First Try at Loading Metallic BP Cartridges

[Head Tomcat]

Guys,

With my Uberti Colt 1851 Navy – being converted with a Kirst gated cylinder to 38 Long Colt – into Goon’s hands to be breathed on with his magic, I started loading my first black powder cartridges earlier today. Other than a few more actions than what I normally do in loading 9mm cartridges, they were not hard at all.

First up was to obtain proper brass hulls in .88” length as this would be easier than trimming down the longer .38 Special cases. The reason they are .88” long is because these were correct for the converted C&B pistols of the mid-1870’s which retained their .375” bore, and not the later 38 LC hulls which were around 1.020” long and used .357” bullets. For this shorter brass I ordered 100 from Buffalo Arms and they arrived exactly at .88” for every single hull. As importantly, the Starline brass they used had a “38 Long Colt” headstamp so I could identify these a bit easier if the brass got mixed up with other calibers. Each case then had its primer pocket uniformed with a K&M trimmer. I then lightly chamfered the inside/outside of each case.

Next up was to clean them in a tumbler with stainless steel pins to remove any manufacturing oils and brass debris from the chamfering step. After toweling them down I final dried them in the over at 170F for a few minutes to get all the water out.

From there they went to sizing in a Redding titanium carbide 38 Special/357 Magnum die and then to a slight case mouth expansion to allow inserting the Alpha Bravo 155gr RN heeled bullet with external lube groove. This is where I had a slight delay as the expansion plug which comes with the Redding die set was a bit too short. An email to Redding about this and they called me the very next day to confirm the 38 Long Colt hull was too short for the standard expansion lug. So, free of charge, they sent me a new 9mm expansion plug which was a little longer and exactly what I needed. Redding customer service was great and a reason I use their products!

Now it got to a rather serious matter and that is of what black powder charge to use? I have several pounds of Swiss 3Fg powder and did a lot of research on what a safe powder volume should be for the specific 38 LC case/bullet combination I am using. Also, I wanted to use a powder measure which could reliably throw a black powder charge and be constructed of materials which are tolerant of black powder. After a lot of looking, I came across an “as new in the box” Belding and Mull visible powder measure from the late 1950’s and bought it. The mounting method of a simple screw on the back to attach to a loading bench was just not solid enough for me so I took an early-version RCBS powder measure stand and modified it to hold the B&M measure This is now rock solid and allows good, consistent throws to be done. I also replaced the OEM spring with a lighter one from the local hardware store to make moving the arm a bit easier, too.

The B&M measure came with one of their micrometer charge tubes and I carefully iterated (Goon will like this word!) back and forth to find a charge which would fill the case enough to allow the bullet to be seated all the way down its heel until the edge of the brass case was juuussst barely kissing the .375” diameter driving band. Turns out that 15gr of Swiss 3Fg powder would fill the case almost to the top and still leave a little space for the bullet to be placed by hand on the mouth prior to seating. My calibrated eyeball estimates that when the 155gr bullet is seated to final COL the powder will be compressed about 1/16”. More about this in a minute.

Time for actual bullet seating….and there was really nothing unusual about it. The bullet was placed on the charged case mouth and then smoothly run up the RCBS single-stage press into the Redding seating die. The punch which came with the die left a slight circular mark around the nose but this does not bother me as nothing which rides in the barrel groove was touched. After pressing the bullet home, I then turned the cartridge halfway around and pressed it a second time. While not totally necessary, I noticed several bullets were not fully square after the first press (may have been just my eyes) and figure this could be due to the relatively short length of heel in the case not allowing full centering if I placed the bullet a bit too far off axis. By turning the cartridge around it “equalized” the pressure on the bullet and the few which appeared slightly off…were now centered. Overall COL for this specific case/bullet combination was 1.343” with the case fully enclosing the heel and barely touching the driving band.

