Getting close to a good regulation load for the (new to me) Westley Richards 16bore central fire rifle (ca 1864), thoughts of setting myself up with a fixed powder measure and a dedicated set of hand tools had me at the loading bench with a 100yr old (or so) adjustable shot/powder measure.

Since I'm in the neighborhood of 5 Drams Goex FFg (been weighing my charges by the each on my Redding scale) by weight, I figured I'd throw a regulated charge from the little ~yr1900 vintage shot/powder measure set to the 5 Dram mark and weigh it.

I'm looking for relative volume/weight numbers here.

It came to 121.5 Grains with Goex FFg.
Swiss 1-1/2F at the same volume = 129.5 Grains.

For the sake of square numbers, my 5 Dram load (via scale) has been 140 Grains.


Anyone here have a vintage Brit powder measure from a vintage Brit rifle?
I'd like to get a sense of scale here.
If I'm burning 140 Grains (or however much powder for that matter) of Goex FFg to get my rifle to shoot, I want to be able back it out to volume in *relative period scale* by way of volume.
If you do have a vintage Brit powder measure, please throw some measured charges of Goex FFg (and swiss f&a-half if you have it), weigh it in grains, and post back to this thread.

A Dram is supposed to be 1/16 Ounce
A Dram is supposed to be 27.34375 grains
Five drams should weigh 136.72 Grains
My 140 Grain loads have been printing pretty well and at this point I'm focusing in that neighborhood, fiddling with ball diameter and wad column height and grease formula.
I might end up settling with a bit more powder by the time the sun sets on load development.

Black Powder is typically measured by volume, but for my load development I've been going by weight to get consistent energy shot to shot.

For the sake of what conversation may come of this, I'm aware of the "Goex does not equal Curtis&Harvey energy" phenomenon. What I have found though, over the course of load development on four such small bore 'Bore Rifles' is that Goex FFg and Swiss 1-1/2F (by weight) tend to get the rifles to print at POI that are fairly similar.

With bore-rifle loads, there's typically a bit of latitude in the wad column, giving room to adjust for powder volume and bullet seating depth.

I think things might be a bit different with the more 'high strung' bottleneck 'express' cartridges, where the Swiss powder appears to be the key to success for many guys in their pursuit of black powder double rifle load development.


Although a rose is a rose and apples aren't oranges, my 140 Grains of Goex FFg is covering more volume than 5 drams on my vintage adjustable powder/shot measure.
I want more units of comparison from the peanut gallery here.
Part of my interest here is to (for the sake of satisfying curiosity) determine what *in period terms* they'd have called the charge for this rifle - for instance, do we call this a Five Dram rifle or do we call this rifle a Five and a Half Dram rifle..?


Any way it goes, I'll note one thing for the guys here - this rifle rips, and it's accurate!





Cheers
Tinker