Smokeless powder in an in-line muzzleloader

[Dragonflydf]

Here is the reason we ask this question: The old black powder metallic cartridges of the early days, for example the 45-70... They started out as a black powder round did they not?? If that's is the case, somewhere along the line it was converted to smokeless successfully. There are quite a few metallic rifle cartridges out there that started life sending rounds downrange with black powder that are now running smokeless...

Somewhat successfully, a number of Trapdoors have been blown to scrap by using off the shelf 45-70 rounds that are intended for new build guns. When I started shooting my Trapdoor, the first box of ammo was smokeless and I had to do some research to make sure it was safe for ALL guns.
There is a reason a 45-70 case is as large as it is, it wants to filled with black powder.

Here is a example, Buffalo Bore has a 45-70 load, with this note
.45-70 Magnum: For use in Browning 1885 and 1886, Marlin 1895 made since 1972, New England Arms Handi-Rifle, T/C Encore, any Winchester 1896 made since 1900 and any falling block rifle made since 1900. Do not use in trap door action of any make.

 

[James K]

Those Buffalo Bore loads are considerably hotter than the COTS .45-70 that the major companies have loaded with smokeless powder for decades and which have not blown up solid trapdoors. The problem is not "smokeless powder". It is the fact that some folks like to stuff any cartridge with any amount of any powder that some goofy guru tells them will make a hot load, so we can expect old guns to be blown up. BB may put a note on their boxes, and it might even be read, but eventually those rounds will become separated from the box and another old time gun will bite the dust.

Jim

 

[B.L.E.]

The wrong powder charge will blow up a modern gun.

One big difference between muzzle loaders and cartridge guns is the way the powder is ignited. Black powder simply asks to be set on fire, most muzzle loaders have ignition systems that only do that. Even the ones that use 209 shotgun primers have long and narrow flash channels that take the flame to the powder.
Cartridges have powerful primers with large and short flash channels. Smokeless powder does not simply want to be set on fire, the primer's other job is to establish the initial chamber pressures needed to get smokeless powder into its efficient burning mode.
This is why you don't want to use smokeless in a muzzle loader, no matter how strongly it is built. If you simply set the charge on fire, you get a blooper. If you compensate with more powder, you get something that begins as a blooper and then detonates as the pressure rises.
I'm pretty sure that that Savage, in addition to being strongly built, also has a large and short flash channel allowing the primer to kick the powder off like it's supposed to be.

In the United Kingdom, where cartridge revolvers are difficult to own, there is a company that converts modern revolvers to cap-and-ball using specified charges of smokeless powder. The cylinders use 209 shotgun primers instead of percussion caps on a nipple.

 

[reynolds357]

There are all kinds of ignition systems available for the Savage. 209 is the most popular. Many people use large rifle primers. Some use large pistol primers. I use 209's but the people I know who have turned their Savages into true tack drivers use large rifle.

 

[NoSecondBest]

Savage does not have a large and short "flash channel". The removable breech plug is quite long and the vent liner that sits under the powder is under .0035". In fact, it's reccommended to replace it when it gets to 35thous. I can't believe how many undegreed ballistic engineers we have on here. By the time we get to the end of this thread we'll have posted at least a dozen reasons as to why it happened and none of them will agree with each other. The only thing that seems certain so far is that it's a very bad idea to put smokeless powder in a gun designed for black powder only.

 

[barnetmill]

As mentioned previously early smokeless powders were fired in black powder cartridge guns by adjusting to powder charge to give safe pressures. If one knew how much of a specific powder perhaps it could fire in a muzzle loader, especially those with modern made barrels. I will not try it for sure. If one takes uses a measure for 100 grains of black and say puts in an equivalent volume of 2400 powder I can see the gun going kaboom. Perhaps if a slower powder was used it might be different. Black powder and its substitutes are readily purchased at WalMarts and so there is little reason to experiment.

 

[RIDE-RED 350r]

^^^I agree^^^

And thats exactly what I am talking about...

For me this is purely for sake of interesting conversation with no intention of experimenting.

I say it can be done in a safe, scientific, methodical way... And in a controlled environment... It just seems that with the literally over 100 different types of smokeless powders it can be safely done... How many types of smokeless back in the early days of the transition from black to smokeless??? I wouldn't expect there was more than a half dozen... if even that

 

[reynolds357]

As good as blackhorn 209 is, I really fail to see why anyone would want to use "smokeless."

 

[Magnum Wheel Man]

one glaring difference I see between using an equivalent smokeless charge...

right now I'm shooting smokeless in cartridge converted 51 Navies... in 38 Long Colt cases...

charges that have been determined "safe" are 2.5 to 3 grains of the powders I'm using... on W-231 for example, I'm using about 1/5 of the available case capacity... that means 4/5 of the available case capacity is filled with air... air compresses & buffers the pressures... if I were loading black powder in those cases, I'd be filling them full, & compressing a bullet on top of the black powder... if for example, I used that same charge, in the original navy cylinder, & seated the ball tight up against the powder... my "equivalent" powder charge may blow up the cylinder, as there is no expansion "air" between the bullet & the breech, like there was in the cartridge case...

same things hold true for the 45-70, if you want to put this back to the rifle... so... calculating how much powder ( or what kinds of smokeless ) to use is more complex than just picking 35 grains of 3031 instead of 65 grains of black powder, ( 65 grains used because I'm assuming you're not using balloon head cases as was the original 70 grain load ) not the same, because of the air space in the cartridge case verse seating the bullet tightly against the powder as is done with black powder in a muzzle loader...

