POWDER COMPARISON OF GOEX, OLDE ENYNSFORD AND SWISS

[Herb]

I enjoy target shooting and testing powders and rifles I build.  I make weight-calibrated measures (W/M) for each powder, 100 grains for the big bores shown here.  I shoot off the bench, through my Oehler 35P chronograph, at 50 yards, and usually five-shot groups. Those groups tell me what I want to know in velocity and accuracy.  Here, I took the average group velocity and average velocity spread for some tests with 100 grain W/M  charges in four rifles, added them and took their average, shown below.



The 24" barreled .58 Leman in comparison to the 36" Hawken lost 165 fps with Goex 3F,  295 fps with Goex 2F,  but only 75 fps with Swiss 1 1/2F.  All these are good powders, but I have not had favorable results with Olde Eynsford 3F in any rifle.  Surely it can work well, but I have no encouragement to keep shooting it.

[smylee grouch]

Herb, thanks for your efforts and the run down. Informative and eye opening too. 

[Semisane]

Good stuff Herb.

Here's a study I did a while back with heavy full bore conicals in a .45.



Regarding the low velocity for that first shot with GOEX FFg. I believe it was a result of the barrel not only being perfectly clean, but also having a bit of oil residue from storage before the shooting session.

[smylee grouch]

Looks like you covered all the bases Semisane but I question your math with GOEX 3f unless I,m reading it wrong.

[Semisane]

Good catch SG. I can't explain that 12 fps error on the average. The chrono provided the data for each string and I copied the shot fps/average/spread/SD on a scrap of paper after each shot string. Evidentially I copied something wrong. (I do have a habit of screwing up things like that.  )

[smylee grouch]

Thanks for clearing that up, for a min. there I thought I had forgot my medication.   

[Herb]

Semisane, you have a pretty chart.  Wish I knew how to do that!  It is important that the charges all weigh the same, good job!  I typed my results out in Word Perfect and fiddled the entries about to get a chart, then printed it out and took a digital photo of it, which I uploaded and then tweaked in my PMB photo software.  Didn't take me much more than four or five hours.....  Thanks for posting your work.   (I frequently shoot five shots if the first one from a clean bore is much slower than those following, (four shots are usually enough for me for a group) or six shots if I want five for record). 

[longcruise]

Herb, do you wipe after every shot?

[Daryl]

Found quite interesting, the OE 2F and 1 1/2F produced higher velocity than did OE 3F in the .50.
The other powders seemed normal as to 3F producing higher speeds than 2f or 1 1/2F.
The same thing happened in the 36" .58, but not in the .54, nor the short .58.

[OldMtnMan]

The regular Goex is doing ok in the tests. I'll stick with it.

Thanks for the effort it took to bring this to us.

[shifty]

   Herb,Have you settled on a load for the short 58 cal yet?

[Semisane]

Semisane, you have a pretty chart.  Wish I knew how to do that! . . . . . . . . . .

Herb, I made the chart in Word, printed it with my printer/scanner, then scanned it to create a jpeg file.

[Herb]

OldMtnMan-  Goex 2F is a good powder.  If Semisane had fired a bore fouler shot first with Goex 2F before his record string,  his extreme spread in velocity would probably have been about 12 fps.    This does not mean a very tight group, but such a low extreme spread is very unusual.  Just look at my velocity spreads in my chart, and many of those groups were impressively tight.  Also notice that he had 75 fps extreme velocity spread with Swiss 3F and I had 73 fps.  I did not shoot more Swiss 3F because I didn't have any.  A friend has some here and I'll try to get a pound of it and shoot it in my .58 short Leman just for comparison, if we get warm weather.

Shifty, I won't be using that short Leman anymore, except for testing Swiss 3F and GRRW 2F and 3F.  Don't intend to hunt elk again.  But Olde Eynsford 1 1/2F did very well.  (You can left-click this picture to enlarge it).


