I made the leap to the Dark Side, need your opinions

[Coyote Roper]

After much reading, note taking and a little swap meet at my local CAS club this past weekend where I got my first pound of Goex FFFg, I loaded up my first small batch of BP rounds.  I already had some Pyrodex FFg I got a few years back from a buddy.

I was going to wait until I got all my new shootin irons but then realized I have a set of .44's sitting around not getting much use and lots of 44 mag brass stashed away so I decided to make these my BP guns.  Why wait???

Please review my loads and guns as listed below and tell me if I'm on the right track or headed for trouble.  All input will be appreciated.

I have a Win 92 .44 Spc/Mag and two Ruger old model Vaquero's .44 Spc/Mag and a Stoeger double.

I loaded 10 rounds each of the following ammo.

Winchester ww super .44 magnum brass.

1.9 cc of Goex FFFg (29.2gr) Lg Pistol Primer and 200gr RNFP bullet

1.9 cc of Goex FFFg (29.2gr) Lg Pistol Magnum Primer and 200gr RNFP bullet

1.9 cc of Pyrodex FFg (20.1gr) Lg Pistol Primer and 200gr RNFP bullet

1.9 cc of Pyrodex FFg (20.1gr) Lg Pistol magnum Primer and 200gr RNFP bullet

Cartridge overall length 1.55 in.

For Shotgun I loaded 6 each of the following.

Win AA Red Hulls, 3.7cc Pyrodex FFg with AA12 wad and 3.7cc #7.5 lead shot, star crimp

Win AA Red Hulls, 3.7cc Goex FFFg with AA12 Wad and 3.7cc #7.5 lead shot, star crimp

I plan to test shoot these rounds this coming weekend at the local outdoor range unless the experts think I'm on the wrong track.

Let me know if I left out any detail that may help.

Thanks Coyote Roper

[Fingers McGee]

IMNSHO you are an extremely intelligent gentleman for deciding to  travel on the dark side. 

As far as loads go.  A full case of BP with a soft lead bullet jammed on top is about as good as it gets.

Fingers (Show Me MO smoke) McGee

[Pettifogger]

With real black you don't need to worry much about the load itself.  Just fill up the case and seat a bullet.  What you do need to worry about is the type of bullet.  For BP you need a relatively soft bullet with BP compatible lube, and more lube is better than to little.  What kind of bullets did you use?  Hard bullets with the small grease grooves filled with hard crayon lube will foul quickly, especially in your rifle.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Those loads sound OK.  One thing that is very important is to make sure there is NO AIRSPACE between powder & projectile.

I know that Pettifogger & Fingers both mentioned it, but I intended to underline it. NO AIRSPACE, and a bit of compression. About 1/16th of an inch is enough.

Here is the link to LEE Dipper Capacity Chart;

http://www.leeprecision.com/cgi-data/instruct/Dippers.pdf

I still check weigh each dipper/powder combination before using - each session!

You might find dipper 3.7 of GOEX FFFG gives more pressure than required in the 12 gauge.  I wouldn't go higher in the 12 ga. with FFFG, and I prefer FFG for shotgun.

[Coyote Roper]

The bullets are "cast lead" from a local supplier, they have a single lube groove with green colored lube, it appears to be a hard crayon type of lube.

What type of bullets are best for my application?  How many lube grooves should they have?  Should I get unlubed bullets and lube them myself or I guess I can check with the bullet maker to see if he does BP lubed bullets.

His bullets are very well made and very affordable since I don't have to pay for shipping.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

The key to making up a good BP metallic cartridge load is knowing how deep your bullets extend into the case when they are fully seated and crimped. In order to determine how much powder to use you must know how far your bullets extend into the case, so you will know how much powder to add in order to achieve about 1/16"-1/8" of compression when the bullet is seated.

I posted this information a few months ago to help shooters figure out the correct amount of powder for the particular bullet they are using. Hopefully it will help clarify for you how to determine the proper amount of powder.

http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,18257.0.html

As far as primers are concerned, some insist on magnum primers, I have always used regular Large Pistol primers for all my large caliber Black Powder loads.

For shotgun, I use a different wad structure than you are using. I use the largest dipper that comes with the Lee dipper set, the 4.3CC dipper of powder, with 1 1/8 ounces of #8 shot. I compress my powder just slightly with a 1/8" over powder card, then a 1/2" fiber cushion wad.

You have created the classic square load, it will probably be fine as long as you are compressing the powder slightly, and filling up the rest of the hull with wad and shot.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Again

The lube on those bullets will be a problem. It is not compatable with Black Powder and will cause hard crusty fouling that will be difficult to remove.

There are lots of ways around this problem. You can add a lube cookie made of soft BP compatable lube under the bullet. You can melt the hard lube out of the bullets and pan lube them with BP compatable soft lube. Or you can go the ultimate route and use Big Lube bullets lubed with a soft BP compatable lube.

