BH209 bad weather concerns

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dragonfly

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I really want to jump on the band wagon with this stuff. There just seems to be so many advantages over the alternatives. I've already acquired a jug of 209 and can't wait to work up a load for my Omega. From what I've read, the Omega seems to be tailor made for 209 with the stock breech plug and action that closes to seal a primer. So, what can go wrong.

The overwhelming positive reviews for 209 are encouraging but the few bad reviews have me wondering. The bad reviews of 209 seem to be caused from either not using the right primer, the wrong BP style, along with bad weather. I can dismiss the first two by just using a recommended hot primer and a proper maintained breech plug that comes stock with my rifle. Weather conditions seem to be the variable where things can go south. I want to hunt with this stuff and Dec/Jan in Ohio can get pretty nasty. I know a guy that I have respect for say, from his experience, BH 209 thru his gun won't fire when it gets cold or wet. That raised an eyebrow. No ignition at the moment of truth would not be good.

I guess I'm just looking for reasurance that I'm not making a mistake by hunting with this stuff and want to have confidence it'll perform when meat is standing in front of me. Summer time at the range is one thing and below zero during ML season is another.

Can anyone chime in with sucesss stories during extreme weather?
 
Keep your plug clean with a 1/8 drill bit and that Omega will fire Blackhorn209 as well or better than any other OEM plug. The Omega was one of the rifles used to develop BH209. Its newer style concave plug is excellent. The old flat faced plug needs some alterations to work best.

Ive burned countless bottles of BH209 in my Knights and even a Savage based rifle. The ONLY time i had a hang fire was in a plug i had not cleaned properly after several range sessions. All these people that have problems with it really amaze me. 99% of these problems could be avoided by proper plug cleaning. The other 1% are simply using it in a plug or inline that is not a good closed breach system.
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When your primers come out this clean in a good plug it will go bang every time.

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Thank you. That's why I wrote a proper maintained breech plug. I know about the drill bit thing. I had to get all the crap out of the flash channel when I made the switch from T7. I was amazing how much junk came out.
 
The only thing I have read bad about Blackhorn 209 is it don’t shoot good 1st shot on a clean barrel. People either shoot small charges to foul the barrel or use powdered graphite to simulate a fouled barrel. I don’t like the idea of sitting in the woods all week with a dirty gun. Blackhorn sounds perfect for going to the range and shooting multiple shots without cleaning the barrel.

But for hunting I prefer sitting in the woods with a clean gun. Half the fun to me with muzzeloader hunting is smoke flying out of the barrel and cleaning the gun.
 
This December, I left my Omege loaded for 15 days in northern MN and when the season ended it misfired. I believe it must have picked up a little moisture. This winter I went out when the temperature was -15 and the Omega fired like normal so temperature is not an issue. Next year I will use the balloon over the end of the barrel trick. Just my experience. viking
 
When blackhorn first came out, i shot it with zero problems from my Omega rifle. During hunting season in below zero weather, and during the summer, fall, and spring. First shot, or 20th shot no issues. Wow was i ever ignorant of the problems folks had/have burning the Blackhorn powder.

Later on we found out the CVA rifles were having problems with delays, and misfires. We played around some; changed the CVA breech plugs, so they looked like the Omega breech plug. To see if the changes worked we left rifles out over night when it was -13° or so, several/many times. Never did we experience a delay, or misfire using these modified CVA breech plugs.

Out of curiosity, we also left Omega rifles out over night in -13° weather, just to see. We concluded that there is no cold weather issues burning Blackhorn in Omega rifles, nor CVA rifles If the breech plug looks like an Omega breech plug.

This year, i loaded my Knight rifle with Blackhorn powder into a clean clean barrel, and carried it 27 days through some bitter bitter cold snowy weather, before i finally got a shot. Ignition was perfect. W209 was the primer.
 
I have shot BH in an Omega, a Triumph, 2 Encores and never had an issue the Omega was 1.5 inch off high on the first shot at 100 yds. nothing that made any difference for hunting. I had one of the early sample cans and have shot ever since with out a misfire, I have used win209 primers the entire time, I put vent liners in all my muzzleloaders my self I use the one from Savage until Lehigh came out with them.
 
Work up your load now, or as soon as it cools back down. Don't wait until summer or fall. Some rifles are sensitive to the bitter cold conditions. I'm talking being out in the bitter cold for hours or days. Some rifles are load sensitive as to sabot/bullet fit in the cold. What works in the summer and fall, don't always work in the dead of winter.

