Powder measurement, very confused!

[ashf9999]

[B]DO NOT LOAD POWDER DIRECT FROM YOUR FLASK!!![B] All it will take is a little ember at the bottom of your pistol or rifle and then bang!! Good bye hand. Your flask is ineffect a granade.

True. Though I'm not sure it has actually happened (I stand to be corrected) it is theoretically possible. The MLAGB discourage it as well. Stick to vials. You don't want to end up on YouTube I thought 777 and Pyrodex bottles had the warnings re using volumetric measurement only on the labels?

[norfolk shooter]

just use a powder measure. you know one with a little slider on. now i have seen one of them with about 40grns of BP go up while being loaded!!!

[Smokeless Coal]

True. Though I'm not sure it has actually happened (I stand to be corrected) it is theoretically possible. The MLAGB discourage it as well. Stick to vials. You don't want to end up on YouTube I thought 777 and Pyrodex bottles had the warnings re using volumetric measurement only on the labels?

Its an American company and they tend to stick all sorts of restrictions on their products to avoid law suits.

The dont use a flask warning is mostly relevent to single shot, fire it reload it and the risk of a glowing ember.

That said my club demand use of vials so you can see the measures all look good, we had one guy short measured from a flask and the ball bounced back and hit another firer.

Stick to vials, we like safe shooting.

[Hakeswill]

I normally leave it a little while after shooting and have a good look down before reloading. If I start weighing my powder then I will be loading it through vials anyway, we dont have the risk of bounce back as the back is sand.

[manxteddy]

A very informative post.
I have an 1858 two band Rifle in .58 and intend to use triple 7 and or Pyrodex.
What size and type of vial /test tube should I get......E Bay ?
Thanks Graham

[airgunnut]

The op is also forgetting that when a finger is over the end of the flask spout, it's not flat, the skin of that finger will be inside the spout, depending how hard you press your finger on to the end of the spout, it can reduce the total by 1 grain.

[tacfoley]

A very informative post.
I have an 1858 two band Rifle in .58 and intend to use triple 7 and or Pyrodex.
What size and type of vial /test tube should I get......E Bay ?
Thanks Graham

Hmmmmmmmm. Are you shooting a Minié bullet? Or a patched ball? Bearing in mind that a RIFLED Enfield was designed from the off as a Minié bullet shooter.

I've never tried a sub in mine, but you'd have to start by measuring the volume of the service charge of 2.5 drams - 68.5gr of FFg - and go from there.

Any standard phial from around 75mm in length will hold any charge that you are likely to be putting in your Enfield.

tac

[manxteddy]

[QUOTE=tacfoley;7164317]Hmmmmmmmm. Are you shooting a Minié bullet? Or a patched ball? Bearing in mind that a RIFLED Enfield was designed from the off as a Minié bullet shooter.

I've never tried a sub in mine, but you'd have to start by measuring the volume of the service charge of 2.5 drams - 68.5gr of FFg - and go from there.

Any standard phial from around 75mm in length will hold any charge that you are likely to be putting in your Enfield.

tac[/QUOTE

Thanks a Lee cast Minie in a 1997 Euroarms P58. Mint condition .Can get Triple 7 or Pyrodex .Actually managed to get one box of RWS caps from Valley Arms with a 60 mile round trip. They only had one.
Awaiting a Melting Pot from Kranks in far away Leeds as I have a bullet mould and ladle.
Phials are next.

[tacfoley]

I'd recommend a load of 50gr of Pyrodex RS to start. Triple 7 might blow the skirt off the bullet, leaving you with a difficult clean-out, to say the least.

Remember, and I keep saying it on the other thread - ALL the subs are MORE VIGOROUS in action than BP. What goes whump in a BP load is going go seriously THUMP in a subs load - all the more reason to start low, especially with the Minié bullet.

The Lyman mould is the more usual for the P-H and its copies, because the skirt is somewhat thinner than the almost-solid-based Lee. In any event, the bullet should be around 1 - 2 thou smaller than the muzzle - to allow you to 'thumb' it into the rifling with very little effort. Lubing the Minié is a whole story by itself - Borebutter, if you like the locker-room smell is very popular, if costy here in UK. Others, like me, make a mix of beeswax and Neats foot oil 75/25 and dip the bullet in it. This is fine for warm UK for most of the year. I have also used E45 - an emulsion skin cream from Boots the Chemist - it simply washes away with all the fouling going along with it.

I opine that you would be well-advised to get into real BP for large calibre shooting like the .58cal Minié - it really is NEVER overly successful trying to get consistent results with BP because Pyrodex doesn't mind a little compression, but T7 does not like it at all. More to the point, Pyrodex subs are meant for BIG loads in BIG hunting guns. The AVERAGE subs load in a .54cal percussion rifle is around 100gr of RS, for hunting, y'see. One gentleman of my acquaintance - not a subs man - loads his .54cal Hawken with a mighty 150gr of FFg under a 240gr sabotted bullet for hogs. He looks rather like Kenneth Williams, if you remember him - makes you wonder where all that recoil goes.

You'll no doubt be advised to do other things than this by others. What you take on board is up to you. I shoot BP here and in the USA and Canada, and have a deal of experience in the matter, as well as being one of the earliest posters on the well-known US BP sites www.muzzleloading.com. If I don't know the answer, then I know about 45000 other folks who do.

tac

PS - take a tint and hip and invest in a Co2 ball blower - sooner or later you WILL need to remove a ball or bullet that went down the barrel BEFORE the powder. Remember, there are two kinds of BP shooters - those, like me, who admit to doing it, and liars.

[tacfoley]

True. Though I'm not sure it has actually happened (I stand to be corrected) it is theoretically possible. The MLAGB discourage it as well. Stick to vials. You don't want to end up on YouTube I thought 777 and Pyrodex bottles had the warnings re using volumetric measurement only on the labels?

!. It has happened in the USA at reenactment displays, with severe and lethal results.

2. The MLAGB do not discourage it, they positively prohibit it. They also prohibit the use of BP substitutes in the comps.

3. The international federation of muzzle loading - the MLIAC - prohibit it.

Pyrodex and all the subs should be used by volume. However, to set the volume initially, you still have to weight the charge of similar grade BP to get the equivalent volume. Having established the volume of, say, 70gr of FFg for your Enfield P53 and set it on your powder measure, you can then substitute it for the, uh, substitute. IF you weighed it, you'd see that it actually weighs less.

tac