Shooting Black Powder in Cartridge Guns

Driftwood Johnson said:

Howdy Again

Sorry for not posting sooner, got real busy for a few days.

Here is a photo of the cartridges that I load with Black Powder.

Left to right they are 44 Russian, 45 Schofield, 38-40, 44-40, 45 Colt and 45-70.

44-40 and 45 Colt are the two that I load most often.

Regarding cartridges other than these, the techniques I describe will work fine for other cartridges too.


But first, before I get into the details of loading Black Powder in cartridges, we need to talk about Black Powder bullets a little bit. And that means we need to talk about the function of bullet lube as it relates to Black Powder. The purpose of bullet lube on a conventional cast lead bullet is to reduce friction as the bullet goes down the barrel. Since a bullet is an interference fit in a barrel, there is considerable heat generated by the friction of the bullet against the bore. If the bullet gets too hot, the outer surface can soften and solder itself to the bore. This is the phenomenon known as leading. So the function of bullet lube on conventional cast lead bullets is to keep the lead from softening and sticking to the bore.

But with Black Powder, things are a little bit different. If bullets with conventional hard lube used on conventional hard cast bullets are shot with Black Powder, the fouling left behind in the barrel tends to turn into a hard deposit. After a few shots this hard deposit will build up in the rifling and cause accuracy to drop off. In addition, when it comes time to clean, the hard fouling is difficult to remove. So black powder compatible bullet lubes have two functions. In addition to reducing friction, a good BP compatible bullet lube will be soft and gooey. Not like the hard waxy lube found on most cast bullets. As the bullet travels down the barrel it will shed its lube along the length of the barrel. When BP fouling mixes with this soft, gooey lube, the fouling becomes soft and gooey. As each successive bullet is fired down the bore, it tends to push some of the fouling left behind by the last shot out of the bore in front of it. This tends to prevent the fouling from building up and ruining accuracy. And at the end of shooting, the fouling remains soft and easy to remove with a BP compatible water based solvent. More about that when we get to cleaning.

There are probably as many formulas for BP compatible bullet lubes as there are BP shooters. These days I like to use SPG. I used to buy SPG sticks for my lubesizer from Cabela’s. It looks like they don’t sell it anymore, but Midway USA still does. When I was pan lubing I made up my own BP bullet lube of equal parts beeswax and Crisco. As I said, there are a probably a bazillion other formulas for BP bullet lube. Google it.

So……..how does one get bullets that carry a soft, BP compatible lube? I used to Pan Lube regular hardcast Smokeless bullets with my mixture of 50/50 Beeswax/Crisco. Pan lubing is a technique where one melts the hard, waxy lube out of commercial bullets, and then places the bullets in a pan filled with BP compatible lube. The pans are placed in an oven, and the wax melts. When removed from the oven the wax solidifies and the bullets have ring of BP lube in the lube grooves. It is more complicated than that, and if anyone is interested I can post complete instructions, but not right now. The problem with my Pan Lubed bullets was they needed to carry enough soft lube to keep the fouling soft the entire length of the barrel. Not a problem with revolvers and their relatively short barrels, but the single thin lube groove of most commercial bullets did not carry enough lube to keep a rifle barrel lubed for its entire length. What I found was that the bullet would run out of lube for the last six inches or so of a rifle barrel. Fouling would then build up and accuracy would begin to suffer. During a typical CAS match we will shoot the rifle ten times at each stage. After two or three stages accuracy would begin to suffer. The solution was quick and easy, swabbing the barrel out with a few patches soaked in my favorite water based BP solvent and accuracy returned.

There were other solutions too. You will probably have heard of Lube Cookies. A lube cookie is a disk of BP compatible lube sitting behind the bullet in a loaded cartridge. I used to press lube cookies out of a sheet of beeswax with an empty 45 caliber cartridge case. I would place the lube cookie on top of the powder charge and under the bullet. You will also probably have heard how BP lube can adulterate the powder charge, causing it to burn inefficiently. The classic solution for this is to place a thin card wad between the lube cookie and the powder charge. There is one disadvantage to Lube Cookies. I was testing some rounds at the range one day and accuracy had gone to hell in a handbasket. I recovered some of my spent bullets from the berm and low and behold there were lube cookies stuck on the back of some of them. What was happening was the soft Lube Cookie got glued to the bullet base. In flight, the bullets became unstable, flying like a lopsided dart. Not unstable enough to tumble, but unstable enough to ruin accuracy. So I came up with variation #3 for my Pan Lubed bullets. I placed a card wad between the bullet and the Lube Cookie and well as another one between the Lube Cookie and the powder. Accuracy returned, but it was way too much extra work loading cartridges this way. After priming and belling I would pour in the powder, then place a card wad on top, then compress the powder, then drop in the Lube Cookie and another card wad, and finally seat and crimp the bullet. There had to be a better way.