There is more than one way to go. The idea is you want to keep the fouling in your bore soft. Hard smokeless lube cannot do that. It will mix with the BP fouling and make a hard crusty deposit that quickly fills the rifling, ruining accuracy. This crusty fouling will also be difficult to remove. You need a soft 'gooey' lube like SPG or 50/50 beeswax/crisco. There are lots of other options too. Soft BP lube does two things. It keeps the fouling in the bore soft, so each succeding bullet can sweep away most fo the fouling left behind by the last shot. And the lube gets sprayed out of the barrel/cylinder gap of a revolver, keeping hard fouling from building up on the face of the cylinder. Basically, bullets made with one thin lube groove can carry enough soft lube to keep a short revolver barrel free from fouling. They may or may not carry enough lube to keep a revolver from binding up. But with the longer barrel of a rifle one thin lube groove will usually not carry enough lube to keep the bore fouling soft for the entire length. Bullets like that tend to run out of lube near the muzzle and fouling starts to build up. This is not the end of the world, you can swab out your barrel when the fouling starts to build up, returning the bore to a pristine condition. You can also remove the cylinders from your revolvers and wipe them down to keep your pistols rolling along all day long.

Here is an article about Pan Lubing if you want to go that route.

http://www.theopenrange.net/forum/index.php?topic=301.0

Or you can just go whole hog and go the Big Lube bullet route. They carry so much lube that they will keep the longest rifle barrel lubed all day long.

[Coyote Roper]

Driftwood,

I used your link to determine the amount of powder for my cartridge, it was very helpful.  I did it just as you described and the pictures showed.

I think they easiest route would be to add a lube cookie over the powder with these bullets and when I order new ones, get ones with BP lube on them.

And,

I think the major consensus is to use FFg rather than FFFg powder in .44 mag cases and in the 12 ga shotshells

[Wills Point Pete]

 That square load is okay, with fffg it'll probably kick a little more than you need. You might ought to drop the powder charge and keep the shot the same. You can actually go about a third less volume of powder to shot. Start with "square Load" and then drop the powder charge a little at a time until your patterns are just the way you like them. My double is Improved Cylinder/Mod just as it came from the factory. With a little bit of fiddling with powder/shot and wads I can go from Cylinder to Improved Mod with those barrels.

The revolvers and rifles don't much care about the difference between ffg and fffg or even down to fg. The coarser the powder, the more sparks coming out the muzzle of your guns. The velocity goes down a tad but not enough that anyone will care. Now those bullets will need to go in the oven and melt out the green crayon lube. Then they'll need some BP Lube and a grease cookie. No big deal. What makes the Big Lube Boolits "better" than standard bullets is that grease cookies are slow to load. I cannot tell the difference between my best Big Lube loads and my best grease cookie loads on a target. So, how big a hurry are you to finish loading?

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

Depending on how soft your lube cookie is, you may want to separate it from the powder and the bullet with thin cardboard wads. When I used to pan lube and add lube cookies, I would separate the powder from the lube cookie with a thin card wad, to keep the lube from adulterating the powder. I also discovered I needed to separate the lube from the bullet with another card wad, or the lube cookie would glue itself to the bullet, destabalizing it and causing it to fly down range like dart with lopsided feathers. This two wad scenario worked, but it was an awful lot of extra work. That's why I eventually abandoned all lube cookies and wads and went with the Big Lube bullets and no extra cookies or wads.

[Noz]

+1 for the Big Lubes. DD has 44 Mav Dutchman molds in stock. Just what you need for the 44s.

[Cyrille]

Personally, I use the same type of grooved bullet that I believe you purchase, 3 shallow grooved type. However I cast my own from a Lee mould and "handlube" them with SPG or other BP lube and I also place a gob of lube on the cylinder face at each chamber opening, just as is recomended for C&B cylinders. Haven't had a binding problem or "hard crust" fouling problem as of yet.

[Springfield Slim]

Big Lube(tm) bullets. Just load and go. No cookies, wads, or goop on the cylinder face. They do cost more then most smokeless bullets but time is worth something too.

[Wills Point Pete]

 I always use a beeswax wad over the powder when I load with a grease cookie. The beeswax wad, a glob of lube and then, sometimes, a Walter's Wad over that. I'm told that the wad over the grease cookie is essential for best accuracy. I'm not so sure that is true. Somehow I don't thing that a bullet spinning that fast would really have lube sticking to it as is spins through the air on the way to the target.

When my shoulder heals up the rest of the way I'll try shooting from a rest and a distant target, with and without that fiber wad.

Springfield Slim, you are right about the speed advantage in loading Big Lubes over a grease cookie load. Thing is, lots of us are retired and we are in no particular hurry. It's not like I want to hurry to finish loading my next shoot's worth of ammo so I won't miss Oprah.

[Wills Point Pete]

 Oh, wait, you wanted opinions. I have lots of those.
I like pie.
I like chubby girls with low morals.
I don't much care for the modern Democrat Party.

[Dick Dastardly]

The main match guns of my choice are a brace of RVs in 44 Magnum with 7-1/2" pipes.  The rifle is a Browning 92 44 Magnum.  The shotgun may be a 20ga, 16ga, 12ga or 10ga, all SxS.

Since my guns are very the same as Coyote Roper's, I feel qualified to say what works for me.  I like FFFg black powder because I feel that it burns more completely inside the barrel than FFg, thus less sparks but plenty of flames and smoke.  I'm using a very similar powder volume and it compresses just right under under the bullets.  And, speaking of bullets, I load Mav Dutchman Big Lube™ bullets lube sized to .429.  For sparkplugs I've been using CCI-300s, but I just bought a case of Winchester primers so will be switching to them.

My guns will easily run a full annual two day match without any need to clean or fuss with.  They will remain accurate and slick right to the end.  I've won wood with the little Browning 92 on side matches after the main match.  It was still hitting where I pointed it.

Good luck and have fun with some guns that you won't wear out.

DD-DLoS