LoneGoose
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DJ, a great written lesson and great photography. Thank you.
Shooting Black Powder in Cartridge Guns
- Thread starter Driftwood Johnson
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Driftwood Johnson
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Howdy Again
I was going to cover cleaning brass when I got around to talking about cleaning the guns, but this is as good a time as any to talk about cleaning brass.
Brass is more susceptible to corrosion from Black Powder fouling than the steel of a firearm is. I will go into how you don't have to clean the guns right away when I get to cleaning, but for now, take my word for it.
In my experience, brass that has been fired with Black Powder will corrode if left untreated for 24 hours. It will get a greasy coating of green verdigris (copper carbonate), if left untreated for 24 hours.
The solution is simple, drop the fired brass into a jug of water. I always add a squirt of dishwasher soap to the water in my rinse jug.
Here is a photo of my jug filled with fired brass after a typical CAS shoot. Notice how the water is cloudy with suspended BP fouling.
Some say to add vinegar to the water, to keep the brass shiny. I do not recommend that. If left in contact with brass for any period of time, the acetic acid in vinegar will leach some of the copper out of the brass, making it brittle. I just use soapy water.
Some guys drag a jug of water around at a match all day, dropping the brass into the jug as soon as they have fired it. That is overkill. The end of the match is plenty of time, no use dragging a jug of water around all day, back at the car at the end of the match is plenty of time.
When I get home I repeatedly rinse the brass until the rinse water runs clear. Notice how cloudy the water is in my photo. Some guys will use terms such as neutralizing the chemicals in the BP fouling. That is incorrect. The name of the game is diluting, not neutralizing. Neutralizing means the pH of the solution is brought to 7, neither acidic or base. That is not the point. The point is rinsing the brass a bunch of times until the fouling on the brass has been dissolved, diluted and washed away. I have a sieve that I use to rinse my brass. In the kitchen sink I dump the brass into the sieve, and pour out the rinse water. Then I dump it back into the jug and fill the jug with fresh water. After four or five rinses, or when the rinse water is clear, the fouling will have all been washed away. Then I set the brass out on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels to air dry.
Once it is bone dry, I run it through my tumbler with Lizzard Litter (a cheap form of walnut shells) no different than Smokeless brass.
I try to rinse the brass soon after the match, the longer it sits in the dirty water the more stained it gets.
I will state one caveat. After firing with Black Powder, and sitting in the jug for a while, the brass will be stained dark by the fouling. As I say all the time on Cowboy forums, shiny brass does not shoot any better than stained brass, it is just easier to find in the grass when ejected from a rifle. If you want shiny, like new brass, you need to add some sort of polishing agent to the tumbler media. That's why guys add vinegar to the rinse water, but I do not recommend that.
Here is a batch of 45 Colt being loaded into brand new, shiny brass.
Here is a mixed batch of 45 Colt and 44-40 brass that has been fired several times, rinsed until the rinse water was clear, then air dried. Some will think it looks terrible, I have no problem with it, it shoots just as good as shiny brass. It will look better after tumbling, sorry I don't have a photo of that.
Here is a batch of 44 Russian being loaded into stained brass that has been fired a bunch of times. If you want shinier brass, add some polish to the tumbling media. I don't care about shiny, this stuff shoots fine out of my antique S&W Top Breaks.
One more thing. Some guys will deprime their brass and clean primer pockets before soaking it. The idea is to remove any build up of fouling in the primer pocket that may interfere with the primer seating properly, possibly resulting in a misfire. I load most of my ammo, both BP and Smokeless, on a progressive press as seen in the photos above. There is no provision on a progressive press for depriming and then removing the brass to clean out primer pockets. If you want to do that, it makes more work. I take my rinsed and dried brass and run it through the press without any primer pocket cleaning. So far so good, in almost ten years of shooting BP cartridges, I have never had a misfire because a primer was not seated properly.
That's pretty much it for cleaning brass that has been fired with Black Powder.
I was going to cover cleaning brass when I got around to talking about cleaning the guns, but this is as good a time as any to talk about cleaning brass.
Brass is more susceptible to corrosion from Black Powder fouling than the steel of a firearm is. I will go into how you don't have to clean the guns right away when I get to cleaning, but for now, take my word for it.
