More powder

[MuskratMike]

It seems I am reading more and more posts telling people to add more powder to their loads even when they are shooting excellent groups. When our great grandfathers were carrying these rifles for hunting, self defense and target shooting powder was expensive and not always easy to get. Once an accurate load was found that's what they used. We shouldn't be trying to match the velocity of cartridge black powder guns. An accurate gun with moderate loads are easier on the gun and shooter and extends the amount of shots you get out of a pound of powder.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

When a poster says he's getting good groups at 25 yards with "X" grains of powder and a certain patch/ball/lube set-up, but can't get the load to shoot well at 50 yards plus, some of us cannot stop ourselves from making recommendations based upon our own experience.  In most cases, my experience suggests a larger ball, thicker patch, lube is inconsequential as long as there is enough of it, and more powder   One of the purposes of the Postal Matches was to demonstrate what other shooters are having success with.  Especially past 25 yards.  That is why we are asked to provide details of our load and if possible, our rifle too.  It is hoped that folks will learn from these posts.
As far as repeating a philosophy and practice from bygone days, those situations are not an issue today, for most of us.  Personally, I have all the powder I'll ever be able to shoot for the rest of my life, same for lead, lube, and patch material.  Have to buy flints from time to time.  Too, my shooting requirements have little in common with what my forebears had to deal with.  I shoot because I enjoy it, am competitive, and don't have to defend heart and home with my flintlock rifles, and luckily, have a freezer full of game meat.  Example, we're having Canada goose with apple chutney tonight for supper.
When it comes to shooting, it makes no difference to me how anyone else does it.  But when they ask for advice, I try to help if I can.

[Hawg]

While I like my guns to have a modicum of historical accuracy what my forefathers did is of no concern. I'm pretty sure most of their shooting was putting meat on the table. While I have done that countless times most of my shooting is just shooting at stuff. I don't like wimpy loads. I use my hunting loads to plink with. I'm sure I could find lighter loads that are just as accurate as my hunting loads but they would bore me to tears. I'm not recoil sensitive especially with black powder so that's not an issue.

[Jeff Murray]

One situation where heavier powder charges may be warranted is when hunting large game.  A lot of eastern hunters are satisfied with more moderate loads while hunting whitetails at moderate ranges.  When you transition out west to longer ranges and larger game, velocity at range becomes more of an issue for clean harvests.  For target shooting, it doesn't take a lot of powder to punch paper or ring a gong.  Just knowing where your rifle prints at target ranges is probably more important.

[J.M.Browning]

It seems I am reading more and more posts telling people to add more powder to their loads even when they are shooting excellent groups. When our great grandfathers were carrying these rifles for hunting, self defense and target shooting powder was expensive and not always easy to get. Once an accurate load was found that's what they used. We shouldn't be trying to match the velocity of cartridge black powder guns. An accurate gun with moderate loads are easier on the gun and shooter and extends the amount of shots you get out of a pound of powder.
Happy St. Patrick's Day! I tend to agree many misinformed opinions about loads on these boards , I also believe years gone firearm consumables had a much higher value in the eye of the shooter .

[Bill Raby]

I am working on a 4 bore rifle right now. Just the opposite for something like that. Accuracy and expense were never a consideration. Only thing that mattered was getting as much power as possible out of the rifle.

[Kurt]

If a rifle has a specific twist rate in the barrel the rotation of the ball is directly related to that twist (unless the patched ball skips the rifling) so how does speeding a projectile up or slowing it down make for better accuracy? I see how a tighter patch or bigger ball could do that but how does a change in velocity do it? Excluding getting it to the target before the wind affects it. Or to say it short form; a 1 in 66 twist is going to spin the ball 1 in 66 no matter what the velocity is it is just going to cover the 66 inches faster or slower? I know it is the common practice to do this to find best accuracy, I just don't understand the dynamic.

[rich pierce]

If a rifle has a specific twist rate in the barrel the rotation of the ball is directly related to that twist (unless the patched ball skips the rifling) so how does speeding a projectile up or slowing it down make for better accuracy? I see how a tighter patch or bigger ball could do that but how does a change in velocity do it? Excluding getting it to the target before the wind affects it. Or to say it short form; a 1 in 66 twist is going to spin the ball 1 in 66 no matter what the velocity is it is just going to cover the 66 inches faster or slower? I know it is the common practice to do this to find best accuracy, I just don't understand the dynamic.

I’m no physicist but I think about it in terms of RPMs. If at a low velocity the revolutions per time unit are less. If at a high velocity the revolutions per time unit are more. Pistols have a faster twist rate per inches because velocity is less than in longer barrels. And they want a certain revolutions per time unit to stabilize the ball. Please correct me, anyone with actual ballistics understanding.