Big Lube Bullets

About this time I heard about the Big Lube Black Powder bullet molds. A CAS shooter with the alias of Pigeon Roost Slim developed a new style of bullet for Black Powder shooting. Basically he took the idea of the Thompson Center Maxi Ball and adapted it for the 45 Colt cartridge. The PRS 45 bullet is a 250 grain bullet with a huge lube groove. The lube groove is big enough to carry enough soft, BP compatible lube to keep fouling moist in the longest rifle barrels.

The four bullets on the left in this photo are Big Lube bullets. Left to right they are the 38-40 180 grain bullet, the Mav-Dutchman 200 grain 44 caliber bullet, the J/P 45-200 grain bullet, and the PRS 250 grain 45 caliber bullet. You will notice all of these bullets have a wide, flat nose (meplat). That is because they were designed to be shot in rifles with tubular magazines. Of course they can be shot in revolvers too. The tall bullet is a commercial 405 grain Flat Nosed Montana Precision .458 bullet that I load in 45-70. Finally, on the far right is one of my old Pan Lubed hard cast 250 grain bullets. The huge amount of lube the Big Lube bullets carry is evident in this photo. The Montana Precision 45-70 bullet has multiple lube grooves. Not a big lube bullet but it is adequate for a single shot rifle when used with a blow tube between shots. It is a bit indistinct in this photo, but the single lube groove of my Pan Lubed bullet does not carry enough lube to keep a rifle barrel lubed its entire length.

This photo is a good illustration of how much lube the Big Lube bullets carry. The cartridge on the left is a 44-40, the cartridge on the right is a 45 Colt. The bullets to the left of the 44-40 are the Mav-Dutchman 200 grain 44 caliber bullet, shown with and without lube. The bullets with the 45 cartridge are the PRS 250 grain bullet, shown with and without lube. I don’t own any rifles chambered for 45 Colt, but I have fired thousands of 44-40 rounds loaded with the Mav-Dutchman bullet through several lever rifles, and I never have to swab barrels anymore to keep my accuracy up. And I no longer mess with Lube Cookies and card wads. I just pour in the powder, then compress it when seating and crimping the bullet. Easy Peasy.

A fellow named Dick Rhody started up the Big Lube line of bullet molds. He does not sell bullets, he sells molds. His CAS alias is Dastardly Dick. You can read more about the Big Lube bullets on his web site. In addition to the bullets shown, Dick has molds for 32, 38/357, 38-55, and 45-70. He also has a mold for 36 and 44 caliber bullets for percussion revolvers.

https://www.biglube.com/


Official disclaimer: although I am constantly pushing the Big Lube line of Black Powder bullets, I get no financial compensation for it. I also do not get any financial compensation for the J/P 45-200, which I designed.


In truth, I don’t cast bullets anymore, I buy my Big Lube bullets sized and lubed from another CAS shooter whose alias is Springfield Slim. Here is the address to his website. Go to the Big Lube page.

http://www.whyteleatherworks.com/


Lube Star

A Lube Star is a deposit of lube left behind by the bullet on the muzzle. The rifling shapes it into a star shape. If you see no Lube Star on the muzzle of a rifle, chances are your bullets are starved for lube by the time they exit the barrel. A Lube Star is an indication that there was still plenty of lube left on the bullet as it exited the muzzle, and the bore is adequately covered to insure the fouling remains soft.


A few more comments about bullets before we move on. It is usually recommended to use soft lead bullets for Black Powder. When I was casting my own they were either pure lead, or a mix of about 20/1 lead/tin. Although my Pan Lubed bullets were conventional hard cast bullets and they usually worked pretty well, other than all that wad and Lube Cookie business.


