I can accept that, Miller. Thanks for the clarification.
But, I do think many people who are unfamiliar with black have the opinion it burns much slower than it does. It is relative, to what one considers slow. I guess I have shot so much of it in my life that maybe it seems to burn faster than it does. All this silliness that some go on about it going off like a hangfire every time is just that, silliness. I am aware of no lagtime in the ignition of a black load and a smokeless one. Maybe in the lock time, but the difference in actual ignition is imperceptible. Furthermore, a well tuned flintlock's ignition is
almost imperceptibly slower than a percussion's, to me. But then, maybe I have a poor perception of the passing of time.
That reference to DetCord is a good illustration as to how poorly I perceive short intervals of time. We used to blow beaver houses and dams occasionally with Detagel, an explosive that looks like a little sleeve of ground sausage, but white. We'd plant several charges at various spots along the length of a dam and connect them with Detcord, then run a measured length of slow burning fuse to the first charge. When the slow burning fuse got to the first charge they all seemed to go off simultaneously, because of the speed of burning of the Detcord. There was no perceptible time between explosions. Same for me with black vs smokeless.
SRH
