Just returned from a very nice outing on a clay's course. Shot my average with a nice 1898'ish Army and Navy backaction hammergun. Haven't loaded blackpowder shells in a while so last week I put some up. Went about half the course with these and there was really no difference between them and the smokless shells. Chambers were lengthened in England and re-proofed at the Birmington Proof house and so marked. Load used: 2&3/4 inch Cheddite papers, factory primed. I used 90 grs of Goex 1fg to take up some space and I have plenty of this in stock. One .125 card nitro wad hard on the powder followed with a 1/2" felt cushion lubed with SPG soaked in a double boiler placed on waxed paper to dry. On the felt wad I used a 1oz. plastic shot cup (removed the cushion section) Just to keep pellet scrubbing to a minimum. 1oz 7&1/2 shot, overshot card and finished off with a nice roll crimp. This is the first time I went with the lubed felt rather that a fiber cushion and I really liked the results. Much cleaner that a dry fiber cushion with none of the bits flying about or the mess of loading a lubed fiber cushion. I'll be using felt in the future. Almost forgot how much fun this can be. I think I'll use blackpowder loads for the pigeon ring event at the Medford, WI. event this June.

ERic,
Are you loading on a MEC or PW or handloading one at a time. I was nervous wto put the black in my PW afraid I would get some corrosion etc.

I usually load black powder in an OLD aluminum Pacific or Bair press.
In this way no spark concerns.

And I use AA hulls and star crimp and use the hulls only once.

I also use F because I have lots of it. Looks like charcoal

Mike

I use a 50 count wood loading block from Balistic products and handload. Really takes little time. Volume measure powder, hand seat wad column, shot cup and dipped shot.. overshot card and take the block to my drill press and finish with a roll crimp. Just did another 50 this morning. I'll put up some 2&1/2" 3 dram/1oz shells using 2FG later this week. (Cheddite paper trimmed). Cleaned the Army&Navy hammergun and made supper last night. After, I gave my Woodward hammergun a light cleaning as I picked it up from my gunsmith before we went out for clays. Finished both with a wipe down and placed on the coffee table, glass of single malt and ran my copy of "The Shooting Party" BBC 2006 DVD. Life is good!

Good fun isn't it? I go once a month and shoot clays with BP. I load and use just about everything from .410 to 8 bore. It's amazing what 1 dram of powder and 3/8th. ounce of 8 shot can do from a .410. The old 8 bore makes quite a Boom! Enjoy. Lagopus.....

Yes, it is good fun. Most gunner's in my area have not seen what a blackpowder shotshell can do and usually ask if I "blew my self up?" After I tell them I am using blackpowder they are really interested and some express a desire to "give it a go'. More than happy to give them a pair or two. Watching the line of gun's in the movie discharge all those blackpowder loads on the drives really is great!

Some might want to check out:

www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_experiments/sparks/sparks.html

Interesting stuff......

Rob

Hmmmm, I will chew on this for awhile,
Thank you for posting!

Interesting stuff ......

Mike

I unleashed a single black powder round one night while I was shooting at the Naperville sportsman's Club. Besides breaking the clay, all I succeeded in doing was getting the rest of the squad PO'd at me. This was a simple fun round and folks got angry, trap shooters take their game far to seriously. It's why I came to dislike trap shooting.
Steve

Call me gullible, Mike....but I believed it enough to try spark ignition with very minute amounts of both FFg and FFFg with the same results ......to where I've loaded many hundreds of rounds of black powder using both my MEC charge bar (alum. anyway) and a Redding (steel) powder measure.

I'm not suggesting that you or anyone else do it, but I have for a number of years and am still 'intact'

Rob

I went out and bought an adjustable charge bar for my MEC when that was posted here 8-9 years ago. I used the adjustable as none of my bushings would throw enough BP. Been using my MEC to load BP ever since.

F*** 'em if they can't take a joke. I love shooting trap with BP and a damascus hammergun. To make it better, I shoot low gun.