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Rolly Offline OP
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Stay calm. I haven't tried this and I don't intend to. All the experts say that it is dangerous and will blow things up. Why is that anyway? Is the steel in black powder guns that soft? Is it the breaching system that isn't sound? Perhaps the nipple arrangment and possiblity of escaping gas? The barels usually seem to have as much if not more steel in 'em than do smokelss rifles. So what is the real reason we shouldn't load smokeless powder in black powder rifles. Please forgive me for posting this here if you think it should be better posted elsewhere, but our estemed friend Ken Howell is about the most knowledgeable guy I can think of when it comes to these topics and I knew he would have the answer. Go for it Ken, please.


Rolly
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Black-powder cartridges tend to be straight or nearly straight cases with large capacities and large-diameter bullets. This poses quite a dilemma for smokeless powders.
<br>
<br>On the one hand, the large bore bleeds pressure away fast, so it appears that a fast-burning [smokeless] powder would be the best choice in terms of the interior ballistics of the cartridge.
<br>
<br>On the other hand, the powder charge should be voluminous enough to fill or very nearly fill the large case. A caseful -- or nearly a caseful -- of fast-burning smokeless powder would be a drastic, severe overload.
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<br>The relative quickness (erroneously called "burning rate," which is something else) of a smokeless powder varies with the pressures that powder is allowed or forced to produce when it burns inside a chambered cartridge. The larger the case's capacity and the powder charge, and the smaller its bore, the faster it burns.
<br>
<br>Put another way -- as the burning of a smokeless powder builds pressure, that increasing pressure burns the powder faster. Low pressure, slow burning -- high pressure, fast burning -- higher pressure, faster burning -- same powder, different "burning rates" at different pressure levels.
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<br>Either way you load smokeless powder into a typical black-powder case, there's a problem -- a caseful of slower powder won't burn well, because the bullet begins to move too soon and moves too fast to allow the pressure to climb fast enough to burn the slower powder efficiently. IOW, the large bore doesn't allow the slower powder to develop enough pressure to develop its full potential. Its sound may seem like an explosive BANG! to the ears, but in terms of its interior and exterior ballistics, it's just a loud chemical belch.
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<br>A caseful of faster powder builds too much pressure too fast for the gun to stay together, and significantly less than a caseful leaves too much unfilled space in the case for the fast powder to burn consistently enough to make a good load.
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<br>And the black-powder guns are usually too soft to bear the forces and pressures that develop so fast with smokeless powders that are fast enough to work in large-capacity, large-bore cartridges.
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<br>Since no one is going to be satisfied with the very low velocities from a caseful of slow smokeless, the smokeless powder therefore almost certain to be used is a fast powder. A charge small enough to be safe doesn't fill much of the case, so its pressures are sure to be erratic (depending heavily on where the powder is when the primer flame ignites it -- back next to the primer vent? forward against the base of the bullet? in a shallow layer along the bottom side of the case?). A charge of fast smokeless large enough to produce a decent velocity when it ignites back against the web can be 'way too hot when it ignites up against the base of the bullet.
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<br>Inert fillers (kapok, poly fiber) and wads sometimes ameliorate the problem but don't solve it, and sometimes they even increase it enough to be dangerous in their own right.
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<br>A completely cylindrical case allows the bullet to be seated deep enough to reduce the net capacity enough to match the net powder space to the fast smokeless powder, but this seating usually makes the bullet completely disappear down into the case -- far from the throat and esthetically unacceptable to most shooters even if it works well.
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<br>A safe load of smokeless powder in a large-capacity, large-bore black-powder cartridge is a delicate balance at best. So even the "experts" who understand the intricacy of all this prefer to give only the easy warning ("Don't do it") rather than the involved explanation -- which they know that a large number if not the majority of handloaders won't bother with anyway.


"Good enough" isn't.

Always take your responsibilities seriously but never yourself.



















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Rereading your post, I see that I missed something on the first reading -- allusion to muzzle-loaders ("halitosis guns," I call 'em, for their muzzle odors).
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<br>Old muzzle-loader barrels were usually (I think always) iron, not steel.
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<br>Many modern muzzle-loader barrels have turned-out to be rolled tubing, not drilled rods or bars. The makers obviously assumed that they'd never be loaded to the higher pressures that smokeless powders develop.
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<br>Neither type can take much pressure.
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<br>Also, the muzzle-loader breech, even on a modern in-line halitosis gun, doesn't provide as good a gas seal as a brass cartridge case provides (another stringent limit on the level of pressure that's safe in that kind of breech).


"Good enough" isn't.

Always take your responsibilities seriously but never yourself.



















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Rolly, Ken eloquently has given you all the technical reasons why not to do this. I'll give you the layman's terms.
<br>
<br>When I was about 10 yrs old, A friend of mine and myself acquired an old smooth bore musket. I can't remember how we got it, but probably not by proper means. As this friend was about as close to Retch Sweeny in Pat MacManus stories as you can get.
<br>
<br>We found an old sinker mold that we cast bullets with by cutting off the eye of the lead sinker and using newspaper wadding. Then we stoled shotgun shells from our fathers gun closest and took them apart to get the powder.
<br>Shooting the shot wasn't very exciting, but those 1/2 inch sinkers sure put holes in everything we could find to shoot at.
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<br>We did this all one summer, luckily not getting killed or caught.
<br> Towards when school was getting started, another friend heard about our exploits and begged us to shoot it.
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<br>We finally relented and figured that if one shotgun shell worth of powder was a hoot, just think of what two would do.
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<br>We were obviously not ballisticians nor did we know the difference between black powder and smokeless.
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<br>On that night, we dunped two shotgun loads down the barrel, paper wadding and all the shot from both casings. We figured we should use the shot, cause we were close to buildings and it would be safer.
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<br>The other friend torched it off, lotsa smoke, whole lot of screaming& blood and musket was in two pieces with the barrel peeled back about a foot and breech completely blown open.
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<br>Lucky none of us was killed and all still had our eyes intack. But we were full of shrap metal and shot.
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<br>We got back to one of the houses and the parent took us down to a neighbor who was a dentist. The hospital was an hour away.
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<br>That dentist set each one of us down and dug all the metal out with no pain killer. I was the last and by that time, I was scared SH**less.
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<br>We all healed, but there was more ahead for us. Back then it was not called child abuse. I think the term was parental guidance.
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<br>Don't know about the other two. But my dad took me out back. I had to lean forward and grap a post in the barn. He warned me if I let go , I would get double. He laid into me with an old miners equipment belt that was about 3 inches wide and 1/4 inch thick.He explained that the punishment was for obtaining the musket improperly, stealing the shotgun shells and being stupid enough too shoot it. He did not say it hurt him more than it hurt me.
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<br>Damn , that took as much healing as the metal and shot.
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<br>But that was the end of it. There was no such thing as timeouts, counseling, being grounded, etc. My use or access to firearms was not restricted after that, as I still had rats and groundhogs to kill.
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<br>And that is why you do not want to use smokeless powder in a black powder firearm!
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<br>
<br>
<br>


If God wanted you to walk and carry things on your back, He would not have invented stirrups and pack saddles

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