Video - Velocity of Pyrodex Revolver Pellets

Interesting! The velocities seem a bit higher than a fellow on another forum’s pet load was clocked doing and his included a small 5 grain booster of 3F BP (his was something like 975 fps).

I think pellets are handy, but because of the cost, they’re being fragile to load, and possibly losing potency over time once opened, not to mention not being able to find your gun’s favored load, I like loose powder, and figured if I wanted that kind of handiness I’d make more paper cartridges which could be tailored to contain a specific weight and likely be even more accurate.

The low deviation once the oddball was excluded was surprising. That’s amazing consistency, not unlike weighed charges I’d guess.

Note the huge velocity increase for the 1st shot with the crushed pyrodex pellet. Pyrodex pellets are not pyrodex powder or black powder but some kind of rocket fuel like concoction with a tiny bit of black powder in the case of pistol pellets to aid ignition with percussion caps. If you crush those pellets dangerous pressure spikes can be generated when firing. Care must be taken not to crush them when loading the shape must remain intact for proper burning rate.

I have never done any chronograph test despite that I have always noted that pyrodex pellets sound, look, and feel significantly hotter than pyrodex powder when firing. I can figure out that pyrodex pellets generate more pressure.

grter said:

Note the huge velocity increase for the 1st shot with the crushed pyrodex pellet. Pyrodex pellets are not pyrodex powder or black powder but some kind of rocket fuel like concoction with a tiny bit of black powder in the case of pistol pellets to aid ignition with percussion caps. If you crush those pellets dangerous pressure spikes can be generated when firing. Care must be taken not to crush them when loading the shape must remain intact for proper burning rate.

I have never done any chronograph test despite that I have always noted that pyrodex pellets sound, look, and feel significantly hotter than pyrodex powder when firing. I can figure out that pyrodex pellets generate more pressure.

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I’m a little curious just how hard one can seat the projectile without breaking the pellet.

I seat mine quite firmly as I don’t see a way to be consistent with some form of moderate or light pressure.

Why fool with it at all? Pryrodex pellets are so expensive to begin with and as stated above might not be the best load for the revolver. As to keeping the pellets intact, that is ridiculous as how do you seat a ball on one without crushing it, especially after the cylinder has been fouled? Sounds like a great way to turn money into noise.

I shot a bunch of pellets for this video but I will never use them again. They stink something awful and the fouling is harder to clean. Don't see the point myself.



Note: based on viewer feedback I repeated the test with loose Pyrodex P rather than pellets.

With a cap and ball revolver it's quite easy to eyeball proper seating depth of a round ball or other projectile. I suppose with a rifle you would need to mark your ramrod. I find the pellets are fast, easy, and convenient to load. They are powerful and fairly reliable. They work well.

I don't like the general misconception which I also used to have that Pyrodex pellets are the same as Pyrodex powder when in fact they are very different and careful attention is needed when ramming your projectile to avoid crushing the pellet/pellets. With powder some compression is desirable. With pellets it's not safe. This should be made more clear in the marketing of the product.

Although you lose the flexibility of adjusting your charges, a very significant advantage in favor of powder, I don't think Pyrodex pellets are bad at all provided the charge they generate works for your gun and projectile.

Use whatever trips your trigger, I won't use em. It reminds me too much of the inline crowd from about 10 years ago, lets stuff a bunch of these things down a 20 inch barrel and believe we made a magnum caliber.

arcticap said:

1. Winegar speculates that the velocity difference is caused by a broken pellet without any real evidence.
Maybe the higher velocity was due to the barrel being clean and at a lower temperature from not being fired yet?
The first shot out of many BP guns can be a flyer even if not using pellets.
But 6 shots is not an extensive test.
If he had cleaned the bore and a chamber and loaded another pellet, then he could have verified his assumption that it was caused by the broken pellet.
Why have a Chrony and then speculate about the cause? [I realize that those pellets are expensive unless on clearance]

2. If there's room in the chamber for some filler like Cream of Wheat, then perhaps adding filler would act to cushion the pellet and help to prevent it from being broken.

3. Why not just make up some paper cartridges or figure out how to bind, glue or compress your own loose Pyrodex powder together to make "home style pellets."
Use some of that Duco "nitro-cellulose" Cement that others love so much.

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I thought about trying to get a die set made that would press powder into pellets for use with my revolvers, and then make paper cartridges out of them. My 20 ton press makes fairly solid black powder pucks. But I then break them up to make my powder.

If I had a die that could press say 20 smaller pellets at a time, and then use those to make paper cartridges, I think they'd be fairly solid. But I wonder how being pressed would effect the burn rate using real black powder.

It cost me roughly $1.75-$2 to make 1 lb of black powder, and since I have around 100 lbs of free lead on hand, that'd make each round about a penny.

It might make the paper cartridge a bit more solid to handle. hmmmm....

rodwha said:

I’m a little curious just how hard one can seat the projectile without breaking the pellet.

I seat mine quite firmly as I don’t see a way to be consistent with some form of moderate or light pressure.

Click to expand...

I’m just now beginning to experiment with this in a more formal way. Sharps rifles can achieve impressive results with no compression at all. Why are our bp revolvers any different? So, if an old army for example, was set up in such a way as to limit seating depth to a couple hundredths below the cylinder face with the projectile in question and the powder charge was the only variable? I’m speaking here only about loose powder but careful measurement of the pellets, the projectile, and the ram could achieve close consistency.

Qweevox said:

I thought about trying to get a die set made that would press powder into pellets for use with my revolvers, and then make paper cartridges out of them. My 20 ton press makes fairly solid black powder pucks. But I then break them up to make my powder.

If I had a die that could press say 20 smaller pellets at a time, and then use those to make paper cartridges, I think they'd be fairly solid. But I wonder how being pressed would effect the burn rate using real black powder.

It cost me roughly $1.75-$2 to make 1 lb of black powder, and since I have around 100 lbs of free lead on hand, that'd make each round about a penny.

It might make the paper cartridge a bit more solid to handle. hmmmm....

Click to expand...

If a small paper straw was centered in the pellet you could use a smaller charge for target loads and still retain a longer pellet for shallower seating depth. Intuition says it would be better than seating deeper. Has anyone gone down that rabbit hole?

1KPerDay said:

I shot a bunch of pellets for this video but I will never use them again. They stink something awful and the fouling is harder to clean. Don't see the point myself.



Note: based on viewer feedback I repeated the test with loose Pyrodex P rather than pellets.

Click to expand...

Don't try that with an 1858 NMA. I can only get one cylinder with 777 without binding the cylinder.

My Pietta NMA can handle right at 3 cylinders before it begins getting a bit sticky unless I use Ballistol on the base pin.

According to Hodgdon's powder and reloading technical support, 913-362-9455, there is no safety issue with crushing Pyrodex Pistol Pellets while loading in a cap and ball revolver.

They recommend not crushing the pellet, simply seat firmly. "The Pyrodex in the pellets is pre-compressed, so more compression is not useful. The little air gap down the center [of the pellet] doesn't matter safety wise, but helps with more consistent burn."

Also, "...there is no igniter layer on Pistol Pellets or 777 Pellets, just the rifle pellets."

Me:
If you crush them, oh well.
If you want most consistent results, attention-to-detail always applies.
If you want less than 30gr equivalent, a X-Acto craft knife will cleanly split pellets laterally.
If you want to adjust bullet depth with whole or cut pellets, use wads between pellet and bullet.
If you don't want to waste the small splits made with the X-Acto, make more pellets by gluing them together, or glue to a whole to make BIGGER pellets! (Dragoons, Walkers, Ruger)
...