One more thing. Earlier I mentioned that different brands of Black Powder produce different amounts of fouling. Generally speaking, the less fouling your powder produces, the less lube you can get away with on your bullets. I used to use commercial BP bullets produced by the Mid Kansas Bullet Company in my 44-40 cartridges. These bullets had two lube grooves filled with a SPG. I found that using Goex powder they did not carry enough lube to keep the fouling in the bore of a rifle soft for its entire length. I talked with other shooters who were using Swiss powder who claimed these same bullets worked fine, because Swiss burns so clean. I have never used Swiss powder, could not justify the extra cost. But if you cannot find a bullet that carries enough soft lube for a rifle barrel, you might try Swiss powder. I have heard that Olde Eysford also burns clean enough to be able to get away with less soft lube. I have never tried that powder, so I cannot speak authoritatively about it. These days my powder of choice is Schuetzen. It burns a little bit cleaner than Goex, which is why I like it, and it is not as expensive as Swiss. A good compromise. Graf sells Schuetzen packaged in bottles with their own label on it, but it is the same powder as Schuetzen.


Here is a photo of three 44 caliber Black Powder bullets. A good visual comparison of how much lube each bullet carries. On the left is the Big Lube Mav-Dutchman 200 grain bullet. In the center is the Mid Kansas 200 grain bullet with two lube grooves I mentioned earlier. This bullet is very similar to the old Lyman 42798 bullet. On the right is my home brewed 44 caliber Pan Lubed bullet.

That’s pretty much it for bullets, unless I remember something else.


Next time: Actual Black Powder cartridge loading.

I promise.

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Driftwood Johnson said:

Actually Loading Cartridges

Howdy Again

Sorry I have taken so long for this installment, I was having trouble with my Photobucket account.

So finally, down to brass tacks, actually loading the cartridges.

First, I should probably make a disclaimer. This is what has worked for me. You need to be prudent, this is Black Powder and loading it can be dangerous. Proceed with caution. I accept no responsibility if my methods do not work for you, or if something goes wrong.

Let me say at the outset that I am talking about the type of loading I do with Black Powder for Cowboy Action Shooting. I am not talking about loading for extreme precision for shooting at targets 400 or 600 yards away with large rifle cartridges such as 45-70. That is a different story and I will touch on that very lightly later. This is for stuffing BP into a cartridge like 45 Colt or 44-40 and popping them into a revolver or lever action rifle. Accuracy can be very good, but not necessarily good enough to knock down a ram at 300 yards.



Loading a cartridge with Black Powder is unbelievably easy. You pour in enough powder so that when the bullet is seated, it will compress the powder by about 1/16” – 1/8”. That’s it, that’s all there is to it.




Of course, there is more to say about it than that. First off, those who load Smokeless powder will discover that loading with Black Powder is actually less fussy than loading with Smokeless. You don’t have to concern yourself with loading down to the tenth of a grain. Plus or minus a couple of grains really does not matter. The important thing is to not leave any airspace in the cartridge. Be sure the base of the bullet touches the top of the powder. Compressing it a little bit is better. The reasoning behind the idea of no air in the cartridge is that the air may be compressed and cause a pressure event that can ring the chamber. At least that is what I have read. To keep things safe, I always make sure that my bullets compress the powder by about 1/16” – 1/8”.

Some will say that filling the case up to the top and then mashing down the powder is good. In my mind that is over compression and a waste of powder, and there is no need for it. So again, my rule of thumb, compress the powder by 1/16” – 1/8”.


That gets us to another subject. If you read much cartridge history, you will read that the original load for 45 Colt was 40 grains of powder under a 250 grain bullet. That gets us to the actual design of the case. Modern solid head cases do not have as much powder capacity as the old folded rim cases or balloon head cases. You can’t stuff 40 grains into a modern 45 Colt (or 44-40) without compressing the dickens out of the powder.

This is a photo of some 45 Colt and 45 Schofield ammunition as originally loaded by the Frankford Arsenal around 1873 – 1875. They look like rimfire cartridges, but they are not. These cartridges used Benet Priming. The cases were drawn from soft copper, not brass. The priming material was applied to the top surface of the base of the case. An Anvil Plate was pressed on top of the priming material and held in place by a cannelure (the crimp near the bottom of the case). When the firing pin struck the center of the cartridge, the copper base deformed and the priming material ignited as it was compressed between the copper case and the Anvil Plate. As you can see by the cutaway, there was more interior space in these cartridges than with modern cases, more even than a balloon head case. These are the rounds that could fit 40 grains of powder inside.

This next photo is a comparison of a Balloon Head case to a modern Solid Head case. Once cartridge manufacturers got away from Benet priming and started using Boxer priming, this is what cartridges looked like when cut open. They are called Balloon Head cases today. You can see how much more powder capacity there is in the 45 Colt Balloon Head case on the left, compared to a modern Solid Head case.