In my experience, brass that has been fired with Black Powder will corrode if left untreated for 24 hours. It will get a greasy coating of green verdigris (copper carbonate), if left untreated for 24 hours.
The solution is simple, drop the fired brass into a jug of water. I always add a squirt of dishwasher soap to the water in my rinse jug.
Here is a photo of my jug filled with fired brass after a typical CAS shoot. Notice how the water is cloudy with suspended BP fouling.
Some say to add vinegar to the water, to keep the brass shiny. I do not recommend that. If left in contact with brass for any period of time, the acetic acid in vinegar will leach some of the copper out of the brass, making it brittle. I just use soapy water.
Some guys drag a jug of water around at a match all day, dropping the brass into the jug as soon as they have fired it. That is overkill. The end of the match is plenty of time, no use dragging a jug of water around all day, back at the car at the end of the match is plenty of time.
When I get home I repeatedly rinse the brass until the rinse water runs clear. Notice how cloudy the water is in my photo. Some guys will use terms such as neutralizing the chemicals in the BP fouling. That is incorrect. The name of the game is diluting, not neutralizing. Neutralizing means the pH of the solution is brought to 7, neither acidic or base. That is not the point. The point is rinsing the brass a bunch of times until the fouling on the brass has been dissolved, diluted and washed away. I have a sieve that I use to rinse my brass. In the kitchen sink I dump the brass into the sieve, and pour out the rinse water. Then I dump it back into the jug and fill the jug with fresh water. After four or five rinses, or when the rinse water is clear, the fouling will have all been washed away. Then I set the brass out on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels to air dry.
Once it is bone dry, I run it through my tumbler with Lizzard Litter (a cheap form of walnut shells) no different than Smokeless brass.
I try to rinse the brass soon after the match, the longer it sits in the dirty water the more stained it gets.
I will state one caveat. After firing with Black Powder, and sitting in the jug for a while, the brass will be stained dark by the fouling. As I say all the time on Cowboy forums, shiny brass does not shoot any better than stained brass, it is just easier to find in the grass when ejected from a rifle. If you want shiny, like new brass, you need to add some sort of polishing agent to the tumbler media. That's why guys add vinegar to the rinse water, but I do not recommend that.
Here is a batch of 45 Colt being loaded into brand new, shiny brass.
Here is a mixed batch of 45 Colt and 44-40 brass that has been fired several times, rinsed until the rinse water was clear, then air dried. Some will think it looks terrible, I have no problem with it, it shoots just as good as shiny brass. It will look better after tumbling, sorry I don't have a photo of that.
Here is a batch of 44 Russian being loaded into stained brass that has been fired a bunch of times. If you want shinier brass, add some polish to the tumbling media. I don't care about shiny, this stuff shoots fine out of my antique S&W Top Breaks.
One more thing. Some guys will deprime their brass and clean primer pockets before soaking it. The idea is to remove any build up of fouling in the primer pocket that may interfere with the primer seating properly, possibly resulting in a misfire. I load most of my ammo, both BP and Smokeless, on a progressive press as seen in the photos above. There is no provision on a progressive press for depriming and then removing the brass to clean out primer pockets. If you want to do that, it makes more work. I take my rinsed and dried brass and run it through the press without any primer pocket cleaning. So far so good, in almost ten years of shooting BP cartridges, I have never had a misfire because a primer was not seated properly.
That's pretty much it for cleaning brass that has been fired with Black Powder.
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Great stuff!!!
I note in the picture of your powder measures you have 1.9cc for 45 Schofield (28.5gr Schuetzen FFg per the chart) would you mind sharing what powder charges you use, to get the ‘magical’ 1/16” – 1/8” of compression, for the other calibers you load?
I understand I need to experiment for myself and plan to buy a set of Lee Powder Dippers. Thinking the dippers would greatly help in making more consistent powder charges for loading my C&B revolvers.
I plan to start casting and reloading BP cartridges in the next year (if all goes well) so I greatly appreciate this thread. A co-worker of mine here at the base, is also looking to start loading BP. I will send him a link to this thread.
I note in the picture of your powder measures you have 1.9cc for 45 Schofield (28.5gr Schuetzen FFg per the chart) would you mind sharing what powder charges you use, to get the ‘magical’ 1/16” – 1/8” of compression, for the other calibers you load?
