1911 black powder and fixed barrel no recoil lugs.

Sounds like you're in one of the more restricted Euro countries, but there must still be shooting clubs around?

Anyway, BP is safe to handle as long as you:
(a) Keep it away from fire (duh).
(b) Don't do anything stupid (eg. load a gun directly from a flask, shoot next to an open can of black powder, or expose it to fire or sparks in any other inventively stupid way).
(c) Use only stuff intended for BP loading with it, which won't throw a spark.
(d) Store it in a safe when you're not using it.
(e) Do not leave an air gap, either in BP catridges or in muzzleloaders.

Black powder basically burns really damn fast as opposed to detonating like a high explosive. When it's contained, this creates an explosion. If you want to fill the house with the lovely smell of burnt sulfur, put 50 grains on a plate and set it alight with a long match; it will burn (not explode) near instantly and produce a big smoke cloud.

Smokeless just burns slower if not contained and is harder to set on fire, making it a bit less of a hazard, but if you can safely handle smokeless you can safely handle black powder, too.

(Just kidding; do it on the balcony, or else the smoke will stick around.)

Would be a fun trick at the range to give a friend some BP handloads for their semi-auto gun ;)
 
rant

@Branko: we do have gun clubs here but its hard to get the approval of the government to become a member, even the required prospect membership has to be approved by the government. law says you also need to be a member of the shooting association (non-government), which means if you dont like whatever crazy stuff the shooting association decides (like banning all calibers called "magnum", or deciding what guns you can buy and what not. they also banned cowboy action shooting because they dont want people to where those clothes) they can stop your membership from the association which automatically means loosing your gun club membership and losing your gun license and guns. if you do manage to get a membership you have to take part in registered shooting competitions and you have to register a certain ammount of range visits to apply for a license and to keep your license.

there are several crimes in the law that exclude a person from gun ownership/gun club membership. ofcourse there's the logical stuff like murder and other bad stuff, but also illogic stuff. an example: if you're bored and you break all windows of the local city bus, no problem for your application. but if you play football and a window breaks by accident you can forget about your application. if you make the mistake of telling your doctor you had a bad day once somewhere in life, you can forget about your application.

everytime something happens with a firearm here, like drugcriminals shooting eachother in amsterdam with illegal firearms like ak-47 and uzi in broad daylight the government tightens the weapon laws further. they dont care about the fact that a proven 99% of all gun crimes here are committed with already illegal firearms by professional criminals.
possesion of a slingshot or blank gun is punished the same as posession of a .50 AE desert eagle here...

so i gave up on the whole gun club thing years ago. only gun i own is a winchester 1893 which is legal because they were made for black powder only with a production date before 1945.
which is quite funny cause all other pump actions are banned by the government and the shooting association even banned the antique black powder ones from competition so no one can get a license for one.
ofcourse ammo possesion is also banned for everyone without a license. we can only have lead roundballs, cylindrical bullets specificly for air rifle calibers, and the smallest 6mm flobert blanks for the only legal blank firing gun available here. (1 model blank gun which your are only allowed to keep in your house and not use or carry anywhere).

years ago black powder, smokeless powder and percussioncaps weren't restricted in the gun law but the police told all gunshops they could only sell it to people with a gun license and register all buyers so shooting an antique musket was already made impossible for people not beloning to the happy few, before they could change the law a few years later.

i was a member in german gun clubs when i lived in germany...that was a whole new experience..it was allowed to go to the gun range and smile when shooting cowboy action, or even shoot .50bmg on the long distance range. unfortunately they've already changed their laws a couple of times since then and now with the migration and terrorism thing in europe the european union forces countries to further restrict all legal gun ownership while nothing is done about illegal arms smuggle in europe.

for normal people here it takes a life time of being mother theresa and a year application and good luck and cash to get a 6mm flobert single shot gun.
while a criminal just takes the money for the shooting association membership fee and gets a full auto assault rifle from eastern europe or north africa within a week.
 
It is unlikely that a M1911 could operate safely without locking lugs, even with black powder as a propellant.

