Some light preliminaries this morning with the 60 Army, A Dragoon and a Lyman .50. Swiss has the rep for being hotter than other black powders as well as cleaner and more consistent. I haven't debunked any of those claims.
The 60 Army- on different days with different conditions has clocked 855/37fps spread with Goex FFFG and: 1047/116 with Pyrodex P. Bullet was the 140 gr 454 RB. Most of my Pyrodex P loads are lighter and show extreme spread in the 50-70- fps range with this revolver.
The Swiss FFFG ran 1040/ 69
The Dragoon holds 50 grains of black with the ball right at the front of the chamber- more than likely, ballistic wonks haven't changed much and the early shooters would stuff as much powder in the chambers as possible just like modern reloaders.
50 grais of Goex FFFG has averaged 890/37 for me. I haven't loaded the volume equivalent of Pyrodex P, but have loaded 45 gr vol/equiv. for 1157/55 fps.
Fifty Grains of Swiss averaged 1217/51
Best guess is that the Swiss is pretty closely equivalent to Pyrodex P in these two revolvers and clearly outruns Goex FFFG.
My .50 Lyman Pistol and the.490 Hornady Ball with 40 gr Goex FFFG gets 884/24. Pyrodex P does 934/72.
the Swiss averaged 1041/48. Again the Swiss left the Goex equivalent in the dust and this time, stomped all over the pyrodex P load too.
All of the above was based on six rounds over the chronograph at about 70f for the swiss. Other powders were shot under unrecorded weather conditions but do not seem to vary a whole lot over time.
I'll be checking other revolvers with fairly maximal swiss loads but I think some trends show up here and are much like a number of shooters have reported. I haven't done enough to say anything about any difference in extreme spreads though black generally does show more consistency than the substitute in that regard.
The 60 Army- on different days with different conditions has clocked 855/37fps spread with Goex FFFG and: 1047/116 with Pyrodex P. Bullet was the 140 gr 454 RB. Most of my Pyrodex P loads are lighter and show extreme spread in the 50-70- fps range with this revolver.
The Swiss FFFG ran 1040/ 69
The Dragoon holds 50 grains of black with the ball right at the front of the chamber- more than likely, ballistic wonks haven't changed much and the early shooters would stuff as much powder in the chambers as possible just like modern reloaders.
50 grais of Goex FFFG has averaged 890/37 for me. I haven't loaded the volume equivalent of Pyrodex P, but have loaded 45 gr vol/equiv. for 1157/55 fps.
Fifty Grains of Swiss averaged 1217/51
Best guess is that the Swiss is pretty closely equivalent to Pyrodex P in these two revolvers and clearly outruns Goex FFFG.
My .50 Lyman Pistol and the.490 Hornady Ball with 40 gr Goex FFFG gets 884/24. Pyrodex P does 934/72.
the Swiss averaged 1041/48. Again the Swiss left the Goex equivalent in the dust and this time, stomped all over the pyrodex P load too.
All of the above was based on six rounds over the chronograph at about 70f for the swiss. Other powders were shot under unrecorded weather conditions but do not seem to vary a whole lot over time.
I'll be checking other revolvers with fairly maximal swiss loads but I think some trends show up here and are much like a number of shooters have reported. I haven't done enough to say anything about any difference in extreme spreads though black generally does show more consistency than the substitute in that regard.