Semisane- Thanks.  I'll have to get a smart friend to show me how to do this.  I've got Word and a printer but no scanner.

longcruise-  I don't wipe after every shot, yes and no.  I usually shoot one bore-fouling shot off-target from a clean bore before going for record.  Then I use a damp cleaning patch (alcohol and Murphy Oil Soap, same as my bore lube) on the seater jag, so the bore gets wiped down and back as I seat the ball.  Usually I clean the bore before I switch powders, as from Goex or Olde Eynsford to Swiss, to clean the ball seating area.  Don't clean between Goex and OE, they are similar.  I use a short starter and a steel range rod.  Most of my shooting is from a bench.  If I shoot in a match, I may put a cleaning jag on the wooden ramrod and still use a damp patch to seat the ball.  Usually I just shoot with no wiping, but then I am only using 50 grains of Goex 3f or 2F.

Thanks, everyone, for your interest and questions.

[Mad Monk]

Herb,

In comparing powders I sometimes found a considerable variation from one lot to another in GOEX out of Minden before the business was sold to Hodgdon.

The Swiss manufacture their powder to meet certain lot to lot variation standards.  You don't see a lot of lot to lot variation in ballistic strength and burn rates in the Swiss.  Such was not the case when I was testing Minden Goex and Moosic GOEX.  I bought all of my test powders at Dixons. I could go through their magazine and pick the powder lots I wanted to test.  I would pick three to 5 lots of 3F to look at variation in loading density and muzzle velocities.  Shooting all in the same day in the same gun over the chronograph.  I had one set where there was a 100 fps muzzle velocity variation in the .50 caliber Lyman Trade Rifle at 80 grain charges and the lot number dates were only a day apart. One lot being packed the day after the other lot.  I have no idea how good GOEX is at lot to lot variation now.  I had to quit shooting the black powder rifles back in 2005.  But if you get a chance to try several lots of the same granulation size you might be able to see some differences.

Much has to do with their charcoal supplier and how much variation there is in the various lots of charcoal they use.  With the Swiss making their own charcoal they can better control lot to lot variations in the powders' behavior in guns.

Bill K.

[Daryl]

Back in the late 80's when first chronographing my .69, I usually got extreme spreads in the single digits, 7fps to 9fps.
This did not happen with the .40 or .45 rifles, but their spreads were usually 12 to 14fps or so. Herb is right, in that
such small deviations do not mean smaller groups, although the potential for smaller groups is there, with close
shot to shot variations.  The potential is much better than with wide variations, shot to shot, especially with longer range
shooting.
I attribute close shot to shot velocities due to a consistent bore condition by using tight ball and patch combinations that needed
no wiping.

[hanshi]

Large extreme spreads, even if very accurate at closer distances, can really start to scatter shots a bit farther out there.  This will be especially noticeable in the vertical displacement.

[yellowhousejake]

Semisane- Thanks.  I'll have to get a smart friend to show me how to do this.  I've got Word and a printer but no scanner.

Herb, you should be able to use "Export" to save the word document directly to a jpeg. That works in most all word processing software. I know Office 2007, 2013, and Libre Office can do it.

DAve

[Herb]

Semisane- Thanks.  I'll have to get a smart friend to show me how to do this.  I've got Word and a printer but no scanner.

Herb, you should be able to use "Export" to save the word document directly to a jpeg. That works in most all word processing software. I know Office 2007, 2013, and Libre Office can do it.

Thanks!  I'll work on figuring this out.  I ain't as smart as I am handsome.

DAve

[shifty]

   Herb,Do you think this results with OE 1 1/2 would be normal or the same in all large bore short barrels. I have a pistol with 16" 50 cal barrel that does pretty good with Goex FFg but this gets me to thinking about trying the OE 1 1/2 in it.

[Herb]

Not having tried that, I don't know.  But I think OE 1 1/2F should group well.  OE 2F is not much different from OE 1 1/2F, but I'd bet on OE 1 1/2F between the two to group a little tighter.  My experience would not have me trying OE 3F.  The OE is faster than Goex for the same weight of charge, if that is important.  On the other hand, you could reduce the weight of the OE charge to lower its velocity to the Goex and have lessened recoil, which is important.  Try it and let us know.