The question comes down to pressure at unlock. I don't have the data, so this is all conjecture, but slide weight alone is probably insufficient to keep the breech locked long enough to keep breech pressures low at unlock. The Hi-Point Model JHP is a blow back 45 ACP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-Point_Model_JHP This pistol has a very heavy slide and I have no doubt that it would be safe to shoot black powder in this pistol, it would be interesting if it functioned. Given this heavy slide, inertia is enough to keep the slide in place long enough, for pressures to drop to a safe level at unlock. The pressure at unlock is the key, for if pressures are too high in a lug less M1911, the cartridge will rupture at unlock. You can find all sorts of blown case heads on 40 cal S&W Glocks to understand the issue.

The cartridge case is the weak link in every action. Shooters should get away from the idea that the case is strong or is a strong pressure vessel. I have seen this on this web site before, you could tell the poster thought of the cartridge case as similar to a propane bottle, CO2 cartridge, etc. Some people think that the cartridge case is strong enough, by itself, to hold the pressures of combustion, exactly like pressurized propane bottles hold the internal pressure. However, propane bottles are around 125 psia, not 10,000, 15,000, or 20,000 psia. Just because you can't crush the cartridge case in your hand, that does not make it so strong that it won't tear like tissue paper at 20,000 psia.

Cartridge gun design is based around supporting the case so it does not rupture. A cartridge case is a gas seal, not a structural, load carrying element. If it carries load, it will stretch, then rupture.

So your question really comes down to, can an unsupported 45 ACP case withstand the pressures of combustion using black powder as a propellant. I really don't know, but, I don't think so.
 
So your question really comes down to, can an unsupported 45 ACP case withstand the pressures of combustion using black powder as a propellant. I really don't know, but, I don't think so.
Click to expand...

Good point. A steel cylinder which is designed to withstand black power is much stronger and thicker then a brass case. "Only" 10.000 psi, unsupported, is already a whole lot, and BP load would easily develop something in the ballpark.

@boesman: wow, and I thought our gun laws in Croatia were bad. Here, you must have a clean criminal record, join a shooting organization, pass a (mental) health check and a police inspection. It sounds like a lot of trouble which dissuades a lot of people, but it isn't that terrible once you set your mind to it.

Of course there is red tape you must go through and it takes several months, and you must compete if you have a sport license, or you must renew a hunting license if it's a hunting gun, and pass a health check every 5 years, but it sounds harder then it really is. You get used to it - it's a hassle, but you get used to it. Biggest problem is that there are very few shooting ranges in some places. That said, yes, the EU attempts to make countries tighten up laws are a huge annoyance without any logical reason.
 
johnwilliamson062 said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LopUNq6lF2U

I can't believe the AK cycled that well.

He's been watching Revolution.
Click to expand...

I'm a little disappointed that the AK only made through a few rounds of BP loaded ammo. I wonder if it was because he used steel cases. Maybe brass cased ammo might've worked better?
 
@ slamfire: you're absolutely right about unsupported cartridges. i dont know why people think brass cases are strong, because even small headspace issues cause casehead ruptures. i know brass cases are weak because they also use brass cases in some grenadelaucher shells, where the wall of the brass case ruptures to let the gas into a hollow area under the grenade projectile. the high-low system, sometimes with a brass rupture disc and sometimes just with rupture of the case itself.

in my "quest" im looking for how heavy the slide has to be that it accellerates slow enough so the pressure in the barrel and case are low enough to prevent rupture of the case.

recoil impulse for a standard 9mm para is 0.65lbs/s. the heavy hi point c9 slide gives a recoil velocity of about 18.2 fps and 5.9ftlbf recoil energy so i consider those to be safe and not to exceed.

recoil impulse for 9mm para with black powder is around 0.45lbs/s
the 1911 slide weight would give a recoil velocity of about 17.7 fps and 3.94ftlbf recoil energy. both lower than the numbers for the c9.

only thing i have to try to calculate now is the difference in slide accelleration between a 1.151 lbs slide and a 0.812 lbs slide.

@drobs: i think the ak gas port cloggs up and the gas piston gets stuck with black powder fouling

@branko: eu is doing everything they can to stay in charge i guess, they disarm the people because they know no one wants to be eu-member anymore. in holland there will be a referendum for the citizens to decide if they think the proposed treaty with ukrain to become new eu member is ok. so far the polls say about 90 percent of people here dont want the treaty. but the ukrain guy said the treaty is already decided for as yes (our prime minister stood next to him and said nothing because he want an eu job in future), juncker the eu guy said if we vote no in referendum there will be major conflict. he also said nothing can stop the treaty. everytime i read something about eu in the newspaper i have to think about how world war 2 started. i think you know about war in your country, no one wants war only the politicians want war and they dont even fight in the war. eu started as something good and now became a dictator.
 
