doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Reloading Question

When I competed seriously in NMLRA patched roundball competition I sifted my black powder before a big match. I had three sifters that were labeled 3f no-go, 3f, and 3f fines. I ended up with a little over 2/3 lb. of very consistent granulated powder, out of a pound can, for the matches.

I shot some unbelievable groups with that sifted powder.

SRH

That was old Goex. Today, Swiss powder will beat modern Goex badly and without sifting. The old Goex wasn't bad powder at various times. It was certainly the best available. But times have changed and Goex has not kept up with the competition.

Swiss was available in limited amounts back then, but Goex was indeed the most widely available. I'd like to see if Swiss would shoot .45 cal. five shot groups smaller than 5/8" ctc, like that old sifted FFFg Goex would out of my 14 lb. buffalo rifle. That's pretty tight for a patched roundball, with any propellant.

SRH

Was the Swiss you knew in a rebadged metal can like the Goex? That would have been the first batch that came over and I believe it was all #5 -or 1f. It was remarkable stuff. But today, it is nearly 100% Swiss among those that are contenders.

Brent, if you don't trust load data, as you said, it seems like you better have any and all loads tested. "It would be nice to have the ability to make objective measures of pressure or something closely related to it." Yes it would, but there isn't. Precision Reloading charges $5 a round last I knew. If you take a 2 3/4" shell and cut the last 1/4" off to remove the creases so you can get a nice roll crimp you then are loading 2 1/2" shells. Seeing how you're just removing the excess material for a crimp, you still have the same area for the load components. The only difference is the type of crimp. Years back when plastic wads were first introduced, reloading manuals suggested lowering powder drops by 10% because the plastic sealed better. So if going from plastic load data there's no way you're going to hurt anything if you use fiber wads. For years I've loaded fiber wad shells [ off and on ] and increased powder drops by a 1/2 grain with no ill effects. And fiber wads can be used in any shell, tapered or straight walled. At least I've used fiber wads in Remington hulls and they shoot just fine. If you pick a load with 5 to 8000psi, you'd have to screw up pretty bad before things got dangerous. It's shotgun shell reloading, not pistol where pressures are so much higher. Quit worrying and have some fun. Fiber wads and roll crimps will diffidently lower pressures.

I've used GOEX for 50 years and find nothing wrong with it. My chunk gun I made with a Bill Large barrel would lay one shot on top of another shooting GOEX and I never sifted any of my powders. I was also tied for high gun in the silhouette match one year and never sifted powder, and that match was shot out to 200 yards. I'm not saying sifting wouldn't help, it's just that I had pretty good luck without doing it. And GOEX is made in the USA. Back to the fiber wads in shotgun shells. BPI offers some kind of lubed wads. I normally use to just call Circle Fly and order whatever I wanted. Does BPI or Precision Reloading just sell CF wads under their own name ?

Paul,

I just don't trust this one load. 1300 fps at 6000 PIS sounds too good to be true for an ounce and a quarter. I loaded and shot some in a stout enough gun, and they produced rather prodigious recoil as well. Recoil may not predict velocity or pressure perfectly, but it is enough to raise my concern so I would like to find out for certain. That is all.

I did not cut the shells down. If I implied otherwise, my apologies.
These were 2.75" shells, virgin so they made good roll crimps. Also loaded them with folded crimps as well and they were at least as recoil unfriendly as would be expected.

Every powder charge and shot charge was weighed to +/- 0.1 grain.

As a follow up to this discussion, I had a load tested this week that I mentioned above. It is 30.0 grs of Longshot powder, a Claybusters substitute for the Winchester WAA12R wad, a 1/2" dry, 16 g fiber wad inside the cup, and 1.2 oz of #5 lead or Bismuth. followed by a card wad and roll crimp in a 2.75" Cheddite hull (new). It averaged 1227 fps and 4100 PSI. This was quite a bit less than I expected ((1300 fps @ 6000 PSI), but he explained that the roll crimp would drop 500-1000 PSI and the fiber wad would easily account for another 500.

All I can say is that it drops ducks dead extremely well.

Hope you don't get bloopers with it when it really turns cold. 4100 is pretty low. 2 Piper used to say that is too low for real cold temps. Not so much of a problem down he'ah but could be in IA.

SRH

A good point, Stan. I'm doubtful that will happen, but certainly something to keep in mind.

26f this morning. Pretty balmy, and no hardwater like Wednesday.