[jwr_747]

been shooting BP pistols bunches of years,have read and still read all I can,one thing I have never had a good grip on is BP measurement.I know it's by volume.how does one relate volume to say 25gr of FFFG? to me 25grs. is a weight,something I can check and see.if I'm told to pile up 25grs. of BP by volume ,I have no idea where to start.if told to pile up 25grs.by weight,I can do that.I'm pretty sure X amount of BP by volume is equal to X amount by weight.just don't know where that is. jwr

[pohill]

This might help.
http://hunting.about.com/od/reloadinfo/qt/qtmeasurepowder.htm

[oneiron]

Look for Corn Meal by Oneiron on March 10th. There is a discussion about this very subject.

[Im283]

bp is by volume, not weight.

[dgray64]

That was interesting....but. Why is it that I can weigh out 20 gr or 25 gr on my powder scale and fill , say a .40 S&W casing with .20 gr and a .45 auto casing with .25 gr? I recently bought a couple of measures from "the possibles shop", a 20 and a 25 grain volume measure. I promptly filled each, and poured them into my .40 S&W casing and .45 auto casing, respectfully. The amount of powder was the same as what I had measured, so I weighed each and ... you guessed it, came up with the proper grains of weight.

I know that Pyrodex must be measured by a volume measure, but I can't find where BP has to be. The powder dispensors used to be made for BP and could be used as long as they were made of brass and non ferris metals. Sorry to be windy, but these were my findings.

Dave

[Bad Flynch]

O.K., I'll go through this one more time.

Black Powder is measured by volume in Water Grains Equivalent. BP is officially not measured by weight. However, many people weigh charges and because of the nature of BP, that works, too.

What one does is to weigh out, say, 60 grains of water. To get 60 grains, by water volume of powder, one then measures an amount of powder equal to the volume of the 60 grains of water.

That eliminates density considerations from the equation. In addition, if one finds himself in a gunfight or war, it eliminates the problems associated with weighing out powder charges on the battlefield--and extremely unhandy operation.

The best thing that I can think of is to adopt one method or the other and religiously stick with it--all the way through. And this might be different if your primary empasis is on muzzle loaders, rather than cartridge arms.