Once you have your load figured out, keep your rifle secured in those conditions, if left loaded. Don't take it in and out of the house for every hunt.

It's not as hard as it sounds, but you need to do your due diligence before taking it hunting. And keep that flame channel clear.
 
Busta said:
Work up your load now, or as soon as it cools back down. Don't wait until summer or fall. Some rifles are sensitive to the bitter cold conditions. I'm talking being out in the bitter cold for hours or days. Some rifles are load sensitive as to sabot/bullet fit in the cold. What works in the summer and fall, don't always work in the dead of winter.

Once you have your load figured out, keep your rifle secured in those conditions, if left loaded. Don't take it in and out of the house for every hunt.

It's not as hard as it sounds, but you need to do your due diligence before taking it hunting. And keep that flame channel clear.

Heed this advice!!!!!!
 
ronlaughlin said:
Busta said:
Work up your load now, or as soon as it cools back down. Don't wait until summer or fall. Some rifles are sensitive to the bitter cold conditions. I'm talking being out in the bitter cold for hours or days. Some rifles are load sensitive as to sabot/bullet fit in the cold. What works in the summer and fall, don't always work in the dead of winter.

Once you have your load figured out, keep your rifle secured in those conditions, if left loaded. Don't take it in and out of the house for every hunt.

It's not as hard as it sounds, but you need to do your due diligence before taking it hunting. And keep that flame channel clear.

Heed this advice!!!!!!

I agree here as well!! Same thing with a centerfire rifle, i see guys buying CDS scopes and sending the ‘Summer time’ Data to Leupold etc. for their Custom Turret, they don’t realize that the 80 degree weather they worked there load up in, and Close to 0 weather during hunting season can make a BIG difference, This obviously gets more n more elaborate at longer ranges. I have had Guys tell me that Leupold etc. screwed up on their turret, that it is off at longer ranges.
 
Blackhorn drop appx 1.8 fps per 1 degree temp change. So 2000 fps at 80 degrees is 1856 at zero.

Big deal at 200 plus yds
 
bestill said:
Blackhorn drop appx 1.8 fps per 1 degree temp change. So 2000 fps at 80 degrees is 1856 at zero.

Big deal at 200 plus yds

Good post Bestill! People don’t realize stuff like this. It is a bunch better this day n age with the Temp stable Smokeless powders available, but it stil needs to be tested to make sure. I have yet to do this with Real Blackpowder in extreme temps, but i know the importance of it through my experience in Long Range Centerfire. Last year was my first hunt with a Muzzleloader, i knew my limit was 100-150 yards with my peep sight setup, i had sighted in out to 200 yards a couple weeks before the season opened so i was Confident, i ended up filling my Doe tag. But i need to get out and test in extreme conditions so i know exactly what to expect
 
bestill said:
Blackhorn drop appx 1.8 fps per 1 degree temp change. So 2000 fps at 80 degrees is 1856 at zero.

Big deal at 200 plus yds

Great information......... I knew that denser air affected the velocity and will affect wind drift, but didn't know how much. One good reason for always checking one's zero right before hunting. Some ballistics software requests the temp when the rifle is zeroed and then asks for the current temp when shooting. With big temp swings it always indicates a different setting.
 
bestill said:
Blackhorn drop appx 1.8 fps per 1 degree temp change. So 2000 fps at 80 degrees is 1856 at zero.

Big deal at 200 plus yds

So at what temp does it really affect Blackhorn. So as it gets hotter temp. it burns faster. Starting point?
 
If you state what state and what part of the state you will be hunting in it can make a difference; for instance I am in north central AR our deer season average temperature is about 45 degrees so we do not see some of the problems of the colder areas.
 
45cal said:
bestill said:
Blackhorn drop appx 1.8 fps per 1 degree temp change. So 2000 fps at 80 degrees is 1856 at zero.

