Black vs Pyrodex

R

Ribcracker

New member
The recommended charge of black powder for my .50 Plains Pistol is 40 grains. If I adjust my brass measuring tool to 40 grains and use it to dispense Pyrodex, will my gun be overcharged, undercharged, or correctly charged?
 
Pyrodex P is a volume equivalent to 3F black powder. There is no need to reduce the charge. Same with Triple 7. People misunderstood the 15% reduction, which wasn't for safety. It was to achieve the same velocity as black powder. However the BP they compared it to is weak. T7 gives very similar velocity results as Swiss and Olde Eynsford BP of the same volume.
 
Thanks, guys. I just can't seem to get my head around the volume vs weight thing. Something that threw me is Cabela's BP loading data. For instance: It says use 40gr BP in a single shot .50 cal pistol and use 45gr Pyrodex in same. And yet it says, "When using Pyrodex use a 20% reduction in load." Okay, then why would they recommend an increased charge of Pyro?!
Here is the page I'm referring to: http://www.kirbos.net/reload_data/Muzzle_Loader_&_Black_Powder_Loading_Data.pdf
 
Pyrodex and real black are a volume to volume exchange. You can weigh real black but Pyrodex and the other subs are a lot lighter. Maybe when they said reduce Pyro by 20% they were referring to weighed charges. I don't know how much difference there is in weights.
 
You can run that pup up as high or as low as you want.
High would equal unburnt powder and low would equal stuck ball.

Just never, never, never substitute smokeless powder.
 
Thanks, Smoke, that's reassuring. And thank you, Rod, for the comparison tables. That clears up a lot of confusion for me.
It's now obvious that the increased charge weight of 45 gr Pyrodex in the Cabela's table (post #4) is a typo. The reason I say that is if you scroll down to .36 cal cap & ball revolvers, the recommended max charge for fffg black is 22gr and for Pyrodex P it's 17gr. A reduction! This is corroborated in the black powder section of Lyman's Pistol & Revolver Handbook .
Boy, you sure wouldn't think reloading data would ever contain a typo. But there it is!
 
You, sir, are correct! I filled a 30-30 case with Pyrodex and weighed the contents on my RCBS scale. It weighed 32 grains which is a 20% reduction of the recommended 40 grains of FFFG black.
When I poured the case contents into my BP measure I had to set it at 45 which I suppose is a volume measure.
But the proof is in the pudding. When using a 30-30 case to charge my .50 cal plains pistol, the shot landed in the black at fifty yards. Dead on!
Thank you for this great tip. A 30-30 case fits in my pants pocket, the CVA black powder measure does not. Convenient!
By the way, the reason I'm using Pyrodex is because I can't get my hands on actual black powder around here. And I'll be damned if I'll pay the hazmat fee to order online.
 
I, too, felt that way. I bought Triple 7 from BassPro (3F). But during the times of trouble when things firearms related became hard to find BassPro didn't have what I needed for months. It was an hour to and fro just to find I was SOL. So I looked at Grafs and found that if I bought 3 lbs I broke even. But then I didn't have to go anywhere or be disappointed AGAIN.

I was also curious about real BP, but require powders with oomph. At that time Swiss was the only game in town that I was aware of and nobody carried it in San Antonio. Then I found that Goex has just created Olde Eynsford to compete with Swiss, and it is by far cheaper than either. So I bought some and found it to be fantastic and now mostly use it, though I still buy T7 at times.

Naturally buying 3 lbs of powder at a time means you have to pony up a bit more at once but then it also ensures you have powder for a good bit too. Of course you could buy even more to further reduce the impact that shipping and HazMat fees have on your purchase and even split that cost with others, which includes smokeless, and primers/caps, etc. But with bulk buys I believe PowderInc might be the better option (all fees included in price but bulk purchases only).
 
All I know is the manual says I shouldn't load the same volume of Pyrodex P as my Goexx BP 3F along with other knowledgeable opinions on the Internet. 30GR of BP vs. 25Gr of Pyrodex. This is with a brass frame pistol. That to me says by volume Pyrodex is a little "hotter" so to speak.
 
In a brass framed pistol you shouldn't be using 30 grns of any powder if you want it to last. Most recommend 20 grns as a max with a couple of people claiming 25 has worked fine in theirs, though I couldn't tell you how long they'd used such. I don't know of anyone who has used 30 grns who didn't ruin their gun. It's spoken of throughout the various forums.

Pyrodex P is a strange animal. In some chronographed results the velocities are similar to the weaker powders such as standard Goex. In some it rivals the more energetic powders such as Swiss, Olde E, and T7. With such varying velocities I wouldn't care to use it anyway, though I mostly don't because I don't like the sticky fouling it leaves.

Hodgdon's site shows it likey falls between the two.
 
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You can shoot 30gr all day long in a steel frame pistol and I know people who have for years. I seen that on this forum as well. Lets not get side tracked though, it's not quite the same by volume between Py and BP. That being said using it in a heavy frame 50 cal pistol I doubt it would matter one bit so I say go for it.
 
Actually Hodgdon's would disagree with you. From their site concerning Pyrodex P:

"Pyrodex P is intended to be a direct replacement for FFFg blackpowder, when measured volumetrically using a black powder measure."
 
Even my Triple 7 bottle states to use in the same volume as BP, and that's the one powder I've seen people erroneously stated it needed a 15% reduction for safety, which was false as it stated it was to duplicate the velocity of BP, which was obviously the more common and weaker powders available at the time as Swiss and Olde E both typically get slightly higher velocities despite being actual BP. And those powders certainly don't claim they require a reduction despite being more powerful.

As I said all I read recommended is 20 grns in a brass framed pistol with a couple claiming they've been using 25. Everyone else I've read about states how their gun has battered the recoil shield and increased the cylinder gap if not stretched the arbor/wedge area.
 
I go by my gun manufacture recommendation from the manual, not Hogdgen. I'll post a pick later when I get home. Brass frames I have to agree with you on that.

PS: You were right. I was thinking of T7 when I confused it with Pyrodex. :(

Triple Seven and Black Mag3 are far hotter (or more energetic) than good old black powder, and produce higher velocities and pressures. Still burning carbon, the carbon-based fuel burned here is from the sugar family, not from wood (charcoal). These propellants are actually far more modern than nitrocellulose based powders. Triple Seven and Black Mag3 only become available in the 21st Century.
Click to expand...
 
But even that statement isn't correct. Swiss and Olde Eynsford are good ole black powder as well and typically produce slightly higher velocities than T7. As my bottle of T7 states it's a volume to volume use with no need to reduce the charge.

Also the paper cartridges from the Civil War that used Hazard's Pistol Powder were not just as powerful as Swiss but also used 4F granulation. That's some good ole black powder too so it's not as though more energetic powders are a recent thing.

Also, according to Swiss, the 4F is meant for pistols whereas 3F and courser are meant for rifles. They've since upgraded the bottles but this was a pic of the previous bottles:



That's not to say I'd recommend going against a manufacturer's statements but it does show that they are being quite conservative and not really speaking the truth when speaking of T7 as I don't know anything about the other. Hodgdon's wouldn't state what they did with their arse on the line if it weren't so. With these few energetic alternatives I see no reason to use 4F unless maybe it were a pocket pistol or some such. Maybe.
 
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