Now, this brings up the earlier comment about powder compression. At the beginning of the loading session I saw the powder level was near the case mouth, but enough space was left so the bullet could be placed on the mouth prior to final seating while still allowing powder compression. However, towards the end of the session I noticed the powder on the remaining cases appeared slightly lower. Not much at all….but clearly a very little bit. No powder had spilled out of them so I started thinking “now where did the powder go?”. Turns out the movement of the RCBS press arm had vibrated the powder ever so slightly each time I worked it so that by the end the powder had slightly settled down. While the bullet was still compressing the powder, it was a tiny bit less compression than the first bunch of cartridges I loaded. Knowing this, the next time I reload some 38 LC cartridges I might use 15.5gr of powder and vibrate them to settle the powder down before seating the bullet. Regardless, all cartridges have compressed powder…just some of them are a bit more compressed than others due to this settling.

I then went to crimp the cartridges with a modified Lee Factory Crimp die which came from Old West Bullet Moulds….and ran into a snag. The crimp die is a very solid engineering concept which should work great on heeled bullets, but in my case the die did not work. Turns out the die I received was set up for 1.020” 38 LC cases…and I am loading .88” 38 LC cases. The end result was the adjustable case holder could not move the cartridge high enough to get a crimp around the mouth. I have already sent an email to Old West asking them for help and will see what happens. Should not be much of an issue.

And that is where I have stopped for the day.

Head Tomcat

PS: I have read many times about measuring black powder and how it is done by volume and not weight. So, since I am new to BP, how to do this? I settled on using a Traditions brass BP measure which has dispensing cones of various volumes. I selected the 15gr cone as a starting point and poured this into a 38 LC brass hull to see how it filled the space. After repeating this a number of times to get a visual “average” of the fill, it turned out 15gr of powder looked good when taking into consideration the depth of the bullet being seated and resulting powder compression. To more accurately quantify this, I carefully weighed this 15gr charge of BP on an electronic scale and after numerous iterations the average weight was 14.3gr. Adjusting the Belding and Mull micrometer charge tube to replicate this 14.3gr weight (the micrometer setting ended up being 8.10) I then threw a number of charges to make sure the 38 LC case was filled to the desired level each time. It was…and I am satisfied this will be a safe load of powder for my specific case/bullet combination. However, as the RCBS press vibrated the cases during the loading session and the powder slightly settled on the remaining ones, this next time I might go for 15.5gr of 3Fg powder and vibrate the cases to “pre-settle” the powder before the bullet is seated. This should easily be a safe load with proper compression.

 

[Jim Watson]

Sounds like you are doing ok. I am sure Wild West will get you a crimp setup that will work.
The limit on powder charge with your setup is not the weight or volume of powder, it is the depth in the case. How much can you compress the powder in the seating die without distorting the soft lead bullet? We BPCR shooters use separate compression dies so we can seat the bullet gently over a hefty powder charge.

 

[Hawg]

You could use an 18 inch drop tube and trickle the powder in to get the powder settled in the case.

 

[Old Stony]

I have a small vibrating table left over from years ago when I was playing with some investment casting, and I use it to settle the powder in the cases. I can set a whole tray of cases on it and in no time watch the powder settle down in the cases.

 

[Head Tomcat]

Wild West Sorted Me Out

All,

Received an email from Old West Bullet Moulds this morning and they sorted me out! Turns out I misunderstood the relationship between the Lee collet crimp die and the adjustable shell holder which Old West sent with the die.

The die itself only performs the crimp operation and adjusting it up/down only corrects how hard the crimp actually is. The adjustable shell holder only moves the cartridge up/down inside the die and thus allows you to place the crimp where you want. Once I understood these two different relationships, it was easy to get the degree of crimp I wanted and on what part of the cartridge this crimp was placed.

The Lee instructions with the die said to initially set up the die body by screwing it in far enough to make contact with the shell holder and then screw it in half a turn further. From there you could make the crimp tighter by screwing it in further. Turns out in my specific case this initial setup gave far too much crimp and I had to back the die out until it barely contacted the shell holder. At this point it gave a nice/moderate crimp with only minor "dimples" extruding out between the collet fingers. By rotating the cartridge another 1/8 turn and pressing it a second time these dimples were "ironed out" by the collet fingers so all that remained was a smooth crimp all the way around the bullet heel.

Once I got these two separate relationships sorted out in my mind the Old West modified Lee collet die performed exactly as hoped for.

