Black Powder Cartridge Reloading 101

Story by AKA Blackpowder Burn (Garry Laxton)

How to Take Up Smoking With No Adverse Health Effects

OK, so you’ve seen some folks at your local club or elsewhere shooting that nasty old smoky stuff and cackling and giggling like mad people.  This is accompanied by big rolling BOOOMS! You wonder what the heck is so great?  It’s dirty, smelly, really hard to clean up, has to be cleaned every day (what a pain in the posterior!) and corrodes your expensive guns, right?!  So why would anyone do that unless they’re a freaking idiot?
 
Well…………while all the opinions expressed above are the prevailing “wisdom” about black powder, they are DEAD WRONG!  Now I’m not saying you don’t have to do some things differently, but it doesn’t take much more effort and sure adds a whole new level of fun to our game.  You actually get to shoot your guns with the proper all-organic “green” propellant they really used back in the day.  After all, BP is made from charcoal, sulfur and bat shit (OK, the bat shit was just the common source of the potassium nitrate needed).
 
For those of you who may have a slight itch to try black powder, but maybe haven’t been quite brave enough to actually confess it to anyone, I thought I’d write a few short articles about what is required to  join the “Dark Side”.  They will include:
A discussion of
Common misconceptions versus what the truth really is. 
Bullet design and proper lubrication
Cleaning requirements (and how simple it is)
Reloading pistol caliber metallic cartridges
Reloading shotgun
Reloading long range rifle caliber for when you want to really reach out and “touch someone” at 500 to 1,000 yards – or more!
 
These won’t contain all the information you might need, as there are a lot of variables (just look at all the different load recipes in any reloading manual), but will touch on the major issues and differences between black powder and that new, fad smokeless stuff.  It will give you a good idea of the things you need to do differently, and where BP is actually easier to deal with in a couple of ways.  So…..if you’re gonna play cowboy, do it right!
 
Common Misconceptions
 
Let’s face it, black powder has not been in common use by reloaders for over 100 years.  That being the case, a lot of knowledge about how to load with it has been forgotten.  Well, not forgotten, it’s out there if you dig for it, but it’s certainly not common knowledge.  And what “knowledge” folks have is mostly wrong.  Think about the old game of whispering a sentence into someone’s ear, and repeating it around a circle.  By the time it gets back to the originator, it bears absolutely no resemblance to the original phrase.  That’s pretty much the same thing with what most of us “know” about black powder – we’ve been “whispering in someone’s ear” for 100 years and “knowledge” has been distorted into having little relationship to reality.
 
To begin, I’ll tell the story of my first experience loading black powder.  I had a new Cimarron 1873 Deluxe rifle in 44-40, all decked out and beautiful.  After all, if I’m going to play cowboy, I’m gonna do it right with the original cartridges available “in the day”.  I loaded up some smokeless loads with 7 grains of Unique (I’m no damn gamer!) and the rifle shot really well – life is good.  So………..I decided to play with some black powder loads.  I’d been thinking about it awhile, and decided the 44-40 rifle was the perfect gun to take the plunge with.  After all, the cartridge was designed for black powder.  All the “common” knowledge said to fill the case with FFg black powder so there was no airspace and seat the bullet – so simple an Aggie could do it.
 
I went to the range and fired some of my smokeless loads to adjust my new Marbles tang sight – so far so good.  Then I stuffed in some BP ammo and began to make smoke.  WooHoo, this is neat!  Then I noticed that after less than a magazine of ammo, I couldn’t even hit the dang paper.  What the heck is going on here?!  I fired a few more, and it was even worse – couldn’t even dignify it by calling it a “pattern”.  A cylinder bore shotgun would laugh at my “group”.  Disgusted, I went home cursing and scratching my head.
 
Upon arriving home, I tried to clean the barrel, and could barely get a brush through it.  When I did, I started pushing out long stringers of lead and took a couple of hours to get it clean.  “Well, that sucks!”, says I to the mouse in my pocket.  This black powder crap just isn’t worth it! How the heck did anyone ever hit anything with it?!
 
