Two quick questions

[Timco]

First, what is a typical minimum charge for a pedersoli style rifle? Patch and ball. I wanted to start my wife off on a minimum charge but only find info on max and standard loads.

Second, what is a typical charge for replica shooting or making a cloud of smoke out the barrel with no patch or projectile?

Thanks for your willingness to discuss this great hobby.

 

[rabjr]

A safe bet would be the same amount of powder as your caliber. So .45 would be 45gr, .50 would be 50 gr etc.

It don't take much bp with a paper wad to make a noise and smoke. :thumbsup:

 

[Zonie]

You didn't say what caliber your gun is and that makes a difference.

Swampy's recommendations are the old "starting load" used when your first sighting in your gun and IMO, they could be reduced a bit.

As those among us who have dry balled (loaded the ball without powder) know, a powder charge as light as 3-5 grains trickled thru the vent hole will blow the ball out of the barrel with a THOOMP. While this is great for clearing the dry ball it obviously isn't of much use because you can watch the ball bounce downrange when it it used.

From a practical side of it I would say 30 grains of powder would make a pretty good minimum for a .45 and 40 grains of powder for a .50.

The Lyman BLACK POWDER HANDBOOK AND RELOADING MANUAL doesn't show loads for the .45 or .50 below 40 grains and 40 grains is nothing to sneeze at in a rifle or pistol.
It will generate about 500 foot pounds of muzzle energy in either caliber.

In your Pedersoli that would kick about like a .357 Magnum pistol cartridge.
Although a .357 is a pretty hot load in a pistol, the recoil in a 6+ pound rifle would be almost nothing.

 

[boom]

I have been useing 40 grs of real black in my 50
cal for 50 yrds with good results. :thumbsup: .
Boomm.

 

[daven1834]

To make blanks, or to shoot without a patch and ball, I use cream of wheat mush. Put the powder in, then put in like amount of mush and tamp in. I use 50 gr. of each, big bang no kick. I do firearm demo's a a federal park. Three shows a day in the summer.

 

[ohio ramrod]

For target shooting I use 40 grains in my 45 and my nephew and his boys use 35 grains in their 40 calibers.So I would recommend you start with 5 grains under your caliber. Or even ten grains under in a larger caliber. Does this work? Last week at the Old Northwest. My nephew and his son and his son's friend took the first three places on monday.( 97 -95 out of posssible 100) And my nephew and his son took first and second on tuesday. And on friday I won the Blue jacket.So I would say it works! :rotf: :rotf:

 

[Grenadier1758]

To make blanks, or to shoot without a patch and ball, I use cream of wheat mush. Put the powder in, then put in like amount of mush and tamp in. I use 50 gr. of each, big bang no kick. I do firearm demo's a a federal park. Three shows a day in the summer.

:rotf: I probably shouldn't have to mention this, but don't cook the mush. You want the cream of wheat, cream of rice or cormeal dry. In our battle reenactments we only pour the powder down the barrel. Nothing else goes into the bore. The sound isn't as sharp, but then we are only pushing black powder combustion material out the bore. Makes good smoke.

 

[Deadeye]

20 grs. is sort of a standard load in a .45 pistol
and also makes an accurate load in a rifle. Many 25 yd. target shooters use 20 grs. in their rifle.
Try it.
Deadeye

 

[wayne1967]

i've used newspaper packed down on top of a very light charge. Nice fire ball at night.

 

[CG6018]

I put together a Dixie Cub Scout kit from Dixie Gun Works for my grandson when he turned 12. It came with a .45 cal. Pedersoli barrel. I started him off with a charge of 40 grains of FFFg, a .440 roundball, and a .015 patch. We visited the range a few times using this charge to develop familiarity with the pan flash and smoke. Prior to his first Pennsylvania Flintlock Season, we advanced that charge in stages to 55 grains, same patch, and same ball. He is now 16 and a confident shooter with this short flintlock carbine. He'll have an up-grade coming for graduation. :thumbsup:

 

[Ron_T.]

"First Shot" events are designed to introduce first time shooters (mostly women and children 8 years old or older) to safe shooting under tightly supervised conditions and hopefully get them interested in sport shooting. Generally, our Club sponsers such events 4 or 5 times a year giving our guests their first opportunity to shoot .22 rifles, pistols and light loads in 12 gauge shotguns.

We held our initial "2010 First Shot" event in March this year at my club's range and I volunteered to bring my .50 caliber flintlock to allow these first time shooters a "taste" of our sport.

Prior to the shooting while the guests were still in the Gun Safety Meeting always held prior to the actual shooting, I set up my muzzle loader on our 10 meter (i.e., 11 yards/33 feet) range to give these non-shooters a good chance to hit the target.

One of the Club members suggested we shoot at a heavy steel gong which would make a sounds if hit. BAD IDEA as I found out. They set up the heavy iron gong (used for .22 rimfire rifles and pistols) at 10 meters and I set up my rifle on one of the bench rests.

I decided to use a super small load of Swiss FFFg so the recoil would be very, very light for the women and children (who I limited to being 12 years old or older), installed a new flint and took a "sight-in" shot.

The ignition of the main charge was instanteous and the patched ball hit the heavy steel gong... and I felt a stinging sensation on my upper thigh at almost the same time as the shot as I sat at the bench... and wondered, "What the heck was THAT?!?"

I took a quick look at my thigh... and didn't notice anything... so I reloaded and fired another shot using, again, 20 grains (by volume) of Swiss FFFg, hit the gong again and heard something hit the leg of the benchrest from which I was shooting.

Upon closer examination, I saw the rear end of the burried rifle ball sticking in the bench's hard wooden leg!!!