Head Tomcat

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I have been loading Black Powder into cartridges for close to 20 years now, so perhaps you will allow me to make a few comments.

First, forget everything you have heard about Black Powder being measured by volume, not by weight. ALL powder is measured by volume. It does not matter whether you are loading Smokeless or BP. With Smokeless powder every recipe I have ever seen calls out the number of grains of a specific powder. When you set up a Smokeless powder measure to deliver a certain amount of powder, you are adjusting the internal capacity of the measure to deliver a repeatable amount of powder. Then you weigh the charge and keep adjusting until you arrive at the setting which gives the desired WEIGHT of powder.

I suspect those guys who keep insisting that BP is only measured by volume have never tried loading it into cartridges. First off, not all Black Powder weighs the same. If you are setting a powder measure for Smokeless, you can be reasonably sure that the weight per volume of powder will not vary over the years. It is not the same with Black Powder. The Black Powder manufactured by different manufacturers will vary slightly in weight.

Here is a chart I made up a number of years ago showing the weight in grains of Black Powder from several manufacturers. These are the standard charges I use in various cartridges I load with Black Powder. To make this chart I did exactly what you did. I dipped out several charges with the standard dippers in the Lee dipper set and weighed them. Then I averaged the weight thrown by each dipper. This gave me the data for the charge weights of the three brands in two different granulations. Yes, this is an old chart, Elephant brand BP has not been made for a few years now. These days I only load BP with Schuetzen FFg to simplify things. I only use this information as a reference, to see what each dipper actually portions out. The Lee Dipper sizes in the first column are the standard sizes that come in the set. Yes, most modern scientific guys substitute Milliliters for Cubic Centimeters, but they are the same, and that is what is marked on the dippers.

Ask guys who shoot BPCR and you will find that many actually weigh their charges, they do not 'measure' by volume. Also, forget about 'grains volume'. It does not exist. It is a crutch that some BP shooters use, but it does not exist. If you want to talk about volume, use a real volume measurement such as CC or ML.

OK, enough of my tirade about how to measure Black Powder.

How much powder to dump into each case? My go to standard is to put in the amount that will be compressed between 1/16" - 1/8" by the base of the bullet when it is seated. That's all there is to it. Yes, I do use a drop tube when I load 45-70, and I do use a compression die to pre-compress the powder before seating a bullet, but for typical 'pistol length' cartridges that is over kill. No, compressing the powder slightly with the base of the bullet does not deform the base of the bullet enough to significantly alter accuracy. I did tests years ago with 44-40 in a rifle and at reasonably close distances it simply did not matter. 45-70 at a few hundred yards is a different story.

Frankly, you are putting in a lot more work than I ever do loading BP into cartridges. I use my Starline brass right out of the bag. 45 Colt, 45 Schofield, 44-40, 44 Russian and 38-40. I don't chamfer anything and I don't do anything to the primer pockets. I don't clean it or worry about oils from manufacturing. It gets loaded right out of the bag, never had a problem. The only caveat I will add is that with 44-40 and 38-40 I do spray my brass with case lube before loading it, because carbide dies are not made for those cartridges. For straight cases, right out of the bag into a carbide sizing die.

Powder settling: Yes, the powder will settle slightly from agitation. So what? You are still putting the same AMOUNT of powder into each case, so what does it matter if it settles slightly?

Here is one of my Hornady Lock and Load AP Progressive presses set up for loading Black Powder. The only thing different from loading Smokeless is I have substituted a Lyman Black Powder measure for the standard Hornady Smokeless measure.

Here is the Lyman BP measure. It is no different than a standard Smokeless Lyman powder measure except the plastic powder bottle has been replaced with an aluminum hopper. We can argue all day long about static electricity and Black Powder, but I feel more comfortable not pouring a pound of Black Powder into a plastic bottle right in front of my face. The other thing about this measure that is the same as Lyman's standard powder measure is the internal measuring rotor is brass, not steel, so there will be no mechanical sparks, not static sparks, generated by the brass rotor rubbing against the iron body.

I buy old Lyman powder measures whenever I find them on white elephant tables at gunshows. I pull out the rotors and set them up for the standard charges I load into various cartridges.