 

[James K]

How many folks recall "Bulk Smokeless" powder? It was white, looked a bit like soap powder, and was made to be loaded to the same "bulk" (volume) as black powder. That way the old ML shotgun and rifle measures could be used and the guns shot cleaner than with black powder. It could also be used in loading shotshells, I never saw it used in a revolver or in reloading rifle cartridges, but don't know why it couldn't have been. It probably has not been made for a century or so.

Jim

 

[Jim Watson]

As best I can glean from Sharpe, there never were many bulk smokeless rifle powders and DuPont Scheutzen seems to have been the last, discontinued in 1926.
DuPont Bulk Shotgun powder held on until 1948, last of its breed.

Some of the early dense smokeless shotgun powders were identified by the grains weight it took to produce a 3 dram equivalent 12 gauge load. Schultze Powder Co. made a 42 grain powder to start and others more energetic later. Greener wrote about 33 grain powders.
The fast smokeless used in trap loads would be about 17-20 grain powders by that standard.

 

[B.L.E.]

Can't we consider Blackhorn 209 as a modern "bulk smokeless" powder?

Examining the powder, it seems as if the hollow tube form of the powder acts like a built in airspace.

 

[reynolds357]

That is how it looks.
It is clean, accurate, and makes inlines capable of handling "magnum charges" scream.

 

[B.L.E.]

Another big difference between cartridge guns and muzzle loaders is that in addition to providing the powerful primer charge smokeless powder needs for proper ignition, the bullet is also held in by a tightly fitting case mouth and even a crimp, to hold the bullet back until a minimum pressure is developed in the case.

Black powder behaves very well in low pressure loads, smokeless powder does not. Black powder works very well when simply lit on fire by a spark from a flint and behind a bullet that's not crimped into a case mouth, smokeless does not.

The makers of BH209 warn against using "muzzleloading" 209 primers and against using bullets that fit loosely in the bore along with breech plugs that don't seal the flash of the primer.

 

[44 AMP]

Ah, the old DuPoint PB..although I always thought it looked more like oatmeal/cream of wheat than soap.

My Grandfather loaded his 12 ga shells with it up through the 40s...

Neat stuff, which I felt should be considered "semi-smokeless". It does smoke less than black powder (and without the fouling) but it smokes more than "regular" smokeless powder does today. One of the neatest things about firing some of Papa's old shells in his old Ithaca, you could then open the gun, extract the empties, and look at a line of smoke just hanging down the middle of each barrel.

I would expect modern in-line muzzleloaders to be made of modern gun steel, and theoretically there would be a safe smokeless powder load for any of them, BUT, there's no telling what that would be, IF the gun was made of steel to handle it. If the maker doesn't have data on that, there is probably a good reason!

The old guns were made of steels that range from alloys close to modern gun steel to "steel" with just enough alloy to technically not be iron. Strong enough for black powder but nothing else.

I would like to point out that while we don't see blow ups in the old guns from firing "safe black powder pressure" smokeless loads, we do see a steady (if small) loss of the old guns due to cracked frames/recievers, etc., even when only using the "safe" smokeless loads.

This may simply be due to the age of the guns and they are finally giving up the ghost, but many think differently. Enthusiasts of these old guns, including some nationally recognized writers have remarked on how they have seen failures shooting the "safe" smokeless loads and identical guns firing only black powder loads continue to survive normally.

The theory seems to be that while the total pressure is the same limits as black powder, smokeless delivers that pressure differently, and over a different time frame, which puts a different kind of stress on the steel. Many of them believe it is very unwise to shoot any smokeless load in pre-1890s guns. They feel that even the "safe pressure" smokeless loads pose an unacceptable risk to the old guns.

If you just pour smokeless powder into your muzzleloader, you are an accident waiting to happen, and it will very likely happen VERY shortly after pulling the trigger!!!!

I once saw where a fellow fueled his deuce and a half with jet fuel. The truck's engine ran "like gangbusters" for about 30 seconds, then the flywheel came up through the cab, and killed the driver.

Smokeless in your muzzleloader? Not an identical situation, but there are some important similarities.

I wouldn't do it.

 

[B.L.E.]

The main point I am trying to make is that there is more than strength of the design behind incompatibility with smokeless.
If it was only a strength issue, then you could load up a Ruger Old Army with Unique and blast away. It essentially is a modern .45 caliber Ruger revolver retro-designed for black powder use.
But you are still trying to ignite that smokeless with #11 percussion caps through a unsealed nipple that has a tiny flash hole. Most of the time, you'll likely get a complete misfire, smokeless is not easy to ignite. If you do ignite it, you will likely get a blooper which if you don't know better, will make you think the load is way too light. So you put a dangerous overload in there and this time, the powder manages to burn into its fast burn pressure and you have a blown up gun.

 

[darkgael]

Fuel

I once saw where a fellow fueled his deuce and a half with jet fuel. The truck's engine ran "like gangbusters" for about 30 seconds, then the flywheel came up through the cab, and killed the driver.

I can see the temptation. Why not?
The deuce runs on diesel normally .....#2 fuel oil
Jet fuel is highly refined kerosene .... Kero is #1 fuel oil and can normally be substituted for diesel (so I am told). I wonder what he really put in to the tank.
I guess, though, it could have been JP4...which contains gasoline and would probably upset a Diesel engine.
Just like using a single base smokeless powder - which contains nitroglycerine - in a BP firearm.

 

[reynolds357]

Jet fuel can be run in diesel engines. Its cetane level is near identical, jet is just much cleaner than diesel. Jet fuel that fails inspection is sold as diesel.

 

[B.L.E.]

Just like using a single base smokeless powder - which contains nitroglycerine

Single base smokeless powders only contain nitrocellulose, double base smokeless powders contain nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin.

 

[Cheapshooter]

Simply another form of negligent discharge! This time by the shooter not knowing what they were doing, and obviously not bothering to take the time to find out!