safety question

[Yankee Doodle]

Is a 100.0 gr. charge of Scheutzen fffg powder. behind a bore button & prb safe to fire in a .58 Renegade with a 1-70 twist Green Mountain Barrel?
Thanks

 

[VEARL]

You should be good with that charge of powder.
I shoot the same charge, but with 2f BP. Be ready for a good amount of recoil with that 3F powder. Barrel pressure will increase also. Can you get that powder in 2F size/

 

[50cal.cliff]

I am assuming that prb stands for patched round ball. As long as the patched ball is tight, and button are tight on the powder she ought to be good to go.

I use Goex so couldn't tell you how much she'll kick :wink: using your powder but she should be safe!

 

[majg1234]

Should be OK as I use 120Ffg in my 58cal TVM flinter and the same load in an Investarms and TC Hawken of 58 cal

 

[MacRob46]

I have shot heavier charges than that in a GRRW barrel but I do not recommend it. You may want to go to FFG rather than FFFG. Most folks recommend FFG for .50 and up. IMHO, with a solid barrel like you have, the granulation won't make that much difference and it may foul a little less but there is no real advantage to using FFFG over FFG and you are increasing your chamber pressure. Also, what are you shooting at that you need that much powder? A more comfortable charge will probably be 50 - 60 grs of either FFG or FFFG.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Should be safe. But why do you ask about that charge? Have you tried different charges at the range to find the most accurate load for your rifle? That is the first step. Wel...mebbe...asking about safety first isn't so bad a first move. :grin:
BTW, wassa "bore button"???

 

[gearheart]

Bore button(brand name)is a lubed felt disc about 1/8 thick. Protects the patch from too much fire.
To the original poster: That is a stout load. How have you determined the need for that. Better to experiment and work up the most accurate load for your rifle. You are already making a hole bigger than our center fire cousins hope to achieve with a fully expanded bullet. The ft.lbs. numbers they spew out are what is required to make their bullet expand properly. A deer will die from much less ft. lbs. so us round ball shooter tend to pay less attention to those numbers.

 

[Yankee Doodle]

Bear & Boar. Deer is secondary.
As I have no need for match grade accuracy, I hold the following old adage to be true. "There is no such thing as Overkill"
Thanks for the help.

 

[MacRob46]

Bear & Boar. Deer is secondary.
As I have no need for match grade accuracy, I hold the following old adage to be true. "There is no such thing as Overkill"
Thanks for the help.

No, but there is such a thing as overloading. I would reduce that charge some. You can take deer size animals at reasonable ranges with .45 cal. round ball rifles with loads that are not near the maximum so I would think that you can do the same with boar - certainly - and bear - possibly. I don't hunt either so probably should not be giving advice on such matters but it just seems to me that you can get enough energy to do the job with less powder.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Bore button(brand name)is a lubed felt disc about 1/8 thick. Protects the patch from too much fire.
To the original poster: That is a stout load. How have you determined the need for that. Better to experiment and work up the most accurate load for your rifle. You are already making a hole bigger than our center fire cousins hope to achieve with a fully expanded bullet. The ft.lbs. numbers they spew out are what is required to make their bullet expand properly. A deer will die from much less ft. lbs. so us round ball shooter tend to pay less attention to those numbers.

With 45 years ml experience I had never encountered the idea of putting a wad over the powder when shooting a patched round ball. Pointless and useless, IMHO. A marketing gimmik for the sellers.

 

[stinkyfeet]

The 58 will do the job quit well on bears and boar no questions asked I run 120 grains of 2f in my Kodiak double 58. Recoil isn't to bad due to the excessive weight of the gun. I am working on a cannon mount for it to get it into the woods. But in reality you don't need anything other then patch and ball I also recommend you try 2f.

 

[crockett]

For what is it worth- same thing. I tried a wad over power and under prb because I read accuracy might improve but I noticed no difference.

