Black Powder Substitutes for Dummies, Page 2

Black Powder Substitutes for Dummies,

page 2

Pistol/Pistol Caliber Rifle Reloading

These instructions use a Dillon XL650. Feel free to modify for your machine. It will load 500-1,000 rounds of smokeless powder an hour and is very reliable. The number of BP sub rounds it will load depends on several things, and we'll get to that. First, for the big calibers, take out the pistol charge bar and put in a rifle charge bar unless you're loading less than 20 gr. A full charge on a .45 Colt is 34± (depending on bullet used) grains by volume. 30 gr./weight of APP FFg or Pinnacle FFg are 34 gr. volume, for example.

American Pioneer Powder, in FFg form, is a collection of various sized and shaped miniature rocks, and it does not meter as well. Pinnacle is a bit better. Neither meters very well in FFg. They meter belter in FFFg. Only FFg can be used in cartridges of 777, and it meters very well. People will tell you it is impossible to get consistent rounds from APP FFg. However, I've managed to use FFg APP for several years, so it can be done. One secret is:

The XL650 has a station for a powder check. A plunger will determine low or high powder. I recommend its use with FFg especially. Those odd sized little "chunks" of APP are inconsistent. Sometimes you'll get a charge that's high. Sometimes it's low. Those cases should be removed, weighed, and adjusted, then put back in the loader. The powder check is a lifesaver when you get empty cases at the powder check station.

Properly adjusted for the charge, the powder check will look like this when you have a properly charged case. If the plunger touches high or low a buzzer buzzes, and you stop what you're doing and check that case. Weigh that charge if in doubt.

The cases must be dry. APP will stick to case lube and block the opening from the powder measure and result in no powder in the case at all. If you load the bottleneck cases, .44-40, 38-40, and .32-20, you may need to run them through the resizing die lubed, then tumble them to remove the lube, then run them through the loader again. You do this run sans the resizing/decapping die. (With a 650, get an extra tool head. Put the resizing/decapping die on one tool head, the other dies on the other.) Normally I lubricate .45 Colt and .45 Schofield cases to minimize reloader's elbow, but I can't for American Pioneer Powder. If you've been loading smokeless and lubricating, clean the dies of lube before switching to American Pioneer Powder. Lately I've been experimenting with different case lubes and settled on Frankford Arsenal case lube from Midway. I've had no problems using a light spray and allowing it to dry, and my elbow feels much better. When you finish loading for the night, empty the powder measure back into the original powder container and seal the container. Blow the measure out with compressed air or otherwise make sure it's empty. Clean off the reloading press of excess powder. Fired American Pioneer Powder is non-corrosive, but unfired American Pioneer Powder is at least hygroscopic. Assume that Pinnacle and 777 are at least mildly hygroscopic.

Circle Fly makes half inch thick fiber wads. Inserting them at station 4, then seating the bullet on the wad, is fairly easy, but it will double or triple the loading time unless you're doing something I never managed.

I built a simple wad jig out of 1/4" and 1/2" plywood. The distance between the two pieces of 1/4" ply is the length of the finished wad. The hole is the diameter of the wad, in this case, 1/2", drilled with a Forstner bit for a clean edge. Completed wads can be flicked into the box below. The blue thing on the left is a clamp holding the jig to the workbench.

Using a #1 X-acto knife with a fresh #11 blade, the wad is cut

The jig gives consistent lengths and straight cuts. It takes about an hour to cut up a 25' roll.

Closeup of the cutting. What's wrong with this picture? If you say, "nothing," you're left-handed. I'm left handed. (That means build it backwards if you're right handed.)

Now we're seating the bullet correctly. The powder is compressed as it would be with a full charge. It will work consistently with this filler. With APP and 777 prohibiting fillers and wads, these instructions apply to Pinnacle but work with all.

Using Wonder Wads as fillers is expensive. Additionally, the lubricants in the wads have been known to contaminate the powder in storage. Hodgdon does recommend them for 777, but only one wad per round.

