mixing powder brands

[LURCHWV@BJS]

  Just a quick question .
   I have about a half pound of Lidu BP and half pound of GOEX.  Would it hurt to mix the two powders together?  BOTH ARE FFFg


   Rich

[4ster]

This is probably beyond my pay grade but here are my thoughts.

1) If you want to just move a ball down a barrel and are not extremely concerned with the best accuracy then I would think that it doesn't matter that much. 

2) I know Swiss 3f is different than Goex 3f in terms of "whump": I suspect that Lidu is different than Goex.  If you are interested in the full accuracy your rifle is able to achieve, is it worth your time to work up a load on a custom mix?  In a similar position I would use the stuff that I couldn't resupply easily for fun and work up a load with the powder that I can get on a regular basis.

[SCLoyalist]

If Lidu is a chemical mixture of Charcoal, Potassium Nitrate and Sulfur then mixing it with  Goex of similar grain size shouldn't  hurt anything.    That said, 4ster's point #2 is worth considering.

The other side of the question is, what would be the advantage of mixing the two?

[hanshi]

I don't see any downside; they're both black powder and both the same "F" so I don't even think accuracy would be affected much if at all.

[Harnic]

Rich, mixing two brands of the same granulation won't "hurt" anything with the possible exception of group size.

[LURCHWV@BJS]

Thank you all, got to looking around and found three cans with just about half in each.  So wanted to combine the contents into one can and the rest into a horn.

 Just wanted to make sure it was safe.

  Rich

[Habu]

Safe, but the accuracy issue is a double-edged sword.  Most likely, it won't be accurate.  But on the other hand, it could give you the most-accurate shooting of your life--and where would you get more?   

More seriously, I used to mix powders all the time for my Bess, with nary a problem once I saw where it was hitting.  I know the powder in my shotgun horn is a mix of old Dupont, Goex, and Elephant; I was cleaning out the powder cupboard and found a bunch of partial cans of FFg so I just dumped it all in.  It works just fine in the smoothbore. 

[Dphariss]

  Just a quick question .
   I have about a half pound of Lidu BP and half pound of GOEX.  Would it hurt to mix the two powders together?  BOTH ARE FFFg


   Rich

It will degrade the performance of the Goex.
Lidu is a fireworks "lifting charge" powder from China according to Mad Monk.


Dan

[SCLoyalist]

I had never even heard of Lidu powder before this thread and a Google search turned up some references to to on some muzzleloading forums.  "Okay, but shot to shot consistency not as good as Goex" is a typical comment.   Also sounds like sometime between 2004 and now they've reduced granulation size to be more usable for ml rifles.

[LURCHWV@BJS]

The powder came from Friendship IN. The gentleman I bought it from said they bring in seven ton in railways.  As far as I know it's some other powder in Lidu cans. I've shot it about twenty times last week with no apparent loss in accuracy.  But then again, I still have this big finching problem. I can imagine the barrel of ole Frankenstein flying thru my skull.  Don't ask me why, but seems I always imagine the worst thing that can happen

  Rich

[Habu]

Rich, the barrel isn't going to fly through your skull.  In the worst case--say, if you forgot to put the tang screw and pins in--the barrel will probably sorta pivot up and probably damage the stock around the tang.  

Now if you did a bad job of breeching the barrel, it might be a different matter.  but you didn't do that, did you?  

I had a terrible flinch for a while with my first rifle, for much the same reason.  My mentor pointed out that I shot original guns, and guns made by other people, without hesitation.  It was just the rifle I built that was making me nervous.  One afternoon he shot a match with the rifle while I watched, and after that I was OK.  

Give it a little time for you to get used to shooting the rifle, and I think you'll be OK.