[missuramoss]

I was readin on another forum while ago (FirearmsTALK), where one poster said that he will mix ffg and fffg in his .44 Remmie now and then, to use up old powder.

Now, never having tried this, I cant be judgemental on it, but I've allways been led to believe that in no circumstances should any powder ever be mixed together when loading, (And I know, NEVER smokeless). Have any of you ever did this before?

[PT1911]

I have NO CLUE as to anything black powder...BUT... working off the assumption that tripple f is more potent than double f, I would see no issue with such a thing if the same size charge of triple f (or most potent) charge was accepted.

that said, I dont recommend it and only work off of the assumption that one charge does not compliment the other or potentiate it in any way.

I can imagine the burn speed may be compromised which would be another thing to think about.

[BHP FAN]

I think accuracy would suffer due to inconsistent velocity's,chamber to chamber from a random mix,but we are not dealing with high pressure here.It will go bang,not ''bloowey''.

[mykeal]

There is no difference in 'potency' between 2fg and 3fg black powders; there is a difference in granule size and thus burn rate (more surface area for contact with oxygen atoms), and then in turn maximum pressure. It is a small difference. There is no difference in how much energy is released, or generated, just the rate at which that happens. Mixing 2fg and 3fg is essentially the same as having a few 3fg granules get left behind with the 2fg granules in the screening process. Kind of a quality thing.

BHP is right; one could certainly have problems with consistency if the amount of one powder mixed with the other was not carefully controlled from chamber to chamber, and that could in turn show up as an inability to hold a group size (aka reduction in accuracy).

[madcratebuilder]

Not something you would want to do if shooting in competition, but for just plinking and burning up some old powder, no problem.

[messerist]

Ooops! I've been doing that for years!!:o

[missuramoss]

Appreciate the replies guys...So, if you were to load, say a 30 gr. charge in yer chamber, and loaded 15 gr. of 2f, and 15 gr. of 3f...ya think maybe accuracy would still be affected?

[BHP FAN]

I do.Maybe not a 15 yards, but at 25, and more at 50... I think it would create ''fliers''. I also think if you mixed it you would mitigate the problem somewhat.

[mykeal]

If you ALWAYS loaded 15 gr of 2f, then 15 gr of 3f, or ALWAYS loaded a homogeneous mixture of 2f and 2f, then no, accuracy would not be affected. If, however, you shot one cylinder with each chamber loaded with 15 gr of 2f and then 15 gr of 3f, then a cylinder loaded with, say 20 gr of 3f adn then 10 gr of 2f, yes, accuracy would be affected. The magic word is
CONSISTENCY

[BHP FAN]

CONSISTENCY ..yeah,that's the secret to accuracy,right there.Even more than ''aim small, miss small...''
we strive for it in reloading,and in every aspect of shooting ...and repeatability is the key.

[missuramoss]

mykeal....Thats what I meant...load all the chambers with a consistant load of eqaul parts of 2f and 3f....not one chamber loaded with , say, 1o gr. of one and 20 gr. of the other, then another chamber loaded with 8 gr. of 3f and 22 gr. of 2f.....I said EQUAl parts of each......Appreciate yer replies.

[higene]

I have loaded 20 gr GOEX ff under 70 GR 777 fff in my GPR flintlock. Ignition, power and consistency are all good. I infer from this exercise that a similar results would be possible with a revolver if you did all cylinders with the same load and process. I have no opinion on mixing the powder.

Higene

:scrutiny:

[Hellgate]

I used to load the shotgun with 3F and 1F to create extra sparks for night shoots. No problem