You will need more than calculations. You will need test data. First of all, since you understand English, go over to this website and down load, for free!, Vol IV Machine Gun by LTC Chinn.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/MG/

This is an outstanding reference for understanding the theory of automatic weapon function.

You will need to measure the pressure drop of the cartridge/propellant. In the inset of this chart is the pressure drop of the 7.62 Nato cartridge, and it is critical to the design of an automatic weapon.



These pictures are from Chinn. It appears you have a technical background, so you should be able to understand the principles without difficulty. Timing, that is unlock, is something that is carefully engineered into any automatic mechanism. Unlock must occur before pressure is zero, and less than the pressure it takes to rupture the case sidewall.

Case design is such that only the case head is capable of holding full combustion pressures, and that, only if the case is supported. Case sidewalls are not thick enough to hold pressure without rupturing. Different action types, like the delayed blowback action shown at the bottom, allow more case movement before the case head is out of the chamber.



This action by the way, will cause a high percentage of American's to foam at the mouth in denial. This action required greased cases to function. American's don't accept this. They have been taught by the US Army that greased and oiled cases dangerously raise pressures and dangerously increase bolt thrust, and therefore, American's in general, deny the existence of the Oerlikon action, deny that it could have functioned, and deny that any action can function safely with greased or oiled cases. It is an amazing example of "argument from authority", and because the status of the authority is so high, American's will ignore the evidence before their very eyes, that their own Army is lying to them.




Here you can see pressure curves. These are for educational purposes only. To really calculate whether a lug less M1911 action will safely function black powder cartridges, test data is required.







 
Other than fouling, part of the problem with BP in an autoloading firearm is the pressure curve. BP ignites rapidly, reaches peak pressure very quickly, and then the pressure drops quickly. Smokeless powder does not ignite quite as fast, builds to peak more slowly, then drops pressure more slowly. That is the reason for the once-common blow ups of old shotguns with smokeless shells. The peak pressures were not that much greater, but the pressure stayed high beyond where the barrel thinned down and the old barrels, especially Damascus barrels, couldn't take it and let go. Since that point is exactly where the shooter put his off hand, a blowup often took some fingers along for the ride.

But the fact that BP pressure peaks quickly means that in some cases, the pressure can peak and drop before a blowback action gets moving. Apparently BP will function a recoil-operated pistol (1911) but I would not be sure about a blowback .45 ACP carbine or an SMG with API.

Jim
 
Other than fouling, part of the problem with BP in an autoloading firearm is the pressure curve. BP ignites rapidly, reaches peak pressure very quickly, and then the pressure drops quickly. Smokeless powder does not ignite quite as fast, builds to peak more slowly, then drops pressure more slowly. That is the reason for the once-common blow ups of old shotguns with smokeless shells. The peak pressures were not that much greater, but the pressure stayed high beyond where the barrel thinned down and the old barrels, especially Damascus barrels, couldn't take it and let go. Since that point is exactly where the shooter put his off hand, a blowup often took some fingers along for the ride.
Click to expand...

James: I have not seen any pressure curves with black powder, but I do have an email somewhere between myself and Hoyt, of Hoyt barrels. I asked him the materials he used in his black powder barrels, and the material was extremely low grade. Hardly a steel. It was soft and easy to rifle and safe with black powder. Black powder produces such low pressures that wrought iron was used as barrel material. Those back wood mechanics could cut rifling with steel cutters and make accurate, blackpowder squirrel rifles, but I would not trust them with smokeless.

As for Damascus barrels, I am of the opinion they are dangerous with smokeless and blackpowder. The materials were awful, low grade steel mixed with wrought iron, and twisted together. Then this twisted rope was wrapped around a mandrel and welded through heat. The weld length was so long that it was impossible to create a barrel without a weld flaw somewhere in the barrel. I have seen pattern welded barrels, they are beautiful, interesting to the eye, but an example of a material technology that is too labor intensive and dangerous to the user to be around anymore.
 
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