Pistol/Pistol Caliber Rifle Reloading
These instructions use a Dillon XL650. Feel free to modify for your machine. It will load 500-1,000 rounds of smokeless powder an hour and is very reliable. The number of BP sub rounds it will load depends on several things, and we'll get to that. First, for the big calibers, take out the pistol charge bar and put in a rifle charge bar unless you're loading less than 20 gr. A full charge on a .45 Colt is 34± (depending on bullet used) grains by volume. 30 gr./weight of APP FFg or Pinnacle FFg are 34 gr. volume, for example.
FFg
American Pioneer Powder, in FFg form, is a collection of various sized and shaped miniature rocks, and it does not meter as well. Pinnacle is a bit better. Neither meters very well in FFg. They meter belter in FFFg. Only FFg can be used in cartridges of 777, and it meters very well. People will tell you it is impossible to get consistent rounds from APP FFg. However, I've managed to use FFg APP for several years, so it can be done. One secret is:
Powder Check Die
	The XL650 has a station for a powder check. A plunger will determine low or high powder. I recommend its use with FFg especially. Those odd sized little "chunks" of APP are inconsistent. Sometimes you'll get a charge that's high. Sometimes it's low. Those cases should be removed, weighed, and adjusted, then put back in the loader. The powder check is a lifesaver when you get empty cases at the powder check station.
	Properly adjusted for the charge, the powder check will look like this when you have a properly charged case. If the plunger touches high or low a buzzer buzzes, and you stop what you're doing and check that case. Weigh that charge if in doubt.
The cases must be dry. APP will stick to case lube and block the opening from the powder measure and result in no powder in the case at all. If you load the bottleneck cases, .44-40, 38-40, and .32-20, you may need to run them through the resizing die lubed, then tumble them to remove the lube, then run them through the loader again. You do this run sans the resizing/decapping die. (With a 650, get an extra tool head. Put the resizing/decapping die on one tool head, the other dies on the other.) Normally I lubricate .45 Colt and .45 Schofield cases to minimize reloader's elbow, but I can't for American Pioneer Powder. If you've been loading smokeless and lubricating, clean the dies of lube before switching to American Pioneer Powder. Lately I've been experimenting with different case lubes and settled on Frankford Arsenal case lube from Midway. I've had no problems using a light spray and allowing it to dry, and my elbow feels much better. When you finish loading for the night, empty the powder measure back into the original powder container and seal the container. Blow the measure out with compressed air or otherwise make sure it's empty. Clean off the reloading press of excess powder. Fired American Pioneer Powder is non-corrosive, but unfired American Pioneer Powder is at least hygroscopic. Assume that Pinnacle and 777 are at least mildly hygroscopic.
Dillon Note:
You can load .45 Schofield (correctly called .45 S & W, but both Starline and Black Hills call theirs .45 Schofield) cases in .45 Colt dies by just readjusting everything. I use a separate tool head and set of dies for the Schofield cases to eliminate the adjusting. The rims are bigger. Other, more resourceful loaders than I, have told me they use .44-40 shellplate. I haven't tried it, but only because I stopped shooting Schofield ammo. All .45 cases should get a strong roll crimp in all cases, smokeless or smoky. I use Dillon dies.
Primers
Unlike black powder and Pyrodex, magnum primers are not needed for the substitutes. (For that matter, I don't personally think they're needed for Goex Cowboy. I load it pretty much like I do the subs but substitute BP lubed bullets.) My normal primers have been Winchester LP for .45 Colt, and these are marked "For regular and magnum ammunition," but I've also used Federal 150s, and they are not a magnum primer. For .45 Colt just use regular primers. Magnum primers will result in increased pressure. For what it's worth, I use Winchester, having had 2 primer tube explosions using Federals. Dillon recommends against Federal and CCI primers. Black Dawge, now Goex factory ammo uses Federal non-magnum primers, 100 for small, 150 for large pistol, for use with Goex Cowboy. Magnum primers are not necessary for Cowboy, so if you do both subs and Cowboy you can use the same primer.
Lubricant
American Pioneer Powder, Pinnacle, and 777 make their own lubricant, so you do not need to use SPG or another special black powder lubricant with them. I've been using standard commercially available bullets with some sort of blue smokeless lubricant with no problems. Using any of the 3 and commercially lubed bullets I can go 6 stages without cleaning. This is normally a day's shooting at a match. If you make your own, try them with no lubricant at all. American Pioneer Powder , Goex, and Hogdon recommend it. For those who don't believe a propellant can make its own lube, a mention of what lube does in a black powder bullet is appropriate: It keeps the fouling soft. The residue from these propellants is soft and wet, so it qualifies as lube.
Compression
If you're doing a full charge, put in enough American Pioneer Powder, 777 or Pinnacle to just touch the bullet with little or no compression. Pressures build very quickly with compression of 777, less so with the others. I've found 1/16"-1/10" works fine with American Pioneer Powder and Pinnacle.
Reduced Charges
When I started doing this, the Clean Shot people, predecessors of American Pioneer Powder, did not have a prohibition against using wads or fillers, so I did quite successfully using the methods described below (basically standard practices in the BP world). Now they have a prohibition against it in their website. 777 has always had very restrictive loading instructions. Goex Pinnacle has none (at the time of writing). Thus the reduced charges instructions apply only to Pinnacle.
What happens if you don't fill the air space between powder and bullet?
Does the firearm blow up and remove your hand? No. The space is too small for the blowup phenomenon that's occurred with big front stuffing rifles from long air spaces. You get inconsistent loads. One will be puff, the next BANG. Accuracy suffers. APP and Pinnacle get really inconsistent. 777 seems least affected.
Methods of filling the air space with reduced charges:
1. Thick wads
	Circle Fly makes half inch thick fiber wads. Inserting them at station 4, then seating the bullet on the wad, is fairly easy, but it will double or triple the loading time unless you're doing something I never managed.
2. Caulk Backer Rod
For .45 caliber cases I use 1/2" diameter Caulk Backer Rod, found at a hardware store. It's a long foam rod, found where you find weather stripping. I built a jig so I could cut it into the correct lengths with an X-Acto knife. Get a box of 100 blades with the knife. A dull blade will tear the foam. At the bullet seating stage insert the pre-cut rod until it is below the top lip of the case and insert the bullet as normal, compressing the rod a lot and thus the powder slightly. This gives consistent loads with reduced charges. For .44 sized cases, use 3/8" Caulk Backer Rod.

