Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Measuring powder

I have a question I shoot blackhorn 209
Which I believe is a great powder but...

Is there a reason that they suggest measuring blackpowder and BP substitutes by volume instead of weight?
I was thinking most guys may not have a scale and this makes it easy but if you have a scale would it be more exact?Or its just just good the way it is?

Hank

What I saw way back was not a suggestion, but a warning to measure not weigh. miles

Is the Blackhorn 209 worth the price? iv been thinking of useing it in my Knight, Iv always mes. by Volume !

They suggest volume over weight for two reasons.

1) to get you to buy their own plastic measurer.
2) because volume measurers are what 95% of ML shooters use.

Measuring by scale is more accurate. Just be sure to use the correct transfer figures in your calculation. Refer to the Blackhorn website for more information.

Yeah, the problem with weighing is that too many people will weigh 100 grains of the substitutes rather than the 70% or so that they actually weigh. By volume is not quite as accurate, but is safer for Bubba.

Right .. most of the substitutes are designed to be replaced volume for volume, not weight for weight, and their densities are often less than real BP.

Example ... my old .58 Big Boar TC shot 120 grains of FFg under a 560 grain conical. (ouch) To use pyrodex (ick) I'd just set the measure to the same 120 grain increment, pour, load, and shoot.

The actual weight of that pyrodex that replaced the 120 grains of FFg was about 96 grains if I recall correctly.

It's perfectly fine to weigh out 96 grains (or whatever it was) of Pyrodex to replace 120 grains of FFg, but don't WEIGH 120 grains of Pyrodex, that's the equivalent of about 150-ish grains of FFg, quite beyond what the gun maker calls maximum.

So ... the difference is in the density of the propellant. Load-by-volume is the simplest approach because that's how the propellant was designed to be used. The only reason I'd go by weight is with something lumpy / inconsistent in granule shape like Pyrodex RS (Pyrodex Select is MUCH better and other substitutes may be even MORE better) that volume-measured charges are not THAT consistent.

FWIW, my old Hodgdon manual, #25, I think, has a section on loading Pyrodex and BP, charts, etc which I found fairly useful and informative.

Tom

Weighing is fine boatboy, so long as (as others have said) you understand the conversion process.

This may help you understand the history behind the volume/weight thing.

http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/bla...standing-powder-loads-muzzleloaders.html

Hey John

I think it is
I hunt zone 3 so we use muzzies for both firearm seasons
I was slow to change,my buddies did it well before I did. Pellets were easy when I ran out about 4 or 5 years ago I moved to it
first its less sensitive to moisture
Most important when you shoot its not like a rifle but you can see what happens to the game and not looking at a huge cloud of smoke

I am on board with it and see no reason to use anything else

Hank

Blackthorn is well worth the cost. Even though it is $30 or so for 10 ounces, it still equates well with the cost of pellets. I get about 70 shots per jug, so that would be equivalent to 140 pellets. I like the fact that Blackthorn is much easier to clean up. I actually left my muzzleloader barrel dirty for a week just to see how it looked. Of course I looked at it every day. At the end of the week, it cleaned up with no corrosion.

I weighed my BH 209 with a scale. 71.5 grains is what's most accurate in my rifle.

Then I poured that weighed charge in my old brass volume measure and adjusted it until the weighed charge filled the measure. I taped up the brass volume measure with electrical tape so the adjustment stays where I want it.

Now I just fill the brass powder measure knowing it's at 71.5 grains of BH 209.

Dan

Dantheman, your method is sound but I seriously doubt you are getting 71.5 grains from that measure at each loading.