Powder difference test

I was asked by a member who purchased a Lyman Great Plains Rifle. His question was, does the powder make a difference in where the rifle shoots. I told him I was pretty sure it did. My Lyman Great Plains Rifle is sighted in with Schuetzen 2f black powder.

So today I took out the Lyman Great Plains Rifle which is a .50 caliber percussion model (The Great Plains Hunter is the flintlock model). As the known standard I first loaded 85 grains of Schuetzen 2f black powder, a home cast .490 round ball, moose milk lube, and cut at the muzzle pillow tick patching. The two center hits at 31 yards indicate where they landed. About what I expected. And to be fair I swabbed between shots and swabbed extra careful between powder changes.

Next up was Pyrodex RS. I was surprised the hits were low left like that. I kind of felt at this closer range they would be more like the black powder. But again, swabbed between shots. Again more swabbing and then a powder change.

The Triple Seven 2f was next. I was really kind of shocked they hit that high. But again, they held a group. So I don't believe it was from a flinch or anything. That one real high up there was a question for me.

Normally on my new rest, the support arm is over the table close to me. In that position it hold the stock of the rifle, right in front of the trigger guard. Well for my own curiosity I moved the arm out, past the table and rested the rifle barrel in the support. I was surprised it made such a difference. I was still loading triple seven 2f powder.

After swabbing the barrel clean, answering the phone and a call of nature inside. I then came out, loaded black powder and proceeded to blow the center of the target out. Making me very happy.

Also I cleaned the rifle with the tooth pick method. Tooth pick in the nipple hole, fill the barrel with dish water, let sit, then pull the pick. I also blew on the end of the barrel to really force the water out of the barrel through the nipple hole. After all that I swabbed the fouling out of the barrel until clean. But again, that curiosity bug got me, so I pulled the nipple. The threads were nice and clean but pushing a Q Tip through the nipple port into the Bolster/Drum with Birchwood Casey Muzzle Loader & Black Powder Magic which is a water soluble, no chemical cleaner, (could you clean BlackHorn 209 with it?) it came out FILTHY!! So some more Q Tips until that was clean and then I did the barrel again with the same Birchwoods Casey product. And they came out clean. We finally wiped it down and oiled the rifle up with of course, Birchwoods Casey Barricade.

I don't want to come off as a Birchwoods Casey hacker. I use their product because our Wal Mart carried it. It works real good. And I go through a lot of it a year.

Dave I would say your target shows exactly what I would think might happen shooting those 3 different powders...

I was surprised the most by the Triple Seven 2f. Although it groups real nice with that T7 powder. And that changing the bench rest shocked the devil out of me.

cayuga said:

I was surprised the most by the Triple Seven 2f. Although it groups real nice with that T7 powder. And that changing the bench rest shocked the devil out of me.

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I would suggest to you that the move of the rest forward and out on the barrel also shows the results of pretty much what I would believe also, You changed the barrel harmonics plus you added a little bit of upward pressure to the barrel.

Good report :yeah:

Which powder do you believe gave the most velocity? Is there any correlation between faster powder and where it made the ball impact the target?

If I had to guess I would have thought the Triple 7 had the highest velocity and those shots hit the highest. The black powder is of course sighted in with the rifle, so I expected them to hit the bull. But I did think Pyrodex RS would also hit near dead center. So maybe that has the least velocity. Mike would know more about that velocity stuff.

Dave
I think the results are basically the same, had you used FFF/P with those three powders. Only difference would be higher holes on paper.

I've been sticking with Goex FFF in the past 1-1/2 years. Aside from the sidehammer applications, I find my inlines have more target consistency and no issues with breechplugs clogging or freezing-shut anymore. My powder ignites so much easier now and real black is not as sensitive to how we seat the bullet. I do use a few more cleaning/swabbing patches than with Blackhorn and I'm fine with that.

cayuga said:

If I had to guess I would have thought the Triple 7 had the highest velocity and those shots hit the highest. The black powder is of course sighted in with the rifle, so I expected them to hit the bull. But I did think Pyrodex RS would also hit near dead center. So maybe that has the least velocity. Mike would know more about that velocity stuff.

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Dave I would suggest that the T7 would show an increase in velocity above the other two powders tested. But more importantly because of the added pressure of T7 and the increased velocity barrel harmonics also changed. If you had shot some Swiss BP I believe you would have seen the same or very close to the same performance you saw with T7.

The quality of real BP is the separator when it comes to pressure. GOEX and Pyro while both good and dependable powders can not produce the pressures, when loaded grain for grain, that are generated by T7-Swiss-BH.

The pressure chart shows what I am indicating. The colors are hard to distinguish but you should see the differences on the pressure scale.. NOTE: the GOEX used in this was 4F - so normal 2f or even 3f would lag behind.



This comparison shows the increase of Swiss over GOEX



These two pages captured from a magazine might provide additional information