Which BP Substitute for .54 PRB?

[joliver]

I can't find BP anywhere close to where I live and I don't like Pyrodex, so I'm tryin' to decide which of the following subs would be best with .54 cal PRB: APP, 777, BlackMag, or Pinnacle.

Opinions? Recommendations? Pros and cons for each type?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Tequila Jake

 

[Joel Lehman]

You can buy GOEX black powder at Cabela's in Buda or McBride's Guns in Austin. You are only 80 miles away. It is much cheaper to mail order black power from such places as Powder, Inc.

Joel Lehman, Austin TX

 

[MikeFromON]

Not sure exactly where you are but maybe you could make the drive to see one of these guys:
[url] http://www.goexpowder.com/distributors.html[/url]

The guy I went to see charged me $12.50 per can on a 25 lb. case. The money I saved doing it like this paid for both my motel room and the gas for the 500 mile round trip, plus I got to have lunch at at my favourite BBQ rib house in Toronto. He said he would ship too but that the transport fees for BP are out of this world.

 

[Big John]

777 is the one! But reduce the loads 20% to match B.P. loads. If you use roundballs and patches blow through, use a wonder wad over the powder. If you use conicals use the wad also. 777 burns hotter and has more velocity than B.P.

 

[Old Charlie]

I use 777 in my .54 GPR. But when my supply runs out it will be fed Goex 3f. I now buy Goex by the case. I can get 2&1/2 pounds of Goex for the price of one pound of 777 and I like Goex better.
OLd Charlie

 

[faw3]

Joel is right, if youdont want to use BP for what ever reason Id go with 777 I think Ive tryed em all the last 6 months, I use that for target and plinking but Express BP for the real shooting stuff. Fred :hatsoff:

 

[manyirons]

Another one for H777 ifin i couldnt get 2F Swiss!

 

[joliver]

Joel,

I didn't mention them before, but I have a couple of other problems with real BP:

1. When shooting I have to swab out the barrel after every third shot or I can't get a ball to do down it.

2. Clean up takes much longer with real BP and the stuff really smells up the house. And my time on the weekends is very limited. I work in San Antonio during the week and commute to F'brg on the weekends and have to take care of
"honey-do's" while I'm there. So, I have very little free time on the weekends. I'm lucky if I get out to shoot once a month, so I don't want to spend as much time cleaning a gun as I do shooting it.

Tequila Jake

 

[Russianblood]

If you can only shoot 3 times before needing to swab the bore, you either need better lube on your patches or a different thickness patch (or patch and ball combo).

777 has a problem with a crud ring at the breech that will take you just as long to clean as real black powder does. Don't let the ads fool you. Substitute powders are not any cleaner.

 

[JOHN L. HINNANT]

Good Morning Joliver,

Hate to tell you this, but you really missed out on a good opportunity to buy blackpowder at a great price over the past June 6 - June 11.

That is one of the advantages of visiting the TMLRA STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS at Brady, Texas.

How does $10.50 per pound for Goex Black Powder sound to you? Plus all of the other great prices on ML accessories.

And just how far is Fredricksburg from Brady? And without all of the hassle of Austin traffic.

Oh well. The TMLRA will be back in Brady in early October for the Fall Shoot.

Best regards and good shooting,

John L. Hinnant

If you are not an NRA Member why not? I am carrying you load.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I don't understand the problem with cleaning BP. Just get a bucket of water- take it outside if you must, put a little liquid detergent on a wet patch, put the barrel in the bucket and pump the ramrod with patch up and down until the water in the bucket suds. Change the patch a couple of times and do this until all the crud is out of the bottom of the barrel. Throw out the water, and the smell is gone. Rinse in fresh water, and then wipe down the inside with a couple of clean patchs. When they come out clean, use a final patch with a lube or oil to protect the bore from rust. Then wipe down the outside with a good solvent to get rid of the handprints, and salts from your skins. Clean the lock area, and re-install the nipple after oiling its threads. Put the barrel back in the gun, and you are done! It takes only about 5 minutes.