I understand I need to experiment for myself and plan to buy a set of Lee Powder Dippers. Thinking the dippers would greatly help in making more consistent powder charges for loading my C&B revolvers.
I plan to start casting and reloading BP cartridges in the next year (if all goes well) so I greatly appreciate this thread. A co-worker of mine here at the base, is also looking to start loading BP. I will send him a link to this thread.
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Driftwood Johnson
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No, I'm not going to do that. You have all the information you need to figure out the proper powder charge for what ever caliber and bullet you are using. Any information I post would be specific to the bullet I use, and I have no idea what bullet you are going to use.
Don't be nervous, the idea is to get all the air out and compress the powder a little bit. Anywhere between 1/16" - 1/8" is fine. A little bit more compression would not be a problem, those are just the numbers that I like to give out.
I will tell you that when I first loaded up some 38-40 with BP I had a bit of a problem. Theoretically, 44-40 and 38-40 should have the same powder capacity, since 38-40 brass is the same as 44-40 brass, but necked down a bit more. So I used my standard load for 44-40 in may first batch of 38-40 BP ammo. When I got to a match, my rifle jammed the first time I tried to lever a round into the chamber. Turns out the bullets I use for 38-40, (as well as all my other bullets) are dead soft, pure lead. What happened with the 38-40s was as I seated and crimped the bullets, the soft bullets expanded a slight amount because of the amount of pressure that was placed on them when they seated and crimped. So the bullets were slightly too fat and would not chamber in the rifle, jamming it. My fault for not trying them out before a match. So I pulled all those bullets and threw them away, and reloaded with slightly less powder. Then everything was fine. I was still getting compression of the powder, but not so much as to distort the bullets.
All my way of saying, don't load up a bazillion rounds until you try a few out first. You may discover a wrinkle that you had not planned on.
RPRNY
Member
Thoughts on over-compression? Is there such a thing? What is the likely impact of over-compression? BP era balloon head cased 45 Colt ammunition has, on disassembly, been shown to have had quite substantial compression, certainly more than the 1/8" that we now commonly consider a propos. This is perhaps less an issue in revolver rounds where accuracy is unlikely to substantially impacted than in rifle cartridges. One would imagine that substantial compression would slow ignition, perhaps quite a bit, leading to less than complete powder burn, erratic burn, and very wide extremes of velocity spreads.
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Driftwood Johnson
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Howdy
I can tell you that some guys in CAS stuff a full 40 grains into a 45 Colt to duplicate the original loading. Since they are stuffing it into modern solid head cases with less internal capacity than the old balloon head cases, they are compressing it quite a bit more than I do, with roughly 35 grains of FFg in a modern case. I know they get stout recoil. So do I, and I can't see the point of stuffing in that extra 5 grains or so, just to try to duplicate the old loads.
Overcompression? Probably really no such thing. With a modern firearm made of modern steel you are probably not going to be able to stuff in enough powder to blow up the gun. Probably. I don't see the point and I don't intend to try.
Accuracy out of a rifle? I don't own any rifles chambered for 45 Colt, mine are 44-40 and 38-40. (45 Colt was never chambered in rifles until quite recently). With my poor eyesight, 1/16" - 1/8" is all the compression I need for good accuracy. I don't need to stuff in any more. Accuracy at 100+ yards? No idea. I can't see well to try.
I do know that in BPCR circles the most accurate loads are seldom the most powerful loads.
RPRNY
Member
Important point.
44 Dave
Member
Don't forget the brass and leave it in the water for a week, the get quite dark!
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Driftwood Johnson
Member
You ought to see how dark they get when they have been in the water for a few months!
44 Dave
Member
Any thoughts on nickel? I have about 150 but they seem to crack more than the brass.
daboyleroy
Member
Great detailed write up.
What model of the Merwin Hulbert do you have?
Thanks
LoneGoose
Member
Driftwood, This is a truly educational thread. I too think it should be made a sticky so that it won't ever get lost in the shuffle. Also, you can cut & paste this stuff into a great magazine article.