There are a couple of cartridges I have not yet found an old rotor for. For them I use the old tried and true technique of dipping the powder.

Agitation and settling: here is a photo of a batch of 45 Colts being loaded on my Hornady press. The powder drops in station #3, just visible on the right. By the time I pull the handle a couple of times to rotate that shell to the seating/crimping station, the vibration of doing so has settled the powder slightly. Again, so what? Even if I was loading them one at a time on a single stage press, it would still be the same amount of powder in each shell. Hmmmm, this is an old photo. Obviously a mixed batch of brass, Starline does not put a cannelure on their brass. That is a PRS Big Lube 250 grain bullet about to be shoved down into that case. Big Lube refers to the huge lube groove filled with BP compatible bullet lube.

Anyway, I hope my comments are helpful, and good luck in your adventures loading BP into cartridges.

 

[maillemaker]

First, forget everything you have heard about Black Powder being measured by volume, not by weight. ALL powder is measured by volume.

You can measure any substance by whatever mechanism you want. You can count out grains with tweezers if you like.

The bottom line is this:

Grains is a measure of weight. It is a unit from the Avoirdupois system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoirdupois_system

It is a unit of weight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_(unit)

There are 7000 grains in a pound, and one grain is 1/7000th of a pound.

You can approximate a given weight of charge with a volumetric measure, but depending on grain size, and how you mechanically operate the volumetric measure, you can get different weights out of the same volume.

I used to dispense powder using a Lee Perfect Powder measure. If I operated it the same way every time, including a "thump" with my finger at the end of every stroke, it was accurate to within .2 grains. Now I use an RCBS Chargemaster and is is accurate to the precision of the device. When I dial up 50 grains I get 50.0 grains, every time.

My Lee Pro 1000 has the "auto-disk dispenser". This is also a volumetric dispenser. It also drops powder very consistently - but you always double-check the throw with a precision scale.

Steve

 

[Head Tomcat]

Guys,

Some very good and thoughtful contents....thanks!

I have wondered for the past year or so as I have gotten into black powder how the conversion of weight vs. volume would occur. To me...there cannot be a repeatable 1:1 relationship between different materials. Heck, even if 15gr of black powder was exposed to air/humidity for a long while...it would weigh different than the same 15gr volume of black powder which had been properly stored.

Given a specific volume, the weight within it could be almost anything depending on the mass of the substance being contained. A volume of Swiss 3Fg powder is going to be a lot less than the same volume of soft lead. I would imagine Swiss 3Fg is going to weight different than an equal volume of 1Fg.

Given my Traditions BP dispenser 15gr cone seemed to fill the .88" 38 LC case to a bit below the mouth - and once the bullet is seated there would be about 1/16" compression - this "feels" like a safe load to me. With a bit of vibration the powder will settle a bit and likely 15.5 or 16gr could be safely dropped and allow moderate compression.

We shall see!

Head Tomcat

 

[maillemaker]

Given a specific volume, the weight within it could be almost anything depending on the mass of the substance being contained. A volume of Swiss 3Fg powder is going to be a lot less than the same volume of soft lead. I would imagine Swiss 3Fg is going to weight different than an equal volume of 1Fg.

Well of course. This is like saying a bucket of cement rubble will weigh differently than a bucket full of cement. Both are made of cement, but one has a lot more air in it than the other. So one bucket has more cement in it than the other, and so they will not weight the same.

An equal volume of 3F powder will not weigh the same as an equal volume of 1F powder. But you would never use an equal volume of 3F in place of an equal volume of 1F, so it's kind of a moot point. But the real point here is, if you want 20 grains of anything, the scale will never lie to you. You can put 20 grains of 3F, 20 grains of 1F, 20 grains of lead, or 20 grains of feathers on a scale it it will always, 100% of the time, tell you when you have 20 grains (within the limits of the scale, naturally).

The point here is, if you need, say, 20 grains of any substance, then the most precise way to do this is with a scale, because grains is a unit of weight.

