doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Dram Equiv. ?

I tried to use the search, because I know this has had to have been discussed before. BUT, what establishes dram equiv. and if based on BP, as I assume it is, what type of BP? 2F? 3F?

I think it's velocity.
Based probably on 2F, but not sure (probably something now long gone like Curtis's and Harvey's No 6). BP in the "olden days" is said to have been stronger than our modern equivalents.

Dave, Good info here. HTH Bob
BP Drams

I dunno, Cadet, the few BP rounds that I've touched off seemed to have plenty of whollop .. from a percieved recoil perspective it could be argued that BP has more verasity than smokeless for a similar DE loading.

nothing to do with pressure nor velocity here, only perception, thank you ;-)I am aware of the refs to dif woods for charcoal producing better [stronger?] BP

Also on the DE question, they only had ballistic pendulums for instruments until well after the invention of smokeless, so that any DE ref of old was ball park only, but was within the realm of closeness to said DE velocity. If I am not mistaken, there were no pressures involved in any DE specs, only velocity.

Thanks for the website. I have not waded through it all yet, But somewhere I recall reading that "X" of BP and 1 1/8oz of shot driven to a speed of 1200fps was 3 dr. I can't remember where I read it, and I was wondering from that thought, if it was 2F. So in a sense if it was 2F and you were to use 3F and only an actual amount of 3F was 2 3/4 dr. that would then be a 3 dr. equiv. of powder. Right? If 2F was the standard of granulation used.

"Very Early" smokeless loads were not I believe marked with Dram Equivelents. Many of the early smokeless powders were bulk powders & loaded by bulk measure equal to BP so the load was simply stated in drams, though technically dram is a weight & not a volume. A Dram Volume was settled upon as .115CuIn. Most early shells loaded with dense smokeless were simply marked with grains of powder. Most shooters had no idea what this compared to so the decision was made to use the DE marking to reference BP. This was as has been stated solely on velocity & had nothing to do with pressures. Somewhere I have an extensive chart of velocites for different DEs with various loads of shot in each of the ga's. About the only one I can consistently remember is a 3DE-1 1/8OZ in 12ga is a nominal 1200 FPS. The Boulenge Chronograph dates back much earlier than many are aware of & it proved the correctness of the ballistics pendulum.

As others have stated it is based on velocity. The black powder granulation was 2F. In the 1909 Sears catalog they list their Pointer Smokeless loads as "Grains of smokeless powder equal to" X drams. You could have any load combination made up, and still only pay $7.25 per case of 500 shells.

Take a good read of the site HTH Bob mentions. It is one of the best on the net for this.

Pete