Howdy
I have been loading all my CAS ammunition with Black Powder for years. Currently I load 45 Colt, 45 Schofield, 44-40, 44 Russian, and 38-40 with Black Powder.
These are the components I use for 45 Colt. I usually use Starline brass, Federal primers, 2.2CC of Schuetzen FFg powder, and a Big Lube PRS 250 grain bullet sized to .452. These bullets are lubed with SPG, which is a good Black Powder bullet lube. When I was pan lubing regular hard cast bullets I used a home made lube of 50% Beeswax and 50% Crisco. There are lots of recipes for BP compatible bullet lube, but if you use regular hard lube that comes on most bullets today you will probably get hard fouling building up in the bore that will quickly ruin accuracy. Big Lube bullets are specifically designed for Black Powder, they feature a huge lube groove that carries enough BP compatible lube to keep any rifle barrel lubricated for its entire length.
The correct amount of powder is the amount that will be compressed by 1/16" - 1/8" when the bullet is seated.
For some cartridges, I precharge all my brass using a dipper and a funnel. The piece of paper is to scrape off the powder from the dipper so all charges will be the same. If I am using this method, I load all the rounds on a regular single stage press.
But most of the time I load my BP ammo on my Hornady Lock & Load AP Progressive press. I have a Lyman Black Powder measure mounted on the press for my Black Powder loads. The Hornady press does not automatically cycle the Lyman powder measure, I have to remember to throw the powder measure handle for every load.
Whenever I find an old Lyman powder measure at the white elephant table of a gun show, I buy the powder measure. The powder rotors are interchangeable with the Lyman Black Powder measure. This way I can keep separate rotors set up for the powder charge of the various cartridges I load.
Here is a close up of 5 rounds on the shell plate of the Hornady press. The shell closest to the camera has just been charged with powder, you can see the top of the charge. In a moment I will place a bullet on that shell and pull the handle to seat and crimp the bullet. The round with the bullet is finished and will pop off the press into the plastic box when the press is cycled.
Regarding cleaning cases that have been fired with Black Powder: They will never be shiny again, unless you polish them with some sort of abrasive. It is not worth the effort. I always say stained brass shoots just as well as shiny brass, shiny brass is just easier to find in the grass. I dump my spent brass into a jug of water that has a squirt of dish soap in it. This must be done within 24 hours or the brass will begin to corrode with verdigris (green brass corrosion). When I get home from a match, I rinse the brass thoroughly, over and over again until all the fouling has been washed away. Guys will tell you that you need to 'neutralize' the acids or bases left behind by the powder fouling. That is baloney. What you are really doing is diluting the fouling by rinsing over and over again until it has all been washed away. After the brass has been rinsed I set it out on cookie sheets covered with paper towels to air dry for a couple of days. Then into the tumbler with Lizzard Litter. The same stuff as walnut shell media, but much cheaper. You can buy it in pet stores.
After a few hours of tumbling my brass is clean, but it is still stained. It will never be shiny again. The insides of the brass will always have a slight, powdery residue left inside. That does not matter, the inside of the case does not have to be perfectly clean.
Been doing it this way for a long time.
BP in a cartridge gun is less trouble cleaning. For ease of cleaning share that information with somebody trying to resurrect a Trapdoor.