THEN I realized what had grazed my upper thigh... a ricocheting rifle ball!~!~! I then realized that my powder load was so light, it didn't cause the gong to swing backwards thus causing the bullet (or rifle ball) to hit the ground just under the gong.

Naturally, with the gong on the same horizontal level as my rifle's barrel, the rifle ball had ricocheted back at almost the same height as the shot and with enough retained velocity to stick the rifle ball well into the hard maple leg of my shooting bench.

Fortunately, gravity "won" and the rifle ball dropped enough that it didn't hit me in the head or, worse yet, the eye which would have most surely caused a serious wound.

I looked cloer at my thigh and while my pants leg was definitely NOT torn or even marked, there was a little blood seeping through my pants leg where the ball had grazed my thigh.

The ball had superficially "wounded" me, but didn't tear my pants! Weird...! I switched to a paper target!!! :nono: :redface:

I was gratified when the next three shots all hit in or very near the bullseye's X-ring at 11 yards (10 meters) and knew I had made a "lucky guess" as to what powder load to us. There was literally only a tiny bit of recoil... about like a .222 or .223 out of a heavy varmint rifle.

When the "First Shot" guests came out of their Safety Meeting, lined up and shot my "smoke-pole", they loved it... and ALL of them hit "in-the-black" on their initial shot.

And so, as you can see, even 20 grains of FFFg black powder will propell a .50 caliber rifle ball very accurately at short ranges with sufficient force to consistentally hit-the-paper.... just don't shoot at STEEL GONGS with that load!~!~! :nono:


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

 

[paulvallandigham]

With all due respect, you CAN shoot hanging "gong " plates, PROVIDED that they are mounted to the chain that suspends the plate so that the plate tilts forward at a 20-35 degree angle, DOWN. That will make the ball ricochette off into the ground or dirt at the base of the target, rather than bounce back towards the shooters. :thumbsup:

 

[hanshi]

Though it depends a lot on velocity and alloy vs pure lead, my experience has been the ball either flattens out to a lead foil or disintegrates. If you're too close lead spatter can be a real problem but I've never experienced ball "bounce back" as the ball no longer existed. This was also the case with cast WW revolver bullets as long as they traveled at, say 1000 fps MV.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I was shooting my father's .45-70 springfield at the bang plates out at 100 yds, at a commercial range, when another guy came over and sat down a few seats from me. He began shooting a .22 LR rifle at the bang plates. Several of the bullets bounced all the way back and past us. One came close enough to me to hear, and to see the cloud of dust it kicked up behind me in the parking lot, when I turned around. The Range officer came down and stopped him from shooting that rifle. They had a sign posted saying NO .22 rimfire rifles may be used to shoot at the bang plates, but it had fallen down, and the shooter simply did not see it. I was concerned that if a .22 rimfire bullet could bounce back that far, how about that 400 grain bullet I was shooting. We asked the Range officer, who told us we were fine, and they had no rebounds from centerfire bullets. I have been struck by ricocheting bullets including .22 rimfires, on several occasions, but all at distances closer than 25 yds. I sport a substantial "turkey track" scar on my scalp where I was hit by a .45 cal. lead bullet that came back off the front edge of a steel table.

I don't offer this to start a contest about who has more scars, or has been hit by more bullets, or balls, etc. but merely to make you, and others here aware of dangers associated with ricochetes. My gun club officers and I spent a lot of time building and testing bang plates to use at the club, to reduce to a minimum the rebound of balls off the plates that could come back and injure shooters or bystanders. Our hanging bang plates are suspended from chains,mounted several inches below the top of the plate, so that the plate leans toward the shooter by no less than 20 degrees. This causes the balls to bounce down into the dirt in front and under the plate, even when the ball strikes above a line across the chain mounts. The mounts are welded to the back side of the plates, so they cannot be damaged by gun fire.

Only our standing plates are a problem, now, but they are religiously places at the back edge of the rail road tie they are set upon, so that they tip over at the lightest of hits. And, we always put these standing plates at the base of a high bluff, so that balls are stopped in the high bank behind the targets.

My club officers have probably done more research and work to provide safe bang plates for club members to shoot than about anyone else in this country. We have freely shared this information with other clubs, and club officers we meet around the state, and over at Friendship. We get our bang plates by hunting scrap yards, and waste piles around machine shops and welding shops. we use 1/2" plate for the heavy plates, and 3/8" for the lighter ones, that are usually placed further from the shooting station. I think we would use ONLY 1/2" plate if we could find some young men strong enough to lug them around for us! :blah: :grin: :thumbsup:

 

[Rhett Griffith]

Light loads are a great way to introduce young shooters to the joys of black powder shooting. My two oldest boys (4 and 7 years of age) love to shoot my .50 caliber flintlock. I let the younger one shoot it with 20 grains of FFg, whereas the older one can still shoot decent groups with 40 grains. That is one of the joys of muzzleloading, you can use the same rifle you shoot deer with to introduce small children to the sport.

Shooting steel dingers with new shooters can be a lot of fun. They seem to enjoy the instant gratification of hearing and seeing the impact of the ball on the steel plate more than just punching holes in paper :grin: . But, I second what has been said here about the potential hazards. I too bear a scar on my scalp from standing to close to a steel plate that I shot with a .22 pistol when I was a kid :shocked2: . Just make sure you are far enough away and that the balls will be deflected downward rather than straight back at you!

 

[DUSTY 14]

at one shoot this year we had a close in target off a saddled horse. concerned with ricochet the range had 20 grain measure all were required to use. one shooter in my group was surprised when he hit dead on with a 72 cal smoothy shooting that light charge. 20 is fine for short range no matter caliber