The "F" designation

[fishblade2]

I know that in both synthetic and real black powder has different "F" designations. I also know the general use of them such as FFF is for pistol, FF is for rifles, FFFF is primer pan powder, and F is for musket. But what calibers do these fall under exactly because I know they make muskets down to 32 caliber so should I use a pistol powder or musket load? This is just one example of the small confusion that I encounter by just knowing the general purposes of these F powders. Does anyone know the calibers they fall into? Thanks for all the help

 

[Foto Joe]

"Typically" 3f gets used in pretty much everything smaller than 50 caliber but...I wouldn't hesitate to use 3f in a 50 or 54 personally.

It's my understanding that 45 Colt cartridges were originally loaded with a 2f equivilent of Black Powder, but on the other hand, many of us load 45 Colt today with 3f.

There really aren't any hard and fast "set" of rules for different granulations of powder. I think that you could probably us 4f in a 12 pound cannon if you wanted to but you might want to use an extra long lanyard to fire it. On the other hand, it might be difficult to cram cannon powder into an 1851 Navy, but if you could I'm betting it would be pretty safe to fire.

 

[arcticap]

According to Goex, each powder granulation has multiple overlapping uses & applications. For instance, Fg can be used in musket, large caliber rifle, shotgun, cartridge or cannon.

GOEX Black Powder is available in different granulation sizes to maximize performance in the specific gun you use. GOEX Cannon is the largest granulation size and FFFFG is the smallest. Some granulation sizes can have multiple uses. To help you determine the granulation size best suited to your firearm the standard applications are listed below.


* Fg (or 1Fg): Muskets, Shotgun, Large caliber Rifle, Cartridge and Cannon

* FFg (or 2Fg): Muskets, Shotgun, Rifles 50 caliber and up, Cartridge, and large bore Pistols

* FFFg (or 3Fg): Rifles 50 caliber and smaller, Pistols and Revolvers

* FFFFg (or 4Fg): Priming powder for flintlocks
Cannon: Special granulation for optimum Cannon performance.

http://www.goexpowder.com/goex-black-powder.html

This Muzzle Blasts article suggests that prior to the early to middle 1800's, there were only two powder granulations used, Fg and FFg which was considered to be "fine". The author concludes that finer granulations weren't developed until sometime after the mid-1800's because folks didn't even use a 2nd separate powder horn for priming powder.

http://www.flintriflesmith.com/WritingandResearch/Published/priminghorns_mb.htm

Acorn Mush posted a thread titled Velocities with different powder granulations where he published velocities of many different powder granulations that were fired from a .45 Traditions percussion pistol.
The results show that all of the granulations work, it's just that they produce different velocities and more or less fouling.

What follows is NOT a scientific analysis by any stretch of the imagination, but rather just a record of velocities achieved on one particular day of shooting. Any resemblance to an actual scientific test, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Due to time constraints, I decided to only shoot 5 shots with each powder type and load volume.

The first series of shots were loaded with 15 grains of powder and the second with 25 grains by volume, from an adjustable measure with a cut-off funnel. Measure was gently tapped 3 times to settle powder each time a charge was thrown.

Firearm: Traditions Pioneer pistol in .45 caliber percussion. Barrel length, breech face to muzzle, is 8-1/8”.
Balls: pure lead home-cast .440” weighing between 128.5 and 129.2 grains
Patches: .015” pillow ticking
Lube: Ox-Yoke Liquid Wonder Competition Patch Lube
Caps used: CCI #11
Powders:
1fg DuPont
2fg GOEX
2fg Swiss – shown as 2fg S in table
3fg GOEX
3fg Triple 7
3fg Elephant – shown as Eleph. In table - 25-grain test only
4fg GOEX
Chronograph: PACT Model 1. Velocities measured 12 feet in front of muzzle.

In each test, the 1fg was used first then the bore was swabbed with 1 damp and 1 dry patch. The 2fg through 4fg powders were used, then the bore was swabbed again, 1 damp and 1 dry patch, prior to using the Triple 7.

Sorry I can't get the figures to line up correctly. Can anyone tell me the correct way to post a table such as this? The dang thing looks almost unuseable.

15 grains
Shot 1 2 3 4 5 Avg. High Low ES Sd
1fg 527 527 512 520 523 522 527 512 15 6.2
2fg 681 715 718 723 708 709 723 681 41 16.3
2fg S 769 830 783 781 827 798 830 769 60 28.1
3fg 820 832 868 882 803 841 882 803 79 33.1
4fg 850 759 927 681 981 840 981 681 300 122
777 875 887 903 861 899 885 903 861 41.3 17.2

25 grains
Shot 1 2 3 4 5 Avg. High Low ES Sd
1fg 760 674 724 699 692 710 760 674 86 33.5
2fg 796 876 894 855 856 855 894 796 98 37.0
2fg S 1063 1029 1017 920 950 996 1063 920 144 59.3
3fg 983 1023 1043 969 1006 1005 1043 969 75 30.2
4fg 1149 1174 913 1173 * 1102 1174 913 261 127
777 1112 1116 1112 1058 1175 1115 1175 1058 117 41.3
Eleph. 841 832 821 888 881 853 888 821 67 30.0
* didn’t have enough 4fg powder for a fifth shot. Average is for four shots only


I learned a few things from this test:
1 – 1fg is REAL dirty, but the 15-grain charge was surprisingly consistent. Patches showed more fouling from 5 shots of the 1fg than 20 shots of the other granulations, not including the Elephant powder.
2 – 4fg yielded wild velocity variations.
3 – Looking at the variations in velocities I must not be able to load very consistently, even using a marked ramrod.
4 – Swiss powder wasn’t as consistent, in this test, as I thought it would be.
5 – Elephant 3fg yielded about 16% lower velocity than GOEX 3fg, volume for volume. This confirmed testing I did about 10 years ago. This powder was more
consistent than I thought it would be.
6 – Sitting for 4 hours near the water, with the temperature in the low 50s, makes me cold. (What do you expect from candy@$$ed Kalifornians who live near the Frisco Bay?)

http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/242763/

To read the original thread and obtain free registration to the MuzzleLoadingForum, here's my personal referral link:

http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/index.php?referral/4225/

 

[samcolt1860]

Just to add to the fine info above, the 'F' designation stands for the fineness of the powder granulations.

 

[Foto Joe]

Once again, arcticap rescues us from our own ignorance, thank you sir. I've thought about running the same sort of unscientific test that Acorn Mush did but the only two powders I ever have on hand are Goex 3f and Swiss 3f.

It's interesting to note the somewhat higher velocities of the Swiss albeit at the expense of erratic performance on those same velocities. I use Swiss basically only for cartridge loads. Those loads get uniform compression from a Montana Precision compression die. It's my opinion that Swiss benefits greatly from "uniform" compression, of course Goex also benefits from the same treatment but shows less variation when hand compressed.

Anyway, it was a good read as well as the original post and the comments that were posted. By the way, I was only kidding about the 4f in a cannon, but not the long lanyard.