Black Powder Questions

[Rafe Covington]

I am going to load some black powder loads in my "76 in 50-95 WCF and try to find an accurate load, I have been told by several people that I should use 2F powder. I see that alot of shooters use Swiss 1 1/2 powder [is there a big difference], having never loaded blackpowder loads would appreciate any information you can give.

Do blackpowder loads hold up as good as smokeless loads when they are stored and not shot immediately, if I can find a good load I usually like to load up quite a few and keep for the future as uncertian as it is.

Thanks for any info given.

Rafe

[Dick Dastardly]

Given the big bore of your gun, give the Swiss 1½ a go.  No, black powder does not appreciatively degrade in stored ammo.  There are Civil War guns and ammo that still go boom, sometimes to the surprise of the shooter.  Sometimes ok, sometimes . . . not.

Your gun will push your shoulder some, but don't shoot light bullets in order to save on recoil.  If you are looking for a lighter recoiling BPCR gun, go with a 38-55.

Good smoke to you sir.

DD-DLoS

[rickk]

the enemy of BP is moisture. Keep them in a reasonably non-damp environment and they will be fine for a long time.

[Ranch 13]

Blackpowder loads will last forever if they are kept dry.
You might look into getting KIK 2f and some 1.5f to try in your rifle. Much cleaner burning powder and half the price of Swiss.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I will agree, keep your ammo in a cool dry place and it will last forever. I just shot some 45-70 last week that I loaded up back in 2007. No problems at all. BP ammo stored in a cool dry place should stay potent for many, many years. The only thing I will add is I always store all my ammo in plastic boxes, bullets facing down. This way, if there is any chance of bullet lube migrating into the powder it will be kept to a minimum.

I load lots of pistol ammo (45 Colt, 45 Schofiled, 44-40, etc) with Black Powder. The only big rifle cartridge I load with Black Powder is 45-70. I have absolutely zero experience with 50-95, in fact I have never even seen one. So I grabbed my copy of Shooting Lever Guns of the Old West by Mike Venturino to see what Mike had to say about it. You might consider buying a copy, in addition to tons of specific information about many different rifles and many different cartridges, each of the books in this series has a chapter describing the general techniques of loading of cartridges with Black Powder. This chapter is the best primer I have ever seen about loading Black Powder cartridges and is probably worth the price of the book itself. You can find it on Amazon.

Right off the bat, Mike talks about the 50-95 being one of the 'most exotic' calibers ever produced by Winchester. Mike states the original bullets for the cartridge were 312 grain flat points or hollow points. Mike states that proper bullet diameter is .508-.510, depending on actual groove diameter. These bullets were almost as wide as they were long, meaning velocity bleeds off pretty quickly. They delivered enormous power up close, but lost power pretty quickly as the velocity dropped off. Of all things, the round was very popular for hunting tigers in India because the shots were usually pretty close and hunters wanted to rely on the power. Mike also states that the 50 caliber Winchesters did not enjoy a great reputation for accuracy, so he was very happy when his first three shots grouped in three inches at 100 yards. Subsequent shots opened the group up to about six inches.

Mike was using an original Winchester Model 1876 because Uberti had not started making their reproduction when he wrote his book. I am gonna take a wild guess and assume you have a reproduction? You are probably going to want to slug the barrel to determine just what diameter you want your bullets.

I gotta ask, are you already loading this cartridge? Do you have components and dies? I just checked at Buffalo Arms and man that brass is expensive! $83.09 for a box of 20! This is the Bertram brass that Mike talks about. He also mentions you can form brass from .348 Winchester brass using a special set of dies from RCBS. Just as an aside, depending on the manufacturer, it usually costs me somewhere around a buck for each piece of 45-70 brass. If you act right now it looks like Midway USA is having a clearance sale on the Bertram 50-95 brass, $60.27 for a box of 20 and they only have two in stock right now. A clearance price may mean it does not sell well enough for them to reorder, I dunno.

My copy of Mike's book was published in 1999, so there may be some more up to date information about available components for 50-95. As of when Mike wrote the Lever Gun book he said there were no suitable bullets available on the market for 50-95. He cast his own from a NEI .500-300GC mold, using a 20/1 lead/tin alloy. Apparently these are gas check bullets, and after adding the gas checks his bullets weighed 314 grains. The bore on Mike's test rifle was .508, so he sized his bullets to .509. Mike does not mention what he lubed his bullets with, but I am going to bet he used SPG, since he helped develop the formula for it. Mike also mentions that he had to crimp these bullets over the front driving band in order to keep the OAL short enough to work in the action. His Cartridge Over All Length was 2.26 inches.