Big deal at 200 plus yds

So at what temp does it really affect Blackhorn. So as it gets hotter temp. it burns faster. Starting point?
I want to clear things up. Stating Blackhorn drops 1.8fps per 1 degree change is just a false statement. I reload a LOT for centerfire rifles and achieve sub .5moa accuracy with many loads. Are some powders a bit more stable than others due to temperature...yes but how much so? not as much as you may think and many times it has nothing to do with the powder itself, but instead...the powder, bullet, and GUN combo and whether you are in the rifles accuracy node. Everyone here should know when you fire a shot, your barrel vibrates. This vibration causes a whipping effect of the barrel. If the shock blast vibration of the barrel is at the end of the barrel when the bullet is leaving the crown this is what causes bad groups. When we change powder charge...it will change when the vibration is reaching the end of the barrel compared to when the bullet is coming out. So now that we understand that, we can discuss temperature change. Let's say you develop a load that just so happens to have great accuracy at 80 degrees F. Well, let's pretend that the shock wave vibration I was speaking of was 4 inches from the end of the barrel when the bullet leaves. Well that same shock wave in cold weather could now be at the end of the barrel due to changes in temperature and pressure which changes vibration patterns of barrels. Now that same accurate load is no longer accurate. There are two ways to remedy this. Only develop your loads in the temps and conditions you wish to hunt and hope you do not have freak temperature shift OR develop accuracy NODE loads. These accuracy node loads are basically when that shock wave blast is at it's furthest point from the end of the barrel, this way no matter what conditions arise, the wave will never hit the end of the barrel when the bullet is leaving the barrel. In my opinion, this will hold true with BH209 powder. You need to find a bullet/sabot, powder charge, and primer combo that yields the accuracy node. If you want to know what the accuracy node is, you will have to do either some ladder testing or OCW testing, and you will need a chronograph. OCW would be best for muzzleloaders. I am new to muzzleloaders but physics is still physics and I would be willing to bet this holds true for muzzleloaders. It may be rather hard to find a accuracy node in muzzleloaders because you have a few other variables to consider, such as how hard you seated the bullet...but to say BH209 is not temp stable is misinformation in my opinion.

FYI...ALL POWDERS (including smokeless) will have slower velocities in colder weather.
 
That is a lot of interesting information . What is OCW testing ?

I can not say how cold effects accuracy at long ranges with Blackhorn . I can say that even in the summer when temps are warm my numbers can change up to 2 or 3 MOA from day to day at 500 yards . I did not realize how much temp and humidity will effect long range accuracy . The average hunter that shoots inside of 200 yards I highly doubt it will make that much of a difference as far as minute of deer .

This year I carried my Knight Mountaineer most of the season . Most of the time I left the gun in my truck but there was times when it was in and out of the cold . The gun was loaded the entire season . I shot the gun off 2 weeks ago at zero degree weather . My shot was about 3/8 low from dead center of aiming point at 100 yards. My load was 84 grains Blackhorn 209 by weight with a Parker 270 Emax and a wool wad .Ignition was instant . I'm a accuracy nut . I'm happy with that kind of accuracy considering the conditions .
 
Dougs136Schwartz said:
That is a lot of interesting information . What is OCW testing ?

I can not say how cold effects accuracy at long ranges with Blackhorn . I can say that even in the summer when temps are warm my numbers can change up to 2 or 3 MOA from day to day at 500 yards . I did not realize how much temp and humidity will effect long range accuracy . The average hunter that shoots inside of 200 yards I highly doubt it will make that much of a difference as far as minute of deer .

This year I carried my Knight Mountaineer most of the season . Most of the time I left the gun in my truck but there was times when it was in and out of the cold . The gun was loaded the entire season . I shot the gun off 2 weeks ago at zero degree weather . My shot was about 3/8 low from dead center of aiming point at 100 yards. My load was 84 grains Blackhorn 209 by weight with a Parker 270 Emax and a wool wad .Ignition was instant . I'm a accuracy nut . I'm happy with that kind of accuracy considering the conditions .
As the above poster stated, OCW is an optimal charge weight test. If you google Dan Newbury OCW you can read the entire process. Definitely worth it for centerfire rifle reloading. However, for muzzleloaders I think it may not be worth it, unless you have the time. There are just sooo many variables to consider. For example, lets say you use sabots. If one sabot fits just a tiny bit smaller with a bit than the other...that would cause a change in your velocities. How you measure your powder by volume...rather than weight could impact velocity changes (weight id think would be much more accurate but I'm new to the ML game). I hard you ram the bullet down on top of the powder...etc. In my mind, these change accuracy and velocity more so than if a powder was "temp" stable. I think the changes in temperature impact more on the expansion of metals such as the barrel, the bullet...causing tighter or looser seals which will change the burn of the powder impacting velocities.
 

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