I don't think the guys who have maimed themselves did so by knowingly using nitro-cellulous based (smokeless) propellant, and screwing up on either the type or the amount. I think that what they did was ask a clerk for "black powder" and got the wrong stuff, plus didn't check the label on the container themselves, OR got their two types of powder on the shelf at home, mixed up, again lack of attention to basic details..., plus as luck would have it the powder itself sorta looked (when only glanced at) like black powder, or they'd never seen the stuff before so had no reference memory. I also think it's much more likely that a fellow asking for the BP substitute will get the wrong stuff from the clerk or make a mistake among his own powders. The containers are similar, and some of the labels are similar in color, and a lot of shops that sell the stuff store it right next to the smokeless powder.
All of the BP substitutes ARE essentially black powder..., in fact Pyrodex IS black powder, with a reverse engineered formula. The original gunpowder was charcoal and salt-peter, and took a very high heat source to touch it off..., like a piece of copper or iron wire that was glowing hot. It was then found that adding sulfur to the mixture of about 15 - 20 percent would make the gunpowder much easier to detonate (OK for the purists
deflagrate) and it burned "cleaner" because it burned more completely. Pyrodex reduces the sulfur to about 8% and thus it becomes a propellant instead of a low explosive, but it's dirty and still corrosive. It's meant to give the mom & pop shop owner a propellant for traditional muzzle loaders that doesn't need special storage.
Thus, the cleaner burning BP substitutes that have come along, usually completely remove the sulfur and use mixtures of salt-peter and something akin to potassium perchlorate, plus several other chemicals in lesser percentages, when mixed along with the charcoal, give a more complete burn, but these then may need an even hotter ignition such as a primer instead of a musket cap. It takes more to set it off, BUT it burns very fast in those shorter barreled inlines, and you get a more complete burn and thus less crud when done.
Smokeless powders are all nitro-cellulous based I believe, so might produce lower pressures when formulated right, but are still not quite the same animal as BP or its substitutes.
LD