Well, after calming down and doing more research, talking to a few people on forums, etc., I finally understood what had happened.  I had violated several basic rules of assembling a reliable black powder load.  The basics are……..
Black powder does not play well with petroleum based compounds.  In our case, this is the hard, crayon-like lubes used on regular commercial cast bullets designed for smokeless powder.  Petroleum compounds when in the presence of combusting black powder, will form the fouling from hell. This is what happens to most folks who try black powder for the first time, and it permanently sours them on it before they learn the cause.
Black powder requires a soft, non-petroleum based lubricant.  There are lots of recipes out there if you want to make your own.  Most involve beeswax, a light vegetable oil and toilet bowl wax sealing rings.  Or, if you’re lazy like me, there are quite a few sold commercially.  The one most commonly used was developed and is sold by Steve Garbe (multiple national champion BP single shot rifle competitor) and is called SPG (for Steven P Garbe). 
You need enough of this soft lubricant to keep the entire length of your barrel “wet”, so that you have a wet “lube star” on the end of your muzzle.  By doing this, you keep the black powder fouling soft and each subsequent shot wipes the bore of the fouling from the previous shot – thus you have an equilibrium with one shot worth of fouling in the bore at any one time.  With properly assembled load achieving this, you can shoot indefinitely without cleaning the rifle.
Thus, we “shoot down” the myth that you have to clean the bore of a BP firearm after every few rounds fired.  I’ll shoot a complete 10 or 12 stage match and never clean my guns.  I’ll also shoot a complete long range match without cleaning.
BP ammunition works best with a soft bullet alloy, usually between 40:1 and 20:1 lead/zinc. This allows bullets to completely obturate (or expand to fill) the rifling grooves, which prevents flame cutting of the bullet and lead deposits.
You need a bullet with large enough lube grooves to hold sufficient lube to keep the entire length of the bore wet. Many modern bullet molds don’t have large enough lube capacity to do this.
 
So, these are the high-level basics of building good black powder ammunition.  But let’s address a few other misconceptions about shooting black powder.
Black powder guns have to be cleaned immediately after shooting – Well, yes and no.  Yes, in that it is good to clean a gun that has fired black powder as soon as practical.  However, the cause of corrosion is that black powder combustion products are hygroscopic (they absorb water from the moisture in the air).  Once they become damp, the sulfur that is part of the BP compound forms various acids (i.e., sufuric acid, etc.) and this causes the corrosion. HOWEVER….if you keep the gun in a climate controlled area with low humidity (your air conditioned or heated house) there is not enough humidity to cause a problem.  While I don’t like to make a practice of it, there have been occasions when my work schedule did not allow me to clean my gun for a week or more.  I’ve had no corrosion and the bores are still bright and shiny.
Black powder is very hard to clean – This is probably one of the worst misconception out there.  In fact, BP fouling is much easier to clean than smokeless powder fouling.  The reason is simple – all of the fouling products are water soluble.  The best BP lubricant/rust inhibitor I’ve found is Ballistol, which was developed in the late 1800’s for the purpose.  Make about a 10:1 dilution of Ballistol in water and it forms a nice white emulsion that folks call “Moose Milk”.  Spray a little moose milk down the bore, and run a few patches wet with moose milk down the bore – done.  I guarantee you I can clean any of my guns with 3 or 4 patches and a pull of the bore snake.  Wipe down the rest of the gun with the moose milk and let dry.  The water dissolves the BP fouling and when it evaporates, it leaves behind the Ballistol for lubrication and rust prevention.
 
Now, a few random thoughts……….
As mentioned above, you do need a bullet of soft alloy designed to haul enough lube to keep the bore wet.  Many people who get “hooked” by black powder end up casting their own to use – “Once you go black, you never go back!” However, there are several sources of bullets you can buy commercially.  A few of these are Montana Bullet Works and Missouri Bullet Company.
It’s pretty common for someone wanting to shoot “black powder” to buy one of the substitutes, like APP, Triple7, etc.  The attraction is that they can use the standard commercial cast bullets (don’t need soft alloy and SPG), so it is viewed as simpler.  There are, however, a couple of issues with these subs…
They are more expensive than black powder
They are more corrosive than black powder.  They are all based upon some type of organic acid as a key component, such as ascorbic acid.  They MUST be cleaned immediately or they WILL corrode your guns.
So………if the real thing is less expensive and less corrosive, why would you use a sub?
Black powder is hard to find in metropolitan areas, stores just don’t stock it.  This is unfortunately a result of storage requirements and insurance for compounds classified as explosive.  This is largely why substitutes exist.  They are not classified as explosive, so can be stored and handled like conventional propellants.  This is where the little brown truck is your friend.  There are several good retailers that ship to your door.
OK, that’s enough to give somewhat of a high-level overview of the care and feeding of black powder firearms.  We’ll continue in subsequent months with more specifics on how to load BP ammo for various purposes (cartridge revolvers, cap’n ball revolvers, pistol caliber rifles, shotgun, big bore lever rifles, and big bore single shot rifles).
 
I love the smell of sulfur in the morning!