Is it my powder? Or the weather?

[B.Barker]

I live in Kentucky and have had the same experience as Mark when it comes to Swiss powder. It causes less fouling but the fouling is really hard and I can get only two shots before I have to wipe the fouling. Goex I can shoot longer because the fouling is softer. I've never lived where the humidity is low so I can't give much advice on powders or lube for such conditions.

[Curtis]

Scota4570,

I generally follow Daryl's shooting program with my rifles, but considering your problem, try the below....

Not sure why the crud ring has started forming, but try this for a remedy - the English method for target shooting.  Fire the rifle, then pour the powder in the barrel, follow with a over powder wad or your best facsimile.  Swab the bore with a damp patch, then load patch and ball.  The grime gets forced onto the wad and does not contaminate your powder or touch hole, yet allows you to clean the bore.

You can make wads from milk cartons etc if you don't have any in your rifle caliber.  Try it and let us know your results.

Curtis

[Bsharp]

Curtis, Thank You!

I had forgotten the card over powder, then swabbing.

I will have to try that.

[hanshi]

In humid weather I've never seen a hint of crud rings near the breech.  The few occasions when I've found one was during low humidity days.  While I can't, of course, remember every shooting session no crud ring has ever hindered the seating of prb even in dryer weather.  And they've always wiped out easily at the end of a shooting session.

[bones92]

I use a mix of Ballistol and water, about 1:3 or 1:4  (ballistol:water).   I have found this to be a HUGE help in preventing the fouling from turning into a crunchy coating.  I used to use straight Ballistol, but adding water has made it work tremendously well (for me).  This is NC, where we get hot, humid summers.

I don't swab between shots.  I use a very wet patch.   I think the patch coats the bore well while driving the ball down, both cleaning and softening the fouling.  All I know is that it has made loading much easier.  It used to be a very crunchy, difficult thing to load after 10 shots.  Now, it's as easy on the 20th shot as the first.

[Hungry Horse]

 Another factor could be if you have ever used a black powder substitute in your gun. If so you may have a rough section just ahead of the powder charge. This will grow a crud ring in no notes.

  Hungry Horse

[Daryl]

Another factor could be if you have ever used a black powder substitute in your gun. If so you may have a rough section just ahead of the powder charge. This will grow a crud ring in no notes.
 Hungry Horse

Good suggestion, HH - I hadn't think of that, but yes, that would make for a continual accumulation of fouling, ie: crud ring, no matter what loading combination was used - most likely.

[Bob Roller]

Not to start a powder war, but I've tried various powders and lubes, but have always preferred Goex because the fouling was easier to deal with.  I've been working with a .45 flintlock as of late, and it definitely prefers ffg over fffg Goex.  I can shoot numerous shots without needing to wipe (mink oil or avocado oil), or all day with LVL/SVL/MF.  Switching to Elephant, Diamondback, or Swiss requires wiping between shots.  Loose ball & patch just makes things worse as it fouls more quickly.

In my .50 flintlock, the preferred load is 80gr Goex fffg, but I've found that if I duplex 15gr Goex fffg under 65gr Diamondback ffg, it works very similarly.  I prefer to spend my time loading and shooting rather than extra cleaning.

Is Elephant powder still available? I have a can or maybe 75% of a can I have had for years.Also old DuPont,Cutis&Harvey and one full can of Swiss.I have never had the fouling problems described here
but used some swiss 3rg in a bullet gun and the fouling was harder but the performance was very good.
I used some Elephant in 45 Colt pistols when I shot BPCR at Ralph Marcum's in the 1990's.THAT is one
event I really miss.I told everyone I did not come to shoot but only to eat at a local diner because I found I
had an artery that wasn't clogged and wanted to help it a bit. .RIP Ralph,I miss you and Bud Garret,Don Mills,Joe Baldwin,Bart Mantia,Marcy Campbell and John Hardesty.
Bob Roller

[Mad Monk]

Bob,

Elephant is long gone.  The plant in Brazil closed in about 2001 after being flooded for 6 months.  Once the water went down all of the machinery was sold to some young rich guy down there who built a new plant about 50 miles down the coast to a city built specifically to handle "dangerous materials".  We then see that plant's powder show up here under the Diamondback Powder trade name.  This Diamondback company being owned by Copperhead Chemical Company in Canada.  I got a sample can of the 3Fg Diamondback out of Dixon's when they tried to get him to handle it.  This Diamondback Chemical company was operating out of the old Atlas Powder dynamite plant at Tamaqua, PA.  ICI was running the plant making medical nitro tablets at the time this Diamondback Powder showed up.  And the Diamondback Powder was no better than the old Elephant powder at a time when GOEX had made very good improvements in their powder and Schuetzen and Swiss were on the U.S. market.  And Diamondback priced their powder up there with GOEX and later wondered why it was such a big flop.  After awhile this Diamondback tried to get me to go up to Tamaqua since I am not far from that plant.  I did some serious ducking and hiding on that one.   The old Atlas dynamite plant was known for frequent explosions.  The truck loads of dynamite on steep narrow coal regions roads.  Who needs working brakes on trucks full of dynamite

Bill K.

[Daryl]

Trucks full of weeping/leaking dynamite?

[Mad Monk]

Trucks full of weeping/leaking dynamite?

No Daryl.  These were truck loads of freshly made dynamite.  I have often read that dynamite could only be set off by a special igniter.  But when those trucks missed a certain curve in the road and ran into trees the stuff would often go up with a bang.  If the load started to burn the sticks of dynamite would be heated to a temperature where the nitroglycerene would take over the event.  There have been a number of "events" around the world where dynamite stored at too high of a temperature auto exploded.  There was even one event where a bunker full of black powder actually detonated when the storage temperature got too high and it was all heated to an ignition temperature at the same time.  In that event the uniform heating of the sulfur contained in the powder.  Once the sulfur turned from a solid to a vapor the whole lot of it went up in one quick blast.  Sulfur vapors in the powder are highly reactive.  If the powder has access to open flowing air the sulfur vapors are released and just drift away in the air.  But when confined in the containers and a building you can get this mass deflagration which is almost the same as pure detonation.  There was a lengthy Bureau Of Mines paper published on that in the early 1900s. 

Bill K.

[Daryl]

Tks Bill.