[Daryl]

As I understand ballistics, you are pretty much spot-on, Rich. I am not a ballistician either. For ANY given projectile, the slower it is traveling, the faster must be it's RPM to maintain stability/stabilization.
That is why muzzleloading pistols, to be accurate, must have quite fast rates of twist. The slower moving projectile needs a faster rate of RPM. A slower rate of twist in a pistol, requires a LOT more powder to get the velocity up to where the ball is stabilized. We know that slower rifling twists, require more powder to get the same accuracy that a faster rate of twist can produce.
It takes more power to get the rate of spin up, ie: revolutions per minute.
Round balls require little spin (compared to conicals) to stabilize, yet, they still must be spun so that do not take on an atmospheric induced spin and curve off course (line of sight) due to that spin
as in a curve ball in baseball or the way a side spinning golf ball curves or hooks. They must also be spun fast enough, to stabilize at the range required, whether this is 100yards, or 300yards.
That is why those bench rest rifles that weigh 50 pounds in .69 calibre, use 200 to 300gr. of powder for shooting 200yards.
As we progress into conical projectiles, the longer the projectile, the faster it must be spinning to maintain stability/stabilization. This requisite rate of spin for any projectile can be effected by increasing the velocity, or increasing the rate of twist in the rifling.
The longer the range we are shooting, the slower the projectile will be traveling at distance and since the slower moving projectile needs more RPM for stability, we must drive it faster to start with.
The slower the rate of twist, the faster we must drive the ball to stabilize it for the given distance needed.
For example, my .69 will shoot the same size groups at 50yards, using 85gr. of 2F powder, as it does with 140gr. 2F powder, yet that 85gr. powder does not shoot well at all, at 100 yards or further.
For that distance and further, the rifle needs at least 140gr. 2F powder. Back when the rifle was new, it needed 165gr. of that 1986 powder to shoot well. Today's (2000's)GOEX powder is slightly better than the 1980's GOEX and that is the difference, I assume.

[smylee grouch]

Right on Rich. When the ball is moving at the speed of sound ( + or - 1400 fps ) and a proper twist is in play the ball will be stabilized but get below that speed much and the ball, according to the better Bench shooters will start to " float or knuckle ball " because the RPM's have slowed down too.

[Dphariss]

Right on Rich. When the ball is moving at the speed of sound ( + or - 1400 fps ) and a proper twist is in play the ball will be stabilized but get below that speed much the ball, according to the better Bench shooters will start to " float or knuckle ball " because the RPM's have slowed down too.

The RPM bleeds off very slowly compared to velocity. Since there is very little drag to slow the rotation compared to the air resistance slowing the bullets velocity.  If they are getting “knuckle balls” at the ranges ML are shot at and think the rotation velocity has fallen off they REALLY need to do some research into the subject.

[Dphariss]

Groups at 25 yards are only useful in a rifle to see if the bullet strike matches the sight alignment.

Several of the shooters at our 60 yard plank rest matches would shoot big groups with light loads. We would tell them to step up the powder and when they did the groups always got smaller.
Col (then capt) Hanger during the revolution spoke of shooting half ball weight of powder. This is too light in bores under 45 its often too much is bore over 54. But it is pretty darned good for 45, 50 and 54 calibers.
I got a rifle to clean.

[Hungry Horse]

 One thing that seems to be getting forgotten is that it’s darn hard to find an early muzzleloading rifle barrel that isn’t 1in48” twist. That alone keeps the powder charges out of the stupidity zone. Even when I started building guns in the early seventies 1 in 48” twist was the standard for many barrel makers. The barrel on my poor boy is 1in72”, heck the old forty, or fifty, grain measure in that barrel hardly gets smoothbore groups. So if you want to shoot light loads at fifty yards, for heaven sake don’t buy a barrel that is one turn in a quarter mile. Twist matters.

Hungry Horse

[Habu]

As I understand ballistics, you are pretty much spot-on, Rich. I am not a ballistician either. For ANY given projectile, the slower it is traveling, the faster must be it's RPM to maintain stability/stabilization.

This is my understanding as well, leaving me puzzled by folks who think they need twist rates of 1/60-1/70 (or even slower) in a common .45-.50-.54 in order to shoot accurately with their preferred light powder charges.  Often, they might have better results out past 50 yards if they went with a relatively faster twist like 1/48. 

The .58 jaeger I built had a ~17" barrel, 1/20 twist, and shot well to 100 yards.  (At 150 yards, I couldn't always managed to hit the backstop behind the target frames: velocity had probably dropped off too much.)  Muzzle velocity was under 1,200 fps with the best load. 