I have never loaded Balloon Head cases with Black Powder although I do have some and it would be an interesting project some time. But suffice it to say, it is tough to cram 40 grains of Black Powder into modern 45 Colt cases without compressing the dickens out of it, and personally I consider it to be overkill. I get plenty of smoke and recoil by putting in enough powder so that when the bullet is seated it compresses the powder by about 1/16” – 1/8”.




FFg vs FFFg

There used to be a generally accepted standard that FFg was good for cartridges 45 caliber and larger, FFFg was good for cartridges 45 caliber and smaller. Either was good for 45 caliber. When I first started loading cartridges with Black Powder I was loading 45 Colt and 44-40 with FFFg, and restricted my use of FFg to 12 gauge shotgun (which I will get into at another time). After a while I got tired of keeping two granulations of Black Powder around, so these days I use FFg for everything. If I were to load 38 Special with Black Powder I would use FFg for it to.

As a general rule of thumb, all other things being equal, you can expect somewhere between 60fps to 100fps more velocity when using FFFg instead of FFg in these cartridges.


The Correct Amount of Powder

OK, so here we are. We have seated our primers, we have a supply of bullets with a BP compatible lube, and we have our powder, FFg or FFFg, whichever we choose. All we need to do is determine how much powder to dump into the case to achieve the ‘magical’ 1/16” – 1/8” of compression.

For our initial attempts, we need a tool that will help us arrive at some consistent charges. I like to use dippers. Lee makes a very affordable set of graduated plastic powder dippers.

http://leeprecision.com/powder-measure-kit.html

Here is a photo of a few Lee dippers as well as a couple of custom made dippers using a cartridge case filed to length and soldered to a brass wire. Notice how these Lee dippers are permanently stained. They have been used to dip out a lot of powder over the years.

In this photo I have scratched a line on a 45 Colt case indicating where the base of a PRS 250 grain Big Lube bullet will be when it is fully seated.

In this photo I have made a little ruler with a stick, indicating the depth of the seated bullet.

With the assistance of my lovely wife and her long fingernails, this photo shows the little ruler inserted into a case that has been charged with powder. The base of the little ruler is buried about 1/16” – 1/8” in the powder. That’s it. That is the perfect charge of Black Powder for my particular bullet.

In actual practice, try several different dippers to see which one dips out the amount of powder you need. That’s why the Lee set comes in so handy. The dippers are labeled in Cubic Centimeters (I guess Lee has not gotten around to labeling them for milliliters yet. They are the same). Choose the dipper that gets you the closest to the ‘magical’ 1/16” – 1/8” of compression. It does not have to be perfect, just choose the one that gets you the closest. If you want to weigh the charge, for reference, pour a dipperfull onto your scale and weigh it. That’s all there is to it.

Remember, we are talking about real grains of weight here, not that silly grains/volume business. If you want a volume measurement, use what is molded right on the dipper, Cubic Centimeters. An internationally recognized unit of volume.

A couple of side notes about the dippers. If I am loading using dippers, I will pour out maybe half a pound of powder into a coffee cup. Remember, we are dealing with a dangerous explosive here, so no smoking, and no sources of ignition anywhere in the vicinity. I take my dipper and scoop it through the powder just as if I was scooping out ice cream. Pull up a heaping dipper full. Then with your free hand take a small section of index card or something similar and scrape off the excess, level with the top of the dipper. Allow the excess to fall back into the coffee cup. That is the best way to get a consistent amount, time after time. No tapping the dipper to level the charge, no pouring in any extra. Just scoop and scrape every time. Scoop with the same motion each time to keep your charges as consistent as possible. I use a small RCBS powder funnel to pour the powder from the dipper into the case, so I don’t spill any. If I am loading a bunch of cartridges I will stand the empty cases up in a loading block so I can pour powder into each case, one after another.

Be methodical, go from row to row, and of course make sure there is powder in every case before seating bullets.

A side note about the Lee dippers. They come with a slide rule that states how much powder each specific dipper dips out. Take it with a grain of salt. Not all brands of Black Powder weigh the same. Dipping out a specific volume of one brand will probably give a different grain weight of powder than another brand. That’s just the way it is with Black Power, different brands usually weigh a different amount. The numbers on the Lee slide rule do not take that into account.

