Black Powder vs Substitutes

[Cannonball1]

I have been "making" muzzleloaders since the late 70's.  By making I mean take the better purchased barrels, locks, a hunk of curly maple, shape and assembling them into a high quality traditional  rifle.  Selling them and starting over.  My last gun I frabicated with a Green Mt barrel with a 32" -1/28 twist.
Here is the question:  With black powder it is a tack driver with usually 2 inch groups, open sights, but with prodex, triple seven, 209 you can hardly hit a large pie plate groupings at 100 yards.  I have tried many different bullets, including sabots.  The obvious answer is to use black powder, but when I'm hunting I don't want the mess of black powder, so is there an obvious solution I'm missing?

 

[MLN1963]

My guess is the velocity is significantly different between the two. 

My suggestion would be to play around with the BP to get your best accuracy and then chrono it for the speeds. Then adjust powder charge with the SUBS to duplicate that speed.

 

[Spitfire1]

What primers do you use to ignite the 209 ?

 

[Cannonball1]

I have tried different quantities of each powder until I'm sick of trying, but haven't checked the speed of the bullet.  Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[exMember]

Get some new powder. If its been sitting around for some years, it may have been exposed and lost its oomph.

Its odd that its only accurate with BP and not the others.

 

[Cannonball1]

It's was new powder of each of the different substitutes and I soon got tired of buying different kinds.  Spitfire, knowing that 209 was not for the traditional ML I got the hottest nipple primers I could get in the 11 size.  I even tried priming with a flintlock pan of 4f BP.  There should be someone out there on the FM forum that has had a like issue.

 

[patocazador]

The only way I could get Blackhorn to fire in a side lock was to replace the nipple with a "Mag-Spark" using a 209 primer. My Hawken clone fires every time that way. With the percussion caps I never got complete ignition even with a duplex load using 5 grains of 4FG.

 

[exMember]

yeah that mag spark worked awesome. Sadly for me, the machinist screwed up the 6-1mm threads for the spainish guns and mine flew off. Never heard if they fixed that or not.

 

[MLN1963]

My guess is that velocity is the problem finding out you are using #11 nipple primers. BH 209 takes full power 209 primers for consistent ignition. I think you would be better off using 777 loose powder unless you can find a way to use 209 primers.

 

[Muley Hunter]

I'm surprised you got BH 209 to fire at all with #11 caps.

 

[rodwha]

I've also heard that 209 doesn't do well with percussion caps despite a small BP charge to help. 

Isn't 209 considered a 2F granulation?

 

[Cannonball1]

I've also heard that 209 doesn't do well with percussion caps despite a small BP charge to help. 

Isn't 209 considered a 2F granulation?

Well it did and the 4F didn't make much difference.  The recoil was different from BP, but I had gone thru ever other powder subst.  It did not group either.  My question about the adapter nipple is whether I can screw it into the regular nipple hole of the traditional gun.

 

[exMember]

blackhorn209 is in its own class, i dont think they grade it at all in any form of Fg.

BH209 can work with #11 caps but you first have to use a 5 grain booster charge of t7 - pyrodex or goex to help set it off. Its a pain in the butt and kind of really spoils the fun IMO. With the #11 guns, its best to just use what its made for, black powder or black powder sub thats know to work well with percussion caps.

 

[rodwha]

My understanding is that a MagSpark nipple should fit in place of the standard nipple. It should accept a 209 primer.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should buy some 209 to try in my rifle/pistol. I ought to be receiving a set of capsules for my pistol that will use rifle/pistol primers. One guy has tried them using 4F as  a starter with poor results. That's why I haven't put much thought into trying 209 since i want to stock/carry afield one powder (and cap too if possible).

Were I to use 209 in my sidelock should I consider the max charge as 2F or 3F? I've heard it compared to 2F, but I'm not sure where I even heard that.

 

[rodwha]

I wonder if you were getting lower velocities than typical. It's what was observed when using a duplex load of 4F BP in a pistol. Extremely low velocity! Maybe that's why you noticed a much different recoil?

 

[Cannonball1]

Just a funny story and another reason I would like to find a substitute smokeless powder.  I was hunting deer in southern Utah on a special draw and was sitting a waterhole in a tent blind.  I was also using black powder.  Along came a nice buck and I didn't want him to see movement so I shot through the window with the barrel about flush with the outside of the tent.  The smoke was so thick in the tent you could chew it.  I had to go out of the tent to see if I had hit the buck and I did get him.  So you see there is more than one reason to find a viable accurate source of smokeless powder.

 

[Spitfire1]

BH 209 recoils different because it burns more like nitro than black powder.

Reason I asked about the primer is that i'm thinking that you don't get complete combustion of your powder.

 

[rodwha]

I've also been considering a powder that wouldn't smoke so badly. At the range the smoke is cool. While hunting, especially hogs, it may not be so good.

 

[Spitfire1]

For me the smoke is part and parcel of bp shooting and hunting !

 

[ericcosh]

Just get a muzzleloader that is capable of shooting smokeless powder and your set. That's what I did and I would never turn back unless I wasn't legally allowed to hunt with it.