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Driftwood Johnson
Member
I stopped buying nickel plated brass long ago, so I have no experience loading it with Black Powder. Sometimes nickle plated brass will not be plated well, leading to embrittlement of the brass, which can lead to cracking.
I suspect nickel plated brass would be fine for Black Powder, and might not get so stained in the rinse water, but I have no experience with it.
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Driftwood Johnson
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A pair of slightly mismatched, reworked 3d Model Frontier Models. One was originally chambered for 44-40, the other for 44 Russian. Both now have newly made cylinders chambered for 44 Russian.
A Pocket Army 2nd Model, 44-40 caliber.
daboyleroy
Member
Thank you for the pictures
Those are certainly NOT any ugly ducklings.
Very beautiful iron
Those are certainly NOT any ugly ducklings.
Very beautiful iron
Dave Markowitz
Member
What a great thread. I took up loading BP .44-40 WCF last year after buying a Cimarron Firearms (Uberti) 1873 Sporting Rifle.
The bullets I'm using are cast in an Accurate Molds 43-215C mold, with a homemade lube made from beeswax, mutton tallow, and a little paraffin wax.
When loaded over 2.2cc of Swiss 3Fg black powder I got these results from a chronograph:
Average velocity: 1329.4 FPS
Standard deviation: 11.6 FPS
Extreme Spread: 42 FPS
Muzzle energy: 843 foot-pounds
The 43-215Cs have the same nose profile as the original Winchester bullet but carry more lube.
I ordered the 43-215C mold after reading this thread on the CAS City forum. AFAIC, that thread is the Bible for handloading .44-40.
I tried some bullets cast in an original Winchester mold, and they did carry enough lube for my rifle's 24" barrel to give a good lube star, but they were undersized and therefore shot poorly.
BTW, I loaded those rounds in an original Winchester tong tool. It's slow going compared to using a modern press but was neat from a historical point of view. And, I happen to like it for priming because I get a good feel for how the primer is being seated.
The bullets I'm using are cast in an Accurate Molds 43-215C mold, with a homemade lube made from beeswax, mutton tallow, and a little paraffin wax.
When loaded over 2.2cc of Swiss 3Fg black powder I got these results from a chronograph:
Average velocity: 1329.4 FPS
Standard deviation: 11.6 FPS
Extreme Spread: 42 FPS
Muzzle energy: 843 foot-pounds
The 43-215Cs have the same nose profile as the original Winchester bullet but carry more lube.
I ordered the 43-215C mold after reading this thread on the CAS City forum. AFAIC, that thread is the Bible for handloading .44-40.
I tried some bullets cast in an original Winchester mold, and they did carry enough lube for my rifle's 24" barrel to give a good lube star, but they were undersized and therefore shot poorly.
BTW, I loaded those rounds in an original Winchester tong tool. It's slow going compared to using a modern press but was neat from a historical point of view. And, I happen to like it for priming because I get a good feel for how the primer is being seated.
Crawdad1
Member
Beautiful rifle Dave!!!!
whughett
Member
The bullet is well lubed, just the lube ring at the muzzle one looks for.
I've shot .45 Colt BP and 777 loads out of my Howell conversion cylinder Pietta '58 New Army. Very accurate, both powders are messy but BP is more accurate. I used both 200 grain Speer lead semi wadcutters and 230 grain Meister hard cast. I used 40 grain charges which required heavy compression. I since dropped it to a 30 grain charge which still required a fair amount of compression. I'll stick with the 30 grain charge - thanks. Sorry I have no pics.
Rudedog
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daboyleroy
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Crawdad1
Member
Good stuff!! How do you find all these great web-sites!! 
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Driftwood Johnson
Member
I am getting really ticked off at Photobucket.
I just paid them a bunch of money and my photos are still not coming across.
Johnson
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Crawdad1
Member
A lot of people complaining about Photobucket currently. Some say all of their pictures are gone.
daboyleroy
Member
OML
That is MAJOR bucks per year
Glad I use
https://imgbb.com
It is free and fast....at least for now
Will have to check out the limit
Maybe??
http://blog.photobucket.com/status/comment-page-1/#comments
That is MAJOR bucks per year
Glad I use
https://imgbb.com
It is free and fast....at least for now
Will have to check out the limit
Maybe??
http://blog.photobucket.com/status/comment-page-1/#comments
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