S&W 460 Mag and Black powder

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I asked a similar question regarding 44 Special while kicking around Wyoming Armory last summer admiring the guns I couldn't afford. Steve Garbe was giving me the tour and told me that he's loaded just about every imaginable cartridge he could find with Black Powder. Personally, I'd steer away from "Auto Guns" but other than that why not give it a try? I have been tempted to stuff a couple of dozen 9x19's with 3f and drop .355 LRN's on top, but the thought of giving my S&W Model 39 a bath in the sink bothers me too much. It would be fun to see the looks on the faces though.

I'm not familiar with the 460 Mag, but your biggest hurdle might be finding a correctly lubed bullet.
 
I've got some pictures on photobucket of a feller shooting a .50BMG loaded with BP. I can't link to them from work, but you can go to photobucket, type blackpowderpulp into the search bar and find them.
 
Should perform about the same as my old Walker with fifty or so grains of bp....only problem was that the loading lever fell down with each shot. I'd think you could get fifty to sixty grains of three or four F in that monster case.
 
Hey thanks for your input guys. I'm all ears. :). I think according to the thread I put in the original post that I could, in a pinch, load black powder in this 460 S&W Mag case providing I follow the guidelines of the 45 BPM. I'm not quite ready to do this but am seriously considering it. I do realize the ballistics would be much less and messier than the 460 S&W Magnum, but knowing what it could do is worth it to me.
 
No reason not to do it. Black powder when properley packed into such brass cases burns from back to front and produces more of a soft sort of big THUMP! than the BANG! that comes from smokeless powders. Shooting some BP .460 rounds should be no end of fun. The chamber pressure with BP should be a lot less than what is generated in even weaker .460 smokeless loads.

Just remember that you want to replace the lube on the bullets with a BP friendly type of lube since petrochemical based lubes could result in tar like fouling.
 
I have seen a man run three BP 12GA shells through his Remington 1100. He was not happy. I wondered why he fired the second and third rounds after lighting the first one. Since I gave him the shells, I helped him clean his gun.
 
Did it make it all the way to the third shell?? That gas port and ring I wouldn't think would tolerate good powder too well.

One of these days, I'm going to load up 8 or 19 9mm's just for grins and giggles. It probably won't be as bad as I'm afraid it will.
 
BCRider No reason not to do it. Black powder when properley packed into such brass cases burns from back to front and produces more of a soft sort of big THUMP! than the BANG! that comes from smokeless powders. Shooting some BP .460 rounds should be no end of fun. The chamber pressure with BP should be a lot less than what is generated in even weaker .460 smokeless loads.

Just remember that you want to replace the lube on the bullets with a BP friendly type of lube since petrochemical based lubes could result in tar like fouling.
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This is good to know, Thank you !

and Thanks Everyone
 
You must shoot the BP round in an indoor range when the range if fully occupied. Oh the smoke, the smell, and the cursing of the other shooters. Well worth the clean up afterwards. I would stuff as much FFG in the case as I could get and use magnum primers. Make sure there is NO AIR gap between the bullet and the powder in other words no reduced loads. use a fiber wad and a grease cookie as well.
 
Foto Joe, it's unlikely that the amount of BP you can get into a 9mm casing will provide enough kick to cycle the slide correctly.

Locally a fellow shooting his 1911 in Wild Bunch loaded up a bunch of BP .45acp's. He had to go to a lighter recoil spring to get the gun to cycle.

Now ANY revovler round is a prime candidate for BP. After all the .38Spl was originally a BP cartridge. That's why it's so long. Shooting BP loaded .357Magnum cases from any of the .357 1873 SAA clones would be a no brainer. And there's no reason at all why .44Magnums would not do just fine with BP charges.

I've got a TC Encore chambered in .500S&WMag that I'm going to load up with some BP loads one of these days. Being a break open gun cleaning will be a complete breeze so it's not like it's a big issue. Testing a case with sugar to see what volume it'll take shows me that I'm looking at around 50 gns of uncompressed. So perhaps 55 once it's compressed into place. Hmm... I may need to see if I can find some rifle cases to cut down and make me some overlength cases for this thing to use for BP charges to get up closer to 65 to 70 gns to get some life out of it. Either that or, dammit, just pop for a .45-70 barrel for my BP giggles.
 
Foto Joe,
Use a heavy bullet with your 9mm and it will probably cycle. I've never done 9mm, but I have shot .45 after reading one of the guys who posts on this forum talking about shooting .45 acp with black powder. He shot an IDPA match with it to the amusement of everyone at the match and so I tried it. It's the truth it works, just use 230 grain lead bullet with a case full of black powder. I used a speer, but it doesn't have enough bullet lube to work with black powder so I swabbed it every couple of magazines. I loaded 50 and shot 50 and the gun wasn't hard to clean just like they said.

The guys who are shooting it are cowboy shooters in those wild bunch matches forfun like BCRider said. I used to shoot for the Sheriff's department pistol team here and shot against the Texas DPS who were shooting custom 1911 pistols in 9mm and winning. We were shooting Glocks and they had been shooting Sig .45s before and they were losing until they got those 1911 pistols. Nothing against Sig pistols I like them but they are not target pistols. They were shooting subsonic 147 grain ammo like we used with our tactical team MP5to make the slide cycle reliably. I never shot one but they were willing to tell us that they needed the Winchester Law Enforcement SubSonic load to make them work It would probably work with black powder too because like BCRider said not much powder will fit in the case. The directions I read were load as full as you can and get 1/16 inches of compression. I used my taper crimp die but some people said a roll crimp even on the .45 acp was better to help it make the pressure you need.
 
You must shoot the BP round in an indoor range when the range if fully occupied. Oh the smoke, the smell, and the cursing of the other shooters. Well worth the clean up afterwards. I would stuff as much FFG in the case as I could get and use magnum primers. Make sure there is NO AIR gap between the bullet and the powder in other words no reduced loads. use a fiber wad and a grease cookie as well.
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I like the idea of shooting BP cartridges at a crowded indoor range, but I wouldn't want to start a fire -- a good bit of the dirt and grime on the floor is unburnt gunpowder. :what:
 
I probably will never load 9mm with Black Powder, I've got too many other calibers and guns that will eat the proper powder without problem. The S&W 9mm is my carry gun so I get paranoid about that thing having ANY difficulties should the need to use it ever happen. Now having said that, wouldn't it be a kick to load up a hundred or so for an MP5?

I've fired a Gatlin gun loaded with Black Powder before and that slow firing behemoth will choke you in about 30 rounds if the wind isn't just right.
 
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