I dropped one of my Republic Metallic Cartridge 10 guage blackpowder shotshell with 5 drams of BP and 1 and 1/8th oz of Bismuth during the last waterfowl season. We found it in the driveway after several days of rainfall and heavy frost.
I figured it was ruined so I opened it up. The overshot card was indeed wet and swollen. It was a .125 cardwad. The shot I salvaged, the next was was a 3/8th inch waxed fiber wad. The next card was a .03 cardwad over the powder. To my surprise...the powder was dry! The powder charge was 120 grains of bp measured from my powder measure.
I thought five drams of bp formula was 5 x 27.34. I rounded to 135gr of bp. I quess that explains why my 5 dram loads were not patterning very well. I have a 115grain load ready to pattern in my old 10 bore, W. Richards. It's been looked over and ok to shoot. It is a H & D Folsom gun I'm sure of it but it has Birmingham proofs, go figure. It' is fun to shoot with black powder!