[Kurt]

This very inforamtional! Knowing what I do now, from reading here, I am wondering if using 3FG powder could be advantageous in rifles of 50 and 54 caliber as it has been shown to deliver higher velocities. (against 2F as the traditional recommendation) I was planning on buying 2FG but my 54 is a 1 in 66 twist. I have one 50 caliber that is 1 in 66 but the real shooter is 1 in 48.

[Hawg]

My .50 cal I used to deer hunt with had a 1:48 twist. It didn't shoot conicals very well with 90 grain charges. It did shoot round balls decently with the same charge but definitely wasn't a 100 yard rifle.

[recurve]

I shoot with several old timers and they adjust their powder load to the range they are shooting , 50rgns for 25, 65 for 75 and so on they do VERY WELL on the steel animal targets and paper. they have told me they keep the same sight pitcher on all targets
 I find the best grouping load and Kentucky windage the front sight I'm still knocking the steel down but not like them

[smylee grouch]

Some interesting comments. Since  part of this discussion is about the bullets spin I'm curious how its rate of spin is calculated after the balls exit from the muzzle, or at 50,100 or even 200 yds.

[Hawg]

I shoot with several old timers and they adjust their powder load to the range they are shooting , 50rgns for 25, 65 for 75 and so on they do VERY WELL on the steel animal targets and paper. they have told me they keep the same sight pitcher on all targets
 I find the best grouping load and Kentucky windage the front sight I'm still knocking the steel down but not like them

I don't shoot steel animals and shooting paper bores me to tears. I don't care so much about tight groups. I just want to be confident on hitting a deer in the boiler room at any given range and having an exit wound.

[Daryl]

This very inforamtional! Knowing what I do now, from reading here, I am wondering if using 3FG powder could be advantageous in rifles of 50 and 54 caliber as it has been shown to deliver higher velocities. (against 2F as the traditional recommendation) I was planning on buying 2FG but my 54 is a 1 in 66 twist. I have one 50 caliber that is 1 in 66 but the real shooter is 1 in 48.

Kurt - I have worked up loads in .40 through .50 using both 3F and 2F. Years ago (1970's and 80's), we found 2F to be more accurate in .50 cal and larger, than 3F. Due to the load combinations we used, we did not find 2F to foul any more than any other granulation size. They all shot cleanly with those ball and patch combinations. Yes, we even tried 1F on occasion. In the .40 (48" ROT) and .45 cal. (60")barrels, I found I got the same accuracy and velocity with both granulations if I used 10gr. MORE 2F than their accuracy load of 3F. This testing was when using LeHighValley Lube a VERY slippery one.
Back in 2020 or 2021 on a postal match, when warming up, I tested 3F in my 66" twist 44" .50 cal. Rice barrel. I had been shooting 85gr. 2F GOEX in it and thus tried some 3F just because Taylor was shooting 3F in his .50 at that time.
At 50 yards, this was the result. Mind you, I did not work up either load, just picked and tested them. Same hold and virtually the same point of impact, however, the 85gr. 2F was a LOT tighter than the 75gr. of 3F load. Same .495" ball and 10 ounce denim patch which works well in all my rifles.
The bull is 4" in diameter.

[recurve]

don't have to clean drag or wait till the season for the steel animals 

[J.M.Browning]

All I shoot is paper & steel . Buy the way I shoot daily !

[Dphariss]

I dug around looking for it but found no formula for loss of rotational velocity of projectiles but I did find a statement that a modern HV bullet probably loses about +- 1% of spin going to 1000 yards.
If you spin almost anything and watch the speed decline then consider the TIME OF FLIGHT. At 4000 ft above sea level a .535 RB at 1800 fps will have a TOF to 300 yards (900 feet) of just about 1 second, to 200 yards is about .54 seconds, to 100 yards its .219. Its simply not going to lose that much rotational velocity 1/4 or 1/2 or 1 second. So thinking that the rotational velocity going down at round ball distances is surely just supposition, or any other projectiles for that matter

I tried Berger Bullets stability calculator with a 50 cal RB and found that it is not “reliable” with a 50 cal RB at 1800 fps but it does really like a 48” twist, 66 is marginal and 72 is useless. But we know that ALL these will give good accuracy with a 50 caliber RB.
This all made me curious so I found:
Formula MV x 720/twist rate.
At 1800 fps I got 18514 rpm for a 70” (Green Mountain) and 27000 for a 48 twist.
My 600 yard bullet used in one of the unmentionables makes 295,753 rpm from a gain twist barrel ending on 1:6.5” But  the bullet is more than 5 calibers long.
Speed of sound at sea level is 1128 fps in “dry air”.

[Kurt]

I found an article about conical jacket bullets as I tried to research 'spin' and it said that bullet velocity dropped off much faster than rotation speed (rpms).

[smylee grouch]

I have seen those formula before but I assumed that was for longer bullets not round balls .  I don't know if those formula would be valid with the round ball and its poorer ballistics.