Blackpowder in lever-action

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HisDivineShadow

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I am looking at buying a Cimarron 1873 rifle in .357 (you can see it here, but I doubt you can understand it ;) ) come summer for hunting and general fun. Now for the fun part I've decided I'd like to shoot blackpowder through it.

I'd like to know more about reloading for blackpowder, from what I understand there might not be much to know, use proper black powder bullets with large lube grooves and just fill up as much powder as you can. I've looked at powders and I think I'd like to use real BP, namely the swiss blackpowder, I hear very good things about it, very clean.

Also how would I clean the rifle after shooting it and how urgent is it? I understand you really ought to take it down and polish every part with solvent. How about the barrel, I don't have to pour boiling water through do I?
 
ok lets tackle one thing at a time. When loading bpcr (black powder rifle cartridge) you must seat the bullet to the powder. there can not be an air gap. when you have an air gap the bullet becomes an abstruction rather than a projectile. This is when you risk blowing things up. Now loading black powder cartridges is rather easy. its important to have the proper loading block. then use cast bullets lubed with something like spg lube. It has to be a good quality black powder lube. Since the charge would be light. you would have to match the length with the bullet. This is going to determine your charge.

Now as for shooting it through a lever gun the only draw back is the cleaning. You can use warm water to clean the inside of the bore that is the most important. It would be to hard to take down the gun everytime. However it is possible to clean the guns works with warm water or a good black powder cleaning solvant. Once this is done you just need to make sure the gun is properly lubed. Just make sure that if you are going to be shooting black powder then you have to switch lubes. you are going to have to lube your rifle with black powder lubes. Such as bore butter or balistol. Avoid any and all types of gun oil that contain petroleum by products.
 
Would CLP breakfree be okay? It's generally what I use for all my guns.

Or do you mean to use products like bore butter in the bullet grooves when reloading?
 
Your right I can't read a word of it.. No option for English so far as I can tell.

I see no reason why you can't shoot that gun with black powder, and or any reason why you can't fill the caes as full as possible leaving just space enough for a bullet.

I have no idea how much black powder that would be, but the space might be 6 to maybe 8 mm from the a case full, leaving room for lube which might be home made and stiff, made of bee's wax and one or another animal oils mixed with it, and or water soluable oils as has been mentioned.

The thing I don't understand is this gun was never created to shoot black powder, and to me would be a nightmare to clean each and every time you shoot as much as one round. Black powder can make a real mess, and it must be cleaned off the same day you shoot. ANything less is asking for a problem.

Burnt powder is hydroscopic and so it will suck water from the air, and it makes a greasy coating.

I don't believe because there is a brass case, which by the way would also need to be cleaned out and well, that the case contains all the mess, and that the mess will get behind any head spacing and into the action.

Which to me means a hot water bath of only the metal parts. The wood won't like that water one bit, and there is no way to seal the action.

If it were mine and I wanted to shoot a lot of soft lead i would load a slower smokeless powder, or even a shot gun powder, which cleans up with typical solvents in a normal way.

I shoot flintlocks that don't come out of the stock any too easy, but i use great care and a feather to plug the vent. No water gets on my stocks, unless it is rain.
 
Oh but this gun was made to shoot black powder. It came out in 1873 and was chambered for the .44-40 cartridge which was a BP cartridge, the name itself refers to a .44 caliber bullet propelled by 40 grains of black powder. They didn't get smokeless until the 1890s or so I reckon. I will be using it in a more modern caliber for practical reasons but it's the same action as in 1873.

Oh and yeah the site is in finnish, there is an english section but it lacks the firearms section, still it shows the pretty pictures.
 
Errr yeah you have the date down ok.... Really the 94 was the first real smokeless gun in 30-30 and that isn't a black powder 30...

The thing is are you competent to take the gun apart for a proper cleaning?

I have a pre 1964 Winchester 30-30, and I sure would not want to take it apart each time I shot 1 bullet and or more in a days shoot that same day.

I could do it, but I don't want to do it.

Now if you want to do this each and every time you use black powder you sure can.

You can learn all about lubes and paper patches for real lead like Quiggly used on his .45-110 Sharps, which is a damnned site easier to clean than this action is..
 
I shoot black powder out of my Marlin 1895 45-70 all the time, I actually never shot smokeless in it!!
Clean up is easy with soap and water.
 
a .357 Magnum round should hold about 25-27gr. of FFFG with still enough to have the projectile seated.
A .38 Special cartirdge will hold 22gr. as a measure & will hold about 18gr. with projectile.

Hope this helps.
 
I'd say I got experience, I can't remember a gun of mine I haven't worked on atleast a little. I can do a detail strip of my 1911 no probs. I've done some basic gunsmithing work on it as well (dehorning, swaping parts). I installed new 3.5lbs connector and new springs in my Glock 17 when I was working on it's trigger and so forth. Hey I even detailstrip my ruger mark 3 from time to time :D

And yeah it's beginning to sound like I imagined it would, so BP shooting would be an occasional and pre-planned occurance so I can get the maximum fun out of it.

I 'spose I should go ask the CAS shooters for cleaning tips too, they run lots of BP through their levers.
 
Low powered rounds. If you wanted to shoot cowboy action loads. Trailboss would be the best powder to use. Its a smokeless powder. Now if you still want to shoot black powder you may want to try triple 777. As it does not contain the sulfur so it will not give you problems on the metal if its not all cleaned up. You have some good information here. There are actually a few web sites tailored to BPCR. Just remember what everyoen here has mentioned to you. there is some good information here.
 
Yeah I read about Triple 777 but I read that it burned hotter than regular BP so it wasn't a 1:1 replacement, so I dunno if I dare fill it up like one could do with regular BP or Pyrodex.

Wasn't there a really good subsitute once that was non-corrosive but they stopped making it becaus the company had some kind of disaster? A plant blew up or something?

I also understand that Vihtavuori (a finnish company) makes something called Tin Star, I dunno what's supposed to be so special about it though, maybe it's just a low-power powder?

I do appreciate all the info guys!
 
As I see it is would be like a 1911 detail strip each and every time you fire BP and or any BP substitute.

So far as power goes, you can fill the cases with any BP and or BP substitute, and be well below any .357 smokless pistol powder out there...




................................................................
On Edit... You may be talking about PYRODEX. Back when it was called golden powder in the late 70's the guy who invented this blew himself up and was killed. However the stuff is still made.

it doesn't work well in flinlocks so that one time i tried it, it failed for me and i went back to Goex, and other real BP.

I figured if BP was faster than anything else why not just use real BP anyway.
 
No need to do a detailed strip, just jet everything out with brake cleaner then dunk it in a bucket of soapy water and flush it all clean. A good blast of oil and your done.
 
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