Measuring volume on BH209

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People may give a slight tap or to to the filled volume measure like Ron and George show but I've never heard of someone actually packing the powder in a measure so compressing it is a moot issue. Powder can get compressed in certain loads with actual cartridges being loaded, but the only pack of black or subs comes with seating the bullet in the barrel on the powder charge.
 
Said it before and I will say it again:

If you want/ need the absolute best accuracy, esp at longer ranges, you should weigh each charge refardless of the powder used. Weighing is more accurate, by any measure 😁. You will never see me dispute this fact.

But for guys out there like me, that only use open sights, and it’s extremely rare to shoot past 100-120 yards, you don’t have to weigh to get very good accuracy. Volume works just fine

You don’t need to get sub MOA groups at 500 yards to hunt very proficiently, esp in states like Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah that don’t allow scopes.

YOMV
 
Don't overthink it. It's not as complicated as converting furlongs per fortnight to miles per hour. Remember, it's all relative.
Start with your max volume measured load less 20% or whatever you feel comfortable with.
Weigh the tube you are going to dump it in on the scale. I weigh the tube and funnel together.
Next, add the BH that you measured by volume. Weigh it again. That's your starting point in grams. Measure out a few tubes at that weight then measure out a few more tubes adding 5/10/15% more to these. Keep track of those loads and take them to the range and do your testing.
Keep that one "golden" tube to use for future measurements.
Once I know the weight of the perfect load, I then use that tube and my funnel to weigh out my BH. I transfer the weighed BH to my powder tubes. Done. My BH is always measured within a few tenths of a gram.....better than you could possibly ever do by volume. I would never consider doing a volume measurement with that stuff.
 
Hmm.....OK. You apparently did not follow what I explained and that's OK. You do yours and I'll do mine. Potato, potaato, tomato, tomaato. I gave you a way to convert your grains to grams.
I totally understand that the measure for powder is grains and it's pretty silly to argue about that.
If you know the grains, and weigh the grains in grams, you have a 100% accurate way to measure that is far more precise than using a measure. That is what I do and have been for a very long time.
 
I've mentioned this already, I could give a crap what you or anyone else is shooting or how they come to decide on a charge. What I do care about is safety. 1 ounce of powder has 437.5 grains in it. An once also has 28.3495 grams in it. A gram has 15.43236 grains in it. Now if some neophyte that has zero idea of what this means comes on site and reads your argument here and dumps 50 GRAMS of powder down his barrel with a 400 grain lead bullet, imagine the eye opener he's going to get. That gram weight equals 771.6000 grains.

As far as I am concerned, anything "gram" on this site should get the **** treatment so people don't get confused between grains and grams. And if you think for a second that you will get a more accurate load using grams instead of the standardize grain, think again because scales, even the best digital will not register to the fourth place after the zero when weighing BH209 or most smokeless powders..... the powder granule size is too large for that fine of a measurement and that far under the zero in weight isn't going to mean squat on paper.

To a new-comer, powder handling can be confusing enough without having to add another un-necessary weight measurement to the equation, especially one that has a very close similarity in spelling to one that has been standardize for years. You're apparently quite wise, but not all of the new comers to this sport are.
 
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I, like MrTom, think it’s better to always use grains when talking about black powder and BP substitutes.

If a person always started with a volumetric amount of powder, then weighs it, it doesn’t matter what the measurements are in. So for those people who know how to do that, there will never be a problem.

But as stated, for someone new to the game, they should always be told grains. So they don’t blow themselves up.

We already have enough people out there that hear to use “120 grains of BH 209” and they automatically assume that’s weight. So they weigh out 120 grains of BH 209 and shoot with that much powder. And that’s how disasters can happen.
 
MrTom said:
I've mentioned this already, I could give a crap what you or anyone else is shooting or how they come to decide on a charge. What I do care about is safety. 1 ounce of powder has 437.5 grains in it. An once also has 28.3495 grams in it. A gram has 15.43236 grains in it. Now if some neophyte that has zero idea of what this means comes on site and reads your argument here and dumps 50 GRAMS of powder down his barrel with a 400 grain lead bullet, imagine the eye opener he's going to get. That gram weight equals 771.6000 grains.

