Muzzle Velocity of BP

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Jessesky

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Hey Guys,

In theory, given the ideal scenarios whether that be the perfect barrel length to powder charge to bullet size ratio, what is the highest muzzle velocity one can achieve with black powder.

What is the max hypothetical speed disregarding the practicality of the projectile.

And what is the max velocity of your typical round ball or conical?
 
Editions of the Lyman Black Powder Handbook and Loading Manual contain a lot of loading data, including pressure & velocity.

Someone said that some newer edition omitted 4F loading data which earlier editions
published.

I know this doesn't answer your question.

But I've heard that the .40 round ball is pretty fast, accurate and flat shooting.
 
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Battleships used black powder to hurl heavy projectiles over 20 miles. Pretty impressive.
 
The Guide called "Shooting Thompson/Center Side Lock Black Powder Firearms" is one of my favorites.

I found the velocities and foot per pound as well as the weight of the projectiles to be astonishing.
 
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Battleships used black powder to hurl heavy projectiles over 20 miles. Pretty impressive.
No. Battleship guns didn't begin to approach such ranges until well into the smokeless era, which, for the United States Navy, began just before the turn of the 20th century. The U.S. fleets which defeated the Spanish in 1898 were almost solely armed with guns using a blackpowder variant (cocoa powder); its largest guns were 13", and they didn't open fire on the fleeing Spaniards at Manila Bay until they had closed to within 3 miles. Partly this was due to the as-yet not fully developed technology for directing long-range gunfire at, and from, moving platforms, but the extreme ranges the guns were capable of were not nearly so great as 20 miles. The enormous clouds of white smoke obscured the target as well, making gun pointing difficult. And it was noted that Admiral Dewey's flagship (the Olympia) had its upperworks completely covered with a blanket of residue (mostly saltpeter) 'as white as snow'. And, in fact, the age of the all-big gun ships which came to be known as battleships really began ca. 1906 with the launching of Britain's HMS Dreadnaught, which gave its name to the largest and most heavily armed and armored class of surface combatant vessels.
In answer to the original poster's question, the highest practical velocities achieved using blackpowder were probably in the 'Express' series of British sporting cartridges which used large charges of blackpowder with fairly light (for the calibers, at the time) projectiles to reach velocities near 2000fps. The Lyman Blackpowder Handbook lists higher velocities for roundballs (the lightest common projectile for a given caliber) fired from very long barrels (up to 43") with charges nearly equaling the weight of the ball (e.g.: .498",180 grain roundball with 170 grains GOEX FFFG at 2354fps), but such loads are very inefficient (the same rifle gave 2000fps with only 90 grains of the same powder, so nearly doubling the charge only gained an additional 354fps).

PRD1 - mhb - MIke
 
I think the Navy still uses black powder for the big guns.
Not exactly, though the largest guns (and many land-based artillery calibers) do use a blackpowder booster charge to achieve complete and efficient ignition of the very large-grained and difficult to ignite smokeless propellants.

PRD1 - mhb - MIke
 
Well I’ll be! All these years I had the wrong notion. I certainly apologize for presenting bogus info. I could’ve swore that I saw old footage of bags of black powder being stuffed into the breach of the main turret guns.
Shame on me. I thought I was a better amateur historian than that.
 
Black powder isn't going to deliver high velocities, regardless of the projectile. In fact, in the BP era, the way to achieve more penetration and damage was not by going faster, but by putting more lead on target. The "Express" cartridges mentioned above being the partial exception, inasmuch as they delivered relatively light for caliber projectiles at faster speeds, but not at fast speeds.

A good example of this phenomenon are the so-called buffalo cartridges of the 1870s, generally in the 40 - 50 caliber range. Take the 45-70. It was good for 405 grs of pure lead at about 1350 fps. And that was good enough to kill buffalo with, a lot of buffalo. At the military's Sandy Hook trials in 1879, the 45-70-500 (500 grs bullet) was shot for accuracy (6 foot targets) and penetration at 1500 yards*. The 45-110 would throw a 525 grs pill of pure lead at nearly 1500 fps. Of course, at range, trajectory is almost delivering indirect fire, but the point is that BP isn't about velocity. Anything that needs velocity, smokeless will do it better. BP is about putting big pieces of soft lead on targets at sedate rates. A large piece of soft lead arriving at a terminal velocity of 800 fps will do an awful lot of damage. Ask the buffalo.

* http://home.earthlink.net/~sharpsshtr/CritterPhotos/SandyHook/SandyHook.html
 
Well I’ll be! All these years I had the wrong notion. I certainly apologize for presenting bogus info. I could’ve swore that I saw old footage of bags of black powder being stuffed into the breach of the main turret guns.
Shame on me. I thought I was a better amateur historian than that.
You undoubtedly did see bags of powder being loaded into the breeches of the main turret guns - but the main charges are smokeless (up to more than 500 lbs in the 16" guns). The blackpowder booster charge is in a separate, smaller bag loaded at the base of the rearmost of the main charge bags. In fact, U.S. land-based artillery is loaded with bagged charges, as are naval guns of larger calibers, though guns of 105mm and smaller usually use a cartridge case to seal the breech. The breechblocks of larger caliber guns are fitted with an obturating device (e,g.: the DeBange 'mushroom head' obturator), and do not require a separate cartridge case for breech sealing


PRD1 - mhb - MIke
 
Howdy

The patch of Black Powder added to the rear of the Smokeless Powder bags in the 16" Naval guns was an 'initiator'. Kind of a duplex load if you will. The Black Powder ignited more easily than the Smokeless Powder, so the Black Powder would then ignite the Smokeless charge.

Here is a web page going into a lot of detail about the Mark 7 16" guns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16"/50_caliber_Mark_7_gun

Towards the bottom it goes into the makeup of the charges used. Notice the powder grains were about 2 inches long.




This web page has an excellent series of photos illustrating the loading procedure for one of the big guns. However there is a glaring error where this page claims the powder in the powder bags was Black Powder. It was not, it was Smokeless. If you look at the photos, you will the bags have a purple end cap. That is the Black Powder initiator on the rear of each bag.

https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/mk-7.htm
 
Battleships used black powder to hurl heavy projectiles over 20 miles. Pretty impressive.

I looked it up:
16-inch Naval guns - Each gun weighed about 239,000 pounds (108,000 kg) without the breech, and 267,900 pounds (121,517 kg) with the breech. They fired projectiles weighing from 1,900 to 2,700 pounds (850 to 1,200 kg) at a maximum speed of 2,690 feet per second (820 m/s) with a range of up to 24 miles (39 km).

The D839 propellant (smokeless powder) grain used for full charges issued for this gun was 2 inches long (5.08 cm), 1 inch in diameter (2.54 cm) and had seven perforations, each 0.060 inches in diameter (0.152 cm) with a web thickness range of 0.193 to 0.197 inches (0.490 to 0.500 cm) between the perforations and the grain diameter. A maximum charge consists of six silk bags–hence the term bag gun–each filled with 110 pounds of propellant.[8]
 
....projectiles to reach velocities near 2000 fps.

Yes that's what I've been taught as well, that pretty much for most rifles, of any caliber and any bullet design, 2000 fps is the very top. Makes sense then that 405 gr lead alloy bullets in the .45-70 Government cartridge, or 450 gr lead alloy bullets in the .50-90 Sharps or the .50-110 Winchester were favored projectiles, not to mention the 640gr lead alloy bullet used in the .50-140 Sharps.

When you're limited by velocity, you can make up for it with mass. ;)

LD
 
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