You may indeed find a volumetric measure also capable of dispensing 20 grains of 2F powder, but you have to be certain to use it the same way every time to get repeatable results. For example, if you take your 20 grain scoop and tap it on the table a couple of times, you will be able to fit more powder in it.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Sounds like you are doing ok. I am sure Wild West will get you a crimp setup that will work.

They may not be able to.

I went through the same thing when I wanted to load .44 Colt (Original) -- the ones with heeled .45x bullets for .44 caliber black powder barrels. These are loaded in .44 cases. Because of the heeled bullet, they require a collet crimping die.

Lee makes a collet crimping die, but it's for .44 Special and .44 magnum. The problem is that the .44 Special case measures 1.160" and the .44 Magnum is 1.285". In order for the collet crimping die to work, the Lee die had to be shortened.

I wanted to make very wimpy loads, so my original notion was to use .44 Russian brass. But that's only 0.970" long. Apparently the Lee collet die can't be shortened that much, so I had to settle for a die made for the .44 Colt Original cartridge. The brass for that measures 1.10", and Starline has it!

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that those collet crimping dies for the heeled bullet conversions can only be shortened so far.

 

[Head Tomcat]

After getting a detailed email from Wild West, I was able to adjust their heeled cartridge crimping die to give a very nice crimp. This was on my .88" long 38 LC case.

The die body was adjusted down pretty far in the RCBS single-stage press but still had 1-2 threads visible above the lock ring...so, all is well there. The adjustable shell holder also extended up fairly high but more than enough of its post remained in the stationary base to give proper axial alignment while retaining sufficient thread engagement to withstand collet resistance as it crimped the case mouth.

Overall, I was probably toward the 80-90% range of adjustment capability in the Wild West crimping die system on my 38 LC case...and it worked fine in the end with a nice, smooth crimp.

Head Tomcat

 

[Savvy_Jack]

Yeap, we all know that the ole black powder (dash) cartridges are labeled "per something" of powder charge used, i.e. -40 was 40gr, -20 was 20gr etc. When many of those older original cartridges are dissected you will find many are dead on with the weight of the powder used as well ans being compressed. It would appear that at that time, the amount of powder it took to properly fill that particular case resulted in a number...the dash numbers we are all so familiar with today...in weight form!

Now days it is not that simple for several reasons.
One, is the H2O volume of the cases are less due to the balloon-head design.
Two, the quality (density) of the powder.
Three...well...there should be a three!

So, the 44-40 was filled with 40gr of black powder by weight...or volume that then was weighed... as long as that weight fill into a particular volumetric space, in this case 40. Now days 40gr by weight of one powder fills a larger space than another brand of powder. It would appear that the quality of the powder back then for superseded thew quality of the powders available today. It has also been reported that some cartridges dissected contained a mixture of grain sizes.

Now days Swiss FFg is by far the best BP out there, or was during my tests. My batches of powder measured 40gr volume equals 40gr by weight, dead on! I don't shoot it any more so I still have some left. Not only is it loaded by weight, it is also compressed to approx .21" without "bulging" the thin wall case neck.

In most cases, no pun intended, the compression must be done with a compression die because if you try and use the lead bullet, you will damage the nose and/or O'give

My testing of 40gr by weight of Swiss FFg, which equaled 40gr by volume and needed to be compressed .21" to .22" in Starline brass...in order for a Lyman 210gr 427098 to be seated approx. .330" deep. This gave an OAL of 1.600", achieved 1,226fps @ 8,953psi. Using the same exact load in original pre-1884 unheadstamped semi balloon-head cases compression was less at only about .17" to .19" compression. This cartridge produced 1,373fps @ 14,285psi. Yet a third test using the same load but this time with post-1884 and with the WRA headstamp. These semi balloon-head cases has less volume that the pre-1884s but more than the Starline which of course is not a balloonhead case. This load produced 1,267fps @ 12,500psi, all three producing consistent pressure and velocity patterns.

Moving up to modern handloading techniques from guys reloading for the past 50 years or longer. Using still Swiss FFg, no compression drops the volume down to 35ish-38ish with the 427098 and resulted in only 1,150fps out of a 26" 1894CB.

Even less quality BP produces less performance. Density is important as long as the dense powder is formulated with other good qualities.