Times seem to have changed since Mike wrote the book, Buffalo Arms shows a 300 grain and a 350 grain .510 diameter SPG lubed bullet that look like they will work.

Here is the information you are really looking for. Mike used a charge of 80.0 grains of Goex FFg and a charge of 85.0 grains of Goex Cartridge for his tests. He states that despite the name, the cartridges do not really hold 95 grains of powder. At least not with modern brass. This is not uncommon, modern brass has less case capacity than the old balloon head cases. But do understand that these charges are for the specific bullet he used. More about this at the end. I'm not 100% sure of this, but I don't think Goex is still making Goex Cartridge.

Mike does not mention it, but I'm sure he used a drop tube with these loads, he always does when he loads BP. He also does not mention using a wad between the powder and the bullet, so I am assuming he did not.

You really need to buy Mike's book, particularly if this is your first adventure in Black Powder Cartridge reloading. The chapter on the general techniques of Black Powder Cartridge reloading is worth the price. I am sorry to tell you this, but you are going to probably have to do considerable experimentation with that cartridge to find the most accurate load. It ain't like 45-70, everybody loads 45-70, components are relatively cheap and there is tons of load data available. Mike makes no mention of how much he compresses the powder with this load. My usual advice of compressing the powder by 1/16" - 1/8" may or may not work for that cartridge. I usually compress my 45-70 loads quite a bit more, and I use a 1/32" fiber wad between the powder and the bullet. The simple truth about Black Powder is that not all brands weigh the same. So saying xx.x grains of brand X may not be the same as xx.x grains of brand Y. That's part of the experimentation. The amount of compression and how deep the bullet sits when it is seated, will determine the actual powder charge. When you have figured that out, you pour it out and weigh it.

The bottom line is, with an exotic cartridge like 50-95, you are going to have to do some experimenting. You may just load some up and everything will be great, or you may want to experiment with powder brand, bullet weight, and compression.

For what it's worth, these days I use Schuetzen FFg exclusively for all my Black Powder loading. It is about the same price as Goex, but burns cleaner. You may want to try some.  Graf puts the same powder out under their own name. I hear that the latest offering from KIK is supposed to be very good, but I ain't tried any yet.

The thing about Black Powder is, for really good accuracy in a rifle you want the cleanest burning stuff you can find. The BPCR guys love Swiss because it burns the cleanest, leaving the least fouling behind in the bore. But Swiss is also the most expensive. Goex is really pretty dirty stuff, you really have to have a good bullet with tons of BP compatible lube on it to keep up the accuracy with Goex. That's why I like Schuetzen, burns cleaner than Goex but does not cost as much as Swiss.

Hope this is of some help and does not scare you off.

Buy Mike's book.

[Rafe Covington]

Appreciate all the information, was very helpful. I have brass, got it from Grafs last year [Jamison Brass] for 32.00 per 20. I bought 360 cases so should be set for awhile, got dies from CH tool and die. Already slugged the bore on my rifle, it is .511.

My 2 1876 rifles are by Uberti, the other is a 40-60 WCF. Again thanks for the answers and info guys, can't wait to try BP in my cartridge rifles. It was all my Dad and Grand Dad would shoot in there lever rifles when I was growing up.

Later
Rafe

[john boy]

Do blackpowder loads hold up as good as smokeless loads when they are stored and not shot immediately,

As long as the powder in the reloads is not exposed to humidity (which it isn't) them reloads can sit around for years with no degradation to the strength of the powder

[john boy]

SM, little known experiment of the 1800's:
Major Mordecai conducted an experiment for the US Govt ... exposed high density BP to very high humidity for a long time.  The grains swelled.  They were laid out to dry and retained their enlarged size which made them more pervious to combustion and when shot yielded a higher velocity!

After his promotion to captain in 1832, he joined the Ordnance elite and stayed there for the following 29 years. Distinguishing himself from the outset, Mordecai took command of the important Washington arsenal in 1833, then Frankford in 1836, then Washington again, and finally Watervliet in 1857. In 1854 he was promoted to major. In the 1840s alone, sealing his reputation as America's finest ballistician, he published the influential tracts, "The Ordnance Manual," "Report of Experiments on Gunpowder," "Second Report of Experiments on Gunpowder," and "Artillery for the United States Land Service."

http://www.jcs-group.com/military/plymouth/mordecai.html

This might be a neat experiment with the new 2010 lot of KIK that has a high density and also produces good velocities ... for even higher velocities!  

1.094   KIK   Fg   2010
1.050   KIK   1.5Fg   2010
1.060   KIK   FFG   2010