As far as I am concerned, anything "gram" on this site should get the **** treatment so people don't get confused between grains and grams. And if you think for a second that you will get a more accurate load using grams instead of the standardize grain, think again because scales, even the best digital will not register to the fourth place after the zero when weighing BH209 or most smokeless powders..... the powder granule size is too large for that fine of a measurement and that far under the zero in weight isn't going to mean squat on paper.

To a new-comer, powder handling can be confusing enough without having to add another un-necessary weight measurement to the equation, especially one that has a very close similarity in spelling to one that has been standardize for years. You're apparently quite wise, but not all of the new comers to this sport are.
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I could not agree more!
 
Decay said:
Does that little brass device say grains on it somewhere? I don’t see that in the photo. They could be drams, milliliters or cubic centimeters too if they’re not labeled. Show me a book, internet link or any reference material that shows grain as a unit of measurement of volume. You won’t find one because it doesn’t and never has existed. It’s a term being misused commonly.
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EDIT: It looks like MML Forum user txhunter58 already made “my” observation, way back in post #24. https://www.modernmuzzleloader.com/threads/measuring-volume-on-bh209.29418/post-576249

I I just wanted to give “credit where credit is due.” 👍
————

I think the phrase “grain(s) equivalent, as measured by volume” is likely a more proper way to express the way many of us use a powder measure.

Powder measure ad copy on Walmart.com isn’t exactly reference material, but it might help explain the common, continued (mis)use of the term:

IMG_8196.png
 
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@Decay, you’ve made your point, and I don’t even disagree.

This, however, is not the hill upon which I shall choose to die. 🤠

The Traditions website also reinforces the idea (however erroneous it may be) that you may measure grains by volume.

Once again, not exactly an authoritative source- but you can see one source of people’s confusion.

If the industry is improperly using the term, it seems there is likely little hope for our little forum changing common usage.

I stand by my belief that the phrase, “grain(s) equivalent, as measured by volume” is acceptable. If nothing else, it’s got to be “closer” to correct… 🤪


IMG_8197.png
 
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Being new here, I'm not going to disagree with the suggestion that grains should be the preferred unit of measure with interpretation of other units of measure creating possible confusion and potential for safety problems. Frankly, that never crossed my mind in that I have been doing "my own thing" for so many years and literally, this forum has been my first exposure to other avid loose powder shooters. Everyone I know uses those damned pellets.
I'm certainly not confused by units of measure so for me, the idea that anyone might be has never been a consideration. Got it. Carry on.
I pour my powder into the tubes Jitterbug just posted, after I measure them. I will no longer mention how I figure out how much I'm using. It's top secret. You need a secret handshake to find out.
 
Hornady makes a similar scale but a little more $$.
 
Decay said:
We’ll now this will really confuse the issue: I always thought “gram” was my mothers mother. Or a cracker.

And a “grain” is not a unit of measurement of volume. It’s used incorrectly in this forum frequently. A grain is a unit of measurement of weight. Dram is the unit we used to use for tiny volume measurements of powder. It’s 1/16 of a fluid ounce. Remember reading “ dram equivalent” on your boxes of shotgun shells. But that dram word hasn’t been used ever on this forum. At least I’ve never seen it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a device that measures drams either. Those little marks you see on the little plastic cylinders that we buy to store our pre-measured powder charges are sometimes marked as “ml”. Those are milliliter’s, the metric measurement of volume. I don’t have any black horn with me right now so I can’t measure the volume to weight comparison of Blackhorn, but I believe on Sunday I’ll be able to show how many milliliters 100 grains of Blackhorn is. And that’s not really a good comparison because volume is dependent on other factors, especially compression. What weighs more, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?
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Finally someone who gets it right. GREAT POST.:thumb:
 

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