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Old 08-14-22, 07:22 PM   #1
Rockstar
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Default .45 the lord’s caliber

Anyone still shoot black powder? Using a 1873 Single Action Army, I recently finished shooting up all of my .45 colt smokeless factory loads and was planning to reload them with Swiss Supreme FFFG under an Elmer Keith 255 grain hard cast SWC. From what I’ve read back in 1873 the U.S. Army .45 Colt cartridge was 40 grains of black powder. Which was said to achieve over 1,000 FPS muzzle velocity and around 600 foot pounds muzzle energy. woot!

Unfortunately with modern day cases I can’t get more than 37 grains which is IMO still a stout load, but not exactly Army regulation. I was thinking of picking up a pound or two of Triple 7 and trying that out. It’s burns a tad hotter than the holy of holies so I think it would more than make up for the loss of volume in modern brass. Any ideas?

Just rambling.



.45-70 government. - it’s the only government I trust
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Old 08-14-22, 11:27 PM   #2
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Nope the only .45 I have is ACP. No black powder in my collection.
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Old 08-15-22, 08:55 AM   #3
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I don't have any black powder firearms either, but after doing a quick perusal on your particular question, I get the idea that it is done on a fairly regular basis, however the issue is finding the "correct load" to use. As far as I can tell the consensus is that the substitute powders you've listed burn faster & hotter (more efficient) so a grain for grain substitution of the powder isn't a smart idea as you could very easily over pressure the cartridge. If I were in your shoes, I'd check on some of the black powder gun forums, and also find any ballistics charts for both the bullet (if possible) and the powder (manufacturer should have it), start at the low end of your powder load and work your way up to your optimal powder charge. Run each recipe through a chronograph and a good ballistics calculator, and fine tune it as needed.
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Old 08-15-22, 09:13 AM   #4
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The old balloonhead case certainly seems to have held a few more grains of powder than modern brass. But I just finished up watching a couple fellas on YouTube and use some good old fashioned redneck science and clearly demonstrated a modern case will take a full forty grain charge of black powder. But they never measured to verify the correct overall length of the cartridge. Neverthenless I’ll try that out and load some triple 7 too just for grins. Take my trusty chronograph to the range and see what happens.

Gonna be fun.
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Old 08-15-22, 10:29 AM   #5
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post your results cause now I'm kinda interested in the difference.
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Old 08-15-22, 11:09 AM   #6
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Was just reading today about an Air Gun that has 4401 FPE at the muzzle.
What Chrony do you use?

Oh. The Guy who built this is in Finland. So wonder if Dowly has heard of him?
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Old 08-15-22, 11:28 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves View Post
Was just reading today about an Air Gun that has 4401 FPE at the muzzle.
What Chrony do you use?
As in 4 thousand? Jeebus that’s helluva lot of energy for a pneumatic. How many grains is the bullet?

That’s like pushing a 300 grain bullet out the muzzle somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500 feet per second, jeebus that’s fast, like 45-70 or .480 Grizzly killin’ fast. With massive shortage of powder, ammo and even guns I suppose pneumatics is the wave of the future and the next thing in the sights of politicians and over regulation.


I got a Caldwell chrono it’s ok. I get plenty of errors on it because I just can’t shoot straight and level enough sometimes
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Old 08-15-22, 11:37 AM   #8
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Here's a link to the build. It was started back in 2015
https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA...?topic=97335.0

I went and bought myself a LabRadar. It's a doppler radar setup for chrony work. I use it to tune my AirGuns. Current project is a .357 pushing 200 FPE at the muzzle. And AGAIN, it's a Guy in Findland that has blazed the trail for that brand of Rifle.
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Old 08-15-22, 11:48 AM   #9
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I always enjoy reading about Powder Burner Guys trying to stuff more grains of this or that in a load.
Air Gun Guys do the same thing by using Nitrogen or Helium!


It just gets a little more technical when you open/shape ports for better/more air flow.
Then making sure your parts can handle the extreme pressures!
4500 PSI is basically a freaking bomb!
And I do know people that have built to contain and fire useing 6000 PSI.
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Old 08-15-22, 12:12 PM   #10
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If its any help, a long time ago my Dad was into reloading and we pressed out 10-15 30-06 rounds as "hot loads" using Hercules powder. I can't recall how many grains it was over a standard load, figure on maybe an extra 10%.

The results were weren't so great. No difference in terms of accuracy or destruction. The only thing that was different was more crud in the barrel (which made sense) and more cartridges jamming in the receiver/breach.

I think you lose a lot of that over-pressure a couple of feet past the barrel.
In other words, it was a waste of powder.
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Old 08-15-22, 12:19 PM   #11
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That is a very good point!
Now I'm not a math expert but from reading? You do reach a point that the expansion of propellent, no matter what it is, you end up trying to push that extra propellent. Thus diminished returns.
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Old 08-15-22, 01:22 PM   #12
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Blackpowder is pretty straight forward, cartridges like the .45-70 government or .44-40 were specifically designed with black powder in mind, because that’s all there was at the time. The first two number is the caliber. The last two numbers are how many grains of powder it holds. Fill the damn thing up with Blackpowder, knife off the excess, press a bullet in and you’re good to go. You really can’t screw that up, I mean you can, but it’s hard to do.

As for modern day smokeless powders. Reloading manuals will have those powders listed with min & max fill. Always, always start with the minimum and in small increments work your way towards max. For example: If I were wanting to achieve the same results as 40 grains of black powder in my .45 colt. I would start with of 8.2 grains of Accurate No.5 smokeless, and work my way up in small increments to a max fill of 9.6 grains, which I have done. But it’s slow and tedious work which just isn’t for me. The other problem is the powder shifts around inside the massive cartridge which can affect its performance.

But god forbid if I were to dump 40 grains of No.5 smokeless that gun would explode in my hand and cause serious bodily injury or even death. No joke, it would be like a fragmentation grenade going off in my hand.

With any powder charge what you are really looking for is that fine line between energy and accuracy. Light loads are great for competition shooting but may not get the job done if hunting or self defense. Too much can send the bullet places you didn’t aim at. I think pneumatics have the same issues.
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Last edited by Rockstar; 08-15-22 at 01:38 PM.
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