I put this chart together a number of years ago as a rough reference for the dippers I use most often for my Black Powder cartridges. You can see how the charges thrown by a specific dipper will vary from brand to brand. This information is pretty dated, Elephant is not made anymore. Also, powder weight can vary over time, and from lot to lot. So this chart is a rough guide, but I keep it around just for reference.

For what it’s worth, I use the 2.2CC Lee dipper for both 45 Colt with the 250 grain Big Lube PRS bullet and 44-40 with the 200 grain Big Lube Mav-Dutchman bullet. But that is because I have determined those charges will give me the ‘magic’ 1/16” – 1/8” of compression with those specific bullets. Your results may vary. So be sure to do your homework and determine the proper amount of powder for your cartridge and your bullets. It only takes a few minutes. And if you want to know how much your charge weighs, then weigh it.


By the way. As I was going through photos for this essay I came across this one. I have never used one of these for loading Black Powder cartridges, but if you have one from loading Cap & Ball, and want to use it for cartridges, it should work fine. Adjust the plunger for the ‘magic’ amount of compression and have at it. Personally I prefer the dippers because I think they offer more flexibility.

Primers:

When I first started loading Black Powder in cartridges I remember reading that Magnum primers were best. Absolutely unnecessary. Standard primers are fine. Black Powder is easier to ignite than Smokeless, and a standard primer gives off enough heat and flame to ignite it. A magnum primer may increase pressure a bit, but it is not necessary. Standard Large Pistol Primers are fine for 45 Colt, 45 Schofield, 44-40, 44 Russian and 38-40. They should work fine for 44 Special, and any other cartridge that takes Large Pistol Primers. I don’t load 357 Mag nor 38 Special with Black Powder, but if I did I would use standard Small Pistol Primers. Winchester Primers say on the box that they are for standard and magnum loads, so they are fine. I usually use Federal primers these days because some of my guns have light hammer springs, and Federals light off more easily, but that is a discussion of another time. I have used Federal Match primers in a pinch when I couldn’t get their regular primers, they work fine, they are just more expensive.


Reloading Equipment:

I don’t intend this to be a primer on reloading. Hopefully you are already familiar with loading cartridges with Smokeless powder and have developed good loading practices. You can load Black Powder cartridges with any standard reloading dies. I suggest you limit your Black Powder cartridge loading to a single stage press at first. I do most of my BP loading on a progressive press, I’ll discuss that in a minute.


Wads and Compression Dies

In the Black Powder Cartridge Rifle (BPCR) world, most shooters place a card wad between the bullet and the powder. They also usually use a separate compression die to compress the powder before seating the bullet. The idea is to avoid deforming the base of the bullet by compressing the powder directly with the bullet, and to protect the base of the bullet from the hot combustion gasses for maximum long range accuracy.

For my CAS BP cartridges I do not do either of these things. I compress the powder by seating the bullet down on top of it. Accuracy has always been good enough for me. I did an experiment once regarding accuracy with a card wad between the powder and the bullet. I loaded up a batch of 44-40 both with and without a card between the powder and the bullet. Then I fired a bunch of groups out of my Uberti 1873 rifle from a rest at 25 yards. As far as I could tell, with my admittedly terrible eyesight, I could detect no significant difference in accuracy with either variation. I also detected no evidence of deformation of the base of the bullets when I recovered a few from the berm. So I opted for the simpler of the two. I always compress the powder directly with the bullet as it is seated, without the addition of a card in between. Just simpler.

We talked in the bullet section about lube cookies and all that jazz. I haven’t done that for years. You are welcome to try, but I will caution you. Be sure to allow for the extra volume taken up in the case by the wads and lube cookies. A bunch or years ago a friend could not figure out why he was having trouble with his BP 45 Colt rounds in his 1873 rifle. They were not feeding properly and were jamming. When I took a look at his rounds I could see the bullets were not seated properly in the crimp grooves. I asked him if he had allowed for the extra volume of the lube cookie and the other card wads. He had not. The soft lube cookie was exerting enough pressure over time to shove his bullets out of the case a bit, overcoming the grip of the crimp, and causing feed problems in his rifle.