 

[BrownBear]

Same here. Some guys have seen improvements in accuracy with wads and such between the powder and prb. I've tried it and didn't see any reason to do it again, but will always try it with a new gun.

As for charges, my GM 58 really like 90 grains of Goex 3f or 100 grains of their 2f. Without strain gauges none of can do much more than buttscratch and debate the manufacturers' recommendations when it comes to questions about how much powder is too much.

Like everyone else I look for pressure indicators and play conservative, but I'm a lot more conservative than some. I still play with the "margin for error" implied by comparing old data sources and today's lawyerfied data. Each gun is going to have its preferences, and within my personal risk limits I'll go with my gut and what a gun sezz.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

3f in a gun over 50 cal is pushing it according to the old guys that taught me. a heavy hunting load of extra hot 3f in a 58 is pushing a bit far for me. The Plastic surgeon can improve the Mrs. looks, but I don't want the dr restoring my face.

Frankly your load is more than what was used for Buffalo. Why? You can get more killing power and more range by switching to a conical and dropping the powder down.

Just from a ballistics view, heavy powder charges don't extend the range of round balls as much as some would like to think. Yes you can flatten trajectory, but the round ball loses so much energy due to air resistance that your range may only be extended 20 yds A conical and less powder can retain energy for hundreds of yards further.

No amount of powder in a hand held gun will turn a round ball rifle into a 200 yd big game machine

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Not sure what a bore button looks like, but consider the geometry of the flat disc wad over the powder and then when a patched round ball is packed down on top. The bore diameter wad will conform to the arc of the ball. Half the circumference of the ball is still roughly a third larger than a bore diameter flat wad As a thin wad is pushed to the curve of the ball it no longer touches the bore around the edges, so it does not seal the bore contact with the patch from the burning powder. So the wad must be over size to do the job intended.

 

Bore button(brand name)is a lubed felt disc about 1/8 thick. Protects the patch from too much fire.
To the original poster: That is a stout load. How have you determined the need for that. Better to experiment and work up the most accurate load for your rifle. You are already making a hole bigger than our center fire cousins hope to achieve with a fully expanded bullet. The ft.lbs. numbers they spew out are what is required to make their bullet expand properly. A deer will die from much less ft. lbs. so us round ball shooter tend to pay less attention to those numbers.

With 45 years ml experience I had never encountered the idea of putting a wad over the powder when shooting a patched round ball. Pointless and useless, IMHO. A marketing gimmik for the sellers.

I would agree with you except for one thing.
Years ago, I was taking guns home from the local museum (one a week) and giving them the first cleaning they had had in decades. Nothing major, mainly just wiping them down and giving the wood some BLO and the metal a light coat of RIG. One of them turned out to be loaded. It unbreeched easily, and when I tapped the load into a little bucket there was a small wad in addition to the powder and patched ball. I was able to see the components of the load as they fell into the bucket and the wad was between the ball and the powder.
Until then, I had never heard of it either, but it is proof that at least one old timer thought it was a good idea.
For the record, I have yet to try it.

 

[Billnpatti]

I shoot 3f in all of my guns but the largest caliber that I have is a .54. My personal opinion is that you probably should be using 2f for a .58 caliber, especially when you are using that heavy of a charge. I doubt that you are in any danger of doing any damage by using a charge of 100 gr. of 3f but you are getting up there in pressure.

 

[hanshi]

While it is indeed possible to dangerously overload an ML, A quality gun is NOT at all likely to experience a catastrophic failure as long as the prb is seated correctly. 100 grns of 3F is not even close to an overload. It all depends on the particular gun. And there is, obviously, no such thing as "overkill". How does one go about "overkilling" anything?

I often use op wads; home punched felt, wasp nest and similar things. I've noticed they DO help in some guns but not necessarily in others. Oversize wads or wasp nest do seal quite nicely.

All my guns, .32 to .62, use mostly 3F exclusively. The old axiom "use your most accurate load" is dripping with truth. If that accuracy requires really heavy loads; it still applies.