BCRider
Member
THinking ahead to when I get around to reloading some cowboy action cartridges with black powder or subsitutes I got to wondering about a few things;
Oyeboten, if you're reading this I remember that you posted about shooting black powder rounds from your old .38 S&W. Did you use the bullets as they came or did you replace the lube or use jacketed rounds?
- How, if at all, do any of you deal with neutralizing any static risk at the reloading station when handling black powder? I'll obviously use all metal equipment. I was thinking I'd switch the powder reservoir on my Dillon 550 over to a metal tube but then I remembered that my press tends to seep some "dust" which I'd rather not have to deal with if it was black powder dust. So I'll stick with passing the cases through the Dillon to size and decap and re-cap and then remove to a block for charging with powder. It's not like I'll be doing many thousands of such rounds at a time anyway. Likely no more than 500 at a go since a day of cowboy shooting is only 100 rounds total between the revolvers and lever gun.
- Is there a benefit to using a substitute such as 777 in cartridges? Some of the guys are using BP in their shot shells but go with Pyrodex or 777 in their cartridges. From reading at Hogdon's site they specifically warn that the residue from Pyrodex is more corrosive than BP but don't say a lot about 777.
- If I go with BP in the cartridges I'm guessing that I'd want to steam away the lube that the bullets come with and relube with a non petroleum lube so that the residue doesn't get tarry on me. I'm thinking to heat the bullets in a steamer to melt it away. That sound about right? Or if I go with 777 would it be more friendly with the existing smokeless bullet lube? Oddly enough the reloaders mostly all told me that they go with 777 or Pyrodex in their cartridges. I never thought to ask why but in thinking about the bullet lubing issue I'm thinking this is why they don't shoot black in them. Too much work to sweat away the existing lube and redo it. Or could I just go with copper jacketed rounds and avoid the lube issue? What did the old BP original cartridges use for bullet lube?
Oyeboten, if you're reading this I remember that you posted about shooting black powder rounds from your old .38 S&W. Did you use the bullets as they came or did you replace the lube or use jacketed rounds?