I built a simple wad jig out of 1/4" and 1/2" plywood. The distance between the two pieces of 1/4" ply is the length of the finished wad. The hole is the diameter of the wad, in this case, 1/2", drilled with a Forstner bit for a clean edge. Completed wads can be flicked into the box below. The blue thing on the left is a clamp holding the jig to the workbench.

Using a #1 X-acto knife with a fresh #11 blade, the wad is cut

The jig gives consistent lengths and straight cuts. It takes about an hour to cut up a 25' roll.

Closeup of the cutting. What's wrong with this picture? If you say, "nothing," you're left-handed. I'm left handed. (That means build it backwards if you're right handed.)
	No, we're not making blanks here. We're using filler of 1/2" Caulk Backer Rod to fill the case and provide compression for a lighter than full charge of powder. At this point we've inserted the pre-cut section of Caulk Backer Rod.
	Now we're tamping it down with the bullet, used backwards. Don't leave it like that.
	Now we're seating the bullet correctly. The powder is compressed as it would be with a full charge. It will work consistently with this filler. With APP and 777 prohibiting fillers and wads, these instructions apply to Pinnacle but work with all.
	When done for the night, remove the powder measure, and pour the left-over powder back into its original container and seal it. (American Pioneer Powder shown above). Clean up around the loader to remove any spilled powder. Don't leave any rounds in the machine to prevent moisture contamination of half-completed rounds.
Wonder Wads
	Using Wonder Wads as fillers is expensive. Additionally, the lubricants in the wads have been known to contaminate the powder in storage. Hodgdon does recommend them for 777, but only one wad per round.

Please go to Page 3