Fillers

One thing that newcomers to Black Powder cartridges need to understand is you are going to go through a lot of powder. It’s not like you are putting 3.5 grains of Whiz Bang into the case. Figure roughly 35 grains of powder in a 45 Colt. Doing the math, 7000 grains per pound divided by 35 grains per round, you are only going to get about 200 rounds per pound of powder. That’s one tenth of what you will get with a pound of Whiz Bang. So some folks like to stretch their powder a little bit further by adding fillers. Or they might be trying to reduce the recoil a bit by adding filler and reducing the powder charge. My only experience with fillers was a bunch of years ago. I was using corn meal of all things. These days, most guys in CAS are using Grits or other cereals for filler. The idea is still the same. Allow for how much volume of both powder and filler you need to get the ‘magic’ compression of 1/16” – 1/8”. When I was using corn meal for a filler, I used two dippers. One for the powder, and a little teeny one for the corn meal. What a pain, I gave that up a long time ago. Just like lube cookies and wads, it was not worth the extra effort to me to save a little bit of powder by adding the extra step of stuffing filler in.

Interestingly enough, when you compress the powder you are not compressing it uniformly throughout the entire charge. I discovered a long time ago that if I pulled a bullet and dumped the powder, I had to pick through a thin ‘crust’ at the top of the charge to dump out the powder. That’s where the powder compressed, just the very top of the charge, the rest was uncompressed. The same thing happens if you add filler. You pour in the powder, then you pour in the filler. When you seat the bullet it is actually the filler that gets compressed, the powder down below remains uncompressed.

One other thing about fillers. A few years ago some guys on the SASS forum mentioned that cereals inside a cartridge was not a great idea. It seems that over time the cereal can expand from moisture, actually compressing everything more than when the bullet was seated. So if you are going to use fillers, it might be a good idea to shoot them up soon, and not allow them to ripen too much.



Drop Tubes

Here is the one small point where I disagree with Mike Venturino. In his books he has photos of using a drop tube for his cartridges. A drop tube is a tube about two feet long. The idea is you pour the powder charge into a funnel at the top of the tube and allow gravity to pack it into the case. BPCR guys use drop tubes all the time, and I do too when I load 45-70. The drop tube allows the powder to fill the case more consistently, for a more consistent burn, and gravity makes it pack in a bit tighter, so you can fit more powder into the case.

I do not use a drop tube for my normal BP rounds. Just a dipper, or a BP measure if I am loading on my progressive press. The Colt in the photo is only for a sense of scale, I do not use the drop tube for most of my BP cartridges.


Reloading Equipment

As I said earlier, I do not intend this essay to be a primer on reloading. There are plenty of books for that. But as I mentioned earlier, if this is your first time stuffing Black Powder into cartridges I suggest you do it on a Single Stage press. This is my old Lyman Spartan press that I learned to reload on. This is the type of press I suggest you use for your first adventures in Black Powder Cartridge loading. When I use my single stage press I seat my primers using a hand primer seating tool, then I go through the normal reloading steps on this press.

Most of the time though, I load my Black Powder cartridges on a Hornady Lock & Load AP progressive machine. I’m sure a Dillon machine would work fine too, I just happen to have the Hornady. I usually load about 200 or 300 rounds at a time, and I don’t have the patience to load them on a Single Stage press.

However, I do not use the standard powder measure that comes with the Lock & Load machine. I mount a Lyman Black Powder powder measure on my Hornady press when loading Black Powder on it. I do not recommend using a conventional Smokeless powder measure with Black Powder. There are those who will poo-poo me on this, but remember my photos earlier of the old Italian Thunder Boxes. This powder measure is designed specifically for Black Powder. The internal moving parts are brass, not iron, so there will be no mechanical sparks generated. And the hopper is aluminum, not plastic, so it will not build up a static charge.

Here is a photo of my Hornady Press with the Lyman Black Powder measure installed. Yeah, I get a little bit compulsive about the setup. All the cases go into loading blocks. That way I can keep track of exactly how many cases I have loaded vs how many bullets.

I buy old Lyman powder measures at white elephant tables at gunshows whenever I can find them. I use the rotors for my Black Powder loads. I have each one set for the powder charge for a specific cartridge.

This set up requires me to remember to throw the handle on the powder measure by hand for each load, it is not hooked up to the linkage of the press.

Here is a photo of 45 Colt cartridges being loaded on my Hornady press. You can see they are progressing through the deprime/resize, belling, powder charging, and bullet seating steps. I keep plenty of light on the press so I can peek in and make sure there is actually powder in each case before seating a bullet.

But as I said, for somebody’s first experience loading Black Powder in cartridges, a single stage press would be best.





I just couldn’t resist. Here’s what it’s like to fire 45 Colt Black Powder rounds out of a Colt.

Next Time: Clean up after shooting Black Powder in cartridge guns

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