun is one way to solve ignition troubles. Having tools to help diagnose the trouble is another.

These barrels are all stainless steel, and I have several. I use an endoscope to check my barrels regularly and they are in perfect condition. Not a bit of corrosion or problems from cleaning. My accuracy with Pyrodex P has been documented.

When talking about Pyrodex one topic is that it is harder to ignite. That is true without a doubt. Regular black can be ignited with a nipple that has a flash hole of .026 this is the size of the hot shot nipples from track of the wolf, and also the platinum lined nipples. TC Hot Shot nipples run .034 It is my opinion that TC at some point knew that pyrodex was being used in their guns and tried to mitigate the problem with hang fire by giving the powder more fire to set off the charge. I'm assuming that about the time they did this a lot of casual shooters were switching to Pyrodex. I have found that when a nipple reaches .0385 it is shot out. This window of prime time shooting is pretty slim. If you are using a hot shot nipple measuring .034, and shooting big heavy conical's the number of shots you get are really limited.

I'm disappointed in people saying that using Pyrodex will ruin your barrel in no time flat. Like others have stated improper cleaning will ruin any barrel. Even smokeless powder guns can and will rust with enough neglect. The amount of neglect is the hot button.
Some say literally in minutes the barrel is done. This kind of false information is just not productive. Guys that can't buy black locally have to order it. The price of ordering it is ridiculously expensive for the average low round count shooter. So the new guy that doesn't know any better thinks I don't want to ruin my gun but I can't get black, well I just wont shoot it.

This rifle is a TC Hawken that my barber asked me to fix. He had loaded a bullet that is still unknown to me. He had it loaded for over 20 years with this bullet and a load of Pyrodex RS under the bullet. He was scared to fire it and didn't know what to do. So I tried to pull it. I could not get it to pull, and I didn't want to put a screw hole through the projectile making it harder to remove. So after my first try at pulling failed I got out my long zerk.

I gave it a couple of pumps and it popped out to the muzzle. I screwed the ball puller in again and it came out.

This is what the barrel and breech plug looked like after over 20 years of neglect.

So I went to work with steel wool. Then I switched to JB bore paste and got after it.
This was the barrel after it was polished. The white patch makes it look a lot better but what I didn't see was pitting in the barrel.

The breech plug after it was cleaned.

I don't recall if he had a clean barrel first or if it had been fired. The breech was not as bad as I expected. I expected much worse. The gun is now back to useable condition and the barrel it's self is not in bad shape considering the amount of neglect.

Pyrodex is a good powder if you know how to use it.

What is the thread on the zerk you used on the hawken? I'm having the same issue and can't exactly bring the barrel with me into lowes to fit it up/experiment.

 

[Grenadier1758]

You can take the nipple into Lowe's to verify the thread size.

 

[user 34300]

"This rifle is a TC Hawken that my barber asked me to fix. He had loaded a bullet that is still unknown to me."

The green plastic thing is called a "poly patch". The other part is a regular ball. Ploy patches were discontinued decades ago. Sometimes the ball came out of the patch and rolled down the barrel. That created an obstruction.

I recall getting good accuracy with them in a TC Hawken.

 

[Idaho Ron]

What is the thread on the zerk you used on the hawken? I'm having the same issue and can't exactly bring the barrel with me into lowes to fit it up/experiment.

For the TC Hawken I got a 1/4x28 long zerk.

 

[Idaho Ron]

"This rifle is a TC Hawken that my barber asked me to fix. He had loaded a bullet that is still unknown to me."

The green plastic thing is called a "poly patch". The other part is a regular ball. Ploy patches were discontinued decades ago. Sometimes the ball came out of the patch and rolled down the barrel. That created an obstruction.

I recall getting good accuracy with them in a TC Hawken.

I used the Polly Patch's back in the 1970's. That was known to me. The bullet is what I don't have a clue what it is . It is possible that the projectile was actually a round ball. The owner might have not been able to keep it from rolling out without a patch so he might have pounded it until it flattened out and then stayed in. He said the bullet was stuck but it did have powder. When I agreed to remove the bullet I didn't attempt to shoot it out because I didn't know what was loaded or how it was loaded. I put a couple drops of oil in the nipple threads screwed the grease gun in and push it out. It resisted considerably at first but when it popped the bullet sot out to the end of the muzzle.

 

[William Lincoln]

Pyrodex does not store well. I had Pyrodex loaded for several years- but well sealed
by tight caps and waxed chambers. Caps actually fired Ok. 5 chambers very weak
and one misfire. Similar revolver in Brother's safe loaded with BP with no caps for
six years, when capped up fired hot with no noticeable loss of power. Pyrodex is
a little hotter when fresh than BP--but weaker if stored over a few years. Also
Black Powder is trustworthy for ignition--pyrodex requires hot caps for ignition.

 

[FlinterNick]

I use pyrodex for blanks, you just need too do a deep cleaning.

 

[jim mencken]

i use pyrodex RS in my .50 works good

 

[LME]

Pyrodex does not store well. I had Pyrodex loaded for several years- but well sealed
by tight caps and waxed chambers. Caps actually fired Ok. 5 chambers very weak
and one misfire. Similar revolver in Brother's safe loaded with BP with no caps for
six years, when capped up fired hot with no noticeable loss of power. Pyrodex is
a little hotter when fresh than BP--but weaker if stored over a few years. Also
Black Powder is trustworthy for ignition--pyrodex requires hot caps for ignition.

It may be something to do with something other than the Pyrodex causing your problem? I have some that a friend gave me that I bought for him over ten years ago it performed as well as a new container does? Pyrodex is basically the same formular as B.P. with a few things added that B.P. doesn't have. I have no idea what the added ingredients?