With substitutes, you have to use smelly solvents, to dissolve the residue it leaves, then soap and water to get any primer residue out, too. You still have to remove the nipple, and the barrel from the stock to clean, and it takes as long, or longer to clean it. With the substitutes you have to clean the barrel soon, or you will get corrosion, where BP will give you a few hours leeway. The substitutes require hotter caps to ignite, are even more dirty between shots, do not shoot consistently, for most shooters, and have their own " smell ". If you check the GOEX distributer for Texas, you should be able to locate a source in either Austin, or San Antonio, or very near by. Find him with the links page here, and call him at his 800 number. If there is a state shoot, you should know about it, so you can go there, if not to shoot, then to make a buying run for the year. Get a shooting buddy involved, and visit the range. You may just find a lot of stuff you didn't know about, meet some very fine men, see some decent shooting, and maybe get the itch to enter the shoot next time. Don't plan to shoot against the other shooter; always shoot against yourself. If you keep track of your best scores, or groups, and try to better them, or at least get close to them, that is all that matters. Everyone has bad days, and a few great days, and mostly good days, as any day shooting is better than a day spent behind the desk!

 

[joliver]

Paul,

This is exactly the method I use and it takes me a lot longer than 5 minutes--but then, I'm a lot slower than most people at most things....

O.K., maybe I'll give BP another try...and will think about changing patch thickness. Right now I'm using .015 prelubed patches with .530 balls.

Tequila Jake

 

[roundball]

If you can only shoot 3 times before needing to swab the bore, you either need better lube on your patches or a different thickness patch (or patch and ball combo).

777 has a problem with a crud ring at the breech that will take you just as long to clean as real black powder does. Don't let the ads fool you. Substitute powders are not any cleaner.

AMEN...I use Goex 3F...it leaves virtually no fouling using Natural Lube 1000...and Hoppes No9 PLUS (BP solvent & Patch lube) is even better in areas of dry humidity.

I shoot a 50 shot range session every Saturday motrning year round using Goex and one of those lubes...never wipe the bore until it's time for the long drive home.

:thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Try .017" or .018" patching. Patch thickness seems to often be related to how deep the rifling grooves are on your gun. You ight also try using a filler of corn meal between the powder and the PRB. This tends to provide a good gas seal, cleans the bore as it burns and is pushed out the barrel, and fills in any little gaps that a " too thin " patch leaves in the corners of those grooves. If you benchrest your gun at all, look for two things: If the first couple of shots always hit a different POI than subsequent shots, Your patch and ball combination are not right. That is the clue to try a slightly thicker patch. Second: Check the patches on the ground in front of the gun. You are looking for holes where the grooves are marked on the patching. If you have holes, you have either a rough bore, and/or too thin a patch, or, sometimes, the wrong lube.

 

[playfarmers]

I find 3f Goex cleans up much faster than Pyrodex, 777, and even 2f Goex. The 777 gave me a crud ring that took a lot of time to clean, so I gave the rest of the can away.

 

[roundball]

And frankly, if it wasn't for the opening post saying he didn't like Pyrodex, if I was going to recommend a BP sub, Pyrodex RS would be it...I used it a lot for several years in .45/.50/.54cal TC Hawken caplocks...enjoyed shooting it on weekends, very accurate, took a lot of deer with it, always cleaned up easy, etc...switched to CCI#11 Magnum caps when they came out and never had any more worries about ignition.

I sometimes think the type lube and the amount used has more to do with many things like this than powder itself

 

[Rebel]

Yep, me too. I still use it in my double barrel .12 ga caplock. Never had any problem with fouling or cleaning up afterwards.

 

[Landngroove]

I can't find BP anywhere close to where I live and I don't like Pyrodex, so I'm tryin' to decide which of the following subs would be best with .54 cal PRB: APP, 777, BlackMag, or Pinnacle.

Opinions? Recommendations? Pros and cons for each type?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Tequila Jake

When a friend asks my opinion of which powder to use, I tell them that I prefer Goex real black powder. I've tried the subs, and have come back to Goex. The subs all have thier own flaws. I also would highly reccomend using Hoppes #9 Plus Black Powder Solvent and Patch
Lube, for ease of loading of your PRB's. In my .54's I use this with .530" round balls, and .018" patch. I use both FFFG, and FFG. No loading problems. Any sub powders that I have laying around, I just use for occasional plinking/target, until they run out. I would not hunt with anything but Goex. As for cleaning, like the others have said, using a bucket of hot soapy water, (my preffered method) cleans very effectively, and it really does not matter what kind of powder you have been shooting, because the mechanics of this are the same for a total cleaning of your barrel/breach/flash channel. It usually takes me about 20 to 25 minutes to give my ML a thorough cleaning, drying, lube/oil. I just consider this time as part of my shooting session, and actually enjoy bringing my ML back to shiney clean.