Welcome back!

[jon_norstog]

My younger brother and my son-in-law have been on a tear for the muzzle loader elk hunt in Idaho. It's a five-day season in early December. Son-in-law has lost at least three elk 'cause his gun did not go off. Paul, my brother, has had similar difficulties ... they have been using fake black powder like 777 and Pyrodex, etc. I told them there was nothing like the real thing!

Paul grudgingly bought a can of Swiss BP and took it out to his shooting place. He got really tight strings with his .54 at 90 yards and 110 gr. He bumped it up to 120 gr. and got a 3" vertical string with less than 2'horizontal spread. he says, based on recoil, the loads are at least as strong as the 777 loads he was using before. PLUS they all went off. My son-in-law could use that, for sure.


jn

[bruce]

Like a wonderful song once said, "Ain't nothing like the real thing!" Seriously, is there any reason to suppose that failure to fire w/ 777/Pyrodex is due to some error of loading or problems with moisture/weather. Blackpowder is easily ignited, but do reports from field usage indicate any difficulties igniting the other propellants?

Hope they do well on their elk hunt. The .54 loaded right is a superior hunting caliber! Stick one of those bullets into a game animal where it will get in and out the other side ... tends to produce good results. Heavy enough slug will penetrate well and break bone. Fine caliber for hunting just about anything. If they find game and if they load their rifles right, they will very likely finish the day with a heavy meat pole. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

[jon_norstog]

Here's a picture of a five-shot target Paul sent me. He shot it at about 90 yards at his shooting place. He takes a knee - no bench in the woods - and has a 1X scope. (IF&G allows a one-power scope on a muzzle loader, for hunters who can document vision problems).

His accuracy is way better with the BP as opposed to the "other stuff." Paul was having a lot of trouble getting that other stuff to light up, he switched nipples and uses musket caps now. With the musket caps he was still getting a few misfires, especially when there was snow on the ground.


43040

jn

[p246]

I was using pyrodex in my trapdoor to hunt with. I found it to be temperature sensitive and had significant zero changes in really cold weather (shot a foot low at 100 yards at 20degrees). A change to Goex black powder solved the problem.

[jon_norstog]

I used Goex in my trapdoor and rolling block, both 45-70s. A casefull (70gr) behind a 385 gr bullet would chrono out right at 1100 fps from the roller with its 24" barrel. I switched over to Swiss and got the velocity up to spec. Goex at least lights up and is consistent - I had like a 20 fps spread over 5 shots from the roller. The Swiss stuff I can't give a chrono figure 'cause we shot the chrony, but it kicks a lot harder and SEEM stronger.

And like you, I found Pyrodex was shooting all over the place in hunting weather.
jn