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3f or 2f?

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jerem0621

40 Cal.
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I'm going to buy my first can of black powder today. I have a Tc New Englander percussion. I do intend to purchase a flintlock in the near future. Should I use 2f or 3f? My New Englander is .50 cal. I like the Idea of being able to prime and charge my future flintlock with the same powder. Would 3f do good in my percussion gun?

Jerem
 
We use 3f in all of our guns since we have pistols and rifles.Keeps it simple...
 
jerem0621 said:
I'm going to buy my first can of black powder today. I have a Tc New Englander percussion. I do intend to purchase a flintlock in the near future. Should I use 2f or 3f? My New Englander is .50 cal. I like the Idea of being able to prime and charge my future flintlock with the same powder. Would 3f do good in my percussion gun?
Goex 3F is outstanding in both my Flintlocks and caplocks...use it in .40/.45/.50/.54/.62 calibers...fast, clean, and accurate
 
3F is good for PRB's. I shot some 2F working on loads using REAL slugs and it did fine, maybe a little tighter groups. this is .50 cal also.
 
I just made a switch to 3f from 2f -- works great -- just remember volume will be less of 3f.
 
please explain the volume difference? Is it like a five grain difference, etc. Thanks for the heads up before I hit the range.

Jerem
 
the figure I heard was 15% less than 2f. so 85 grains of 3f is equal to 100 grains of 2f
 
ihad read that 3f in big bores is fine for target loads but for hunting loads the press is to great and should not be used. is this correct?
 
No, I don't think that is correct, unless you might be shooting an early 19th century, or earlier ORIGINAL rifle made of iron, not steel. Then I would be concerned about chamber pressures.

Small caliber rifles are going to produce the greatest rise in chamber pressure using FFFg. However, if you are using a 50 caliber or larger bore rifle with a steel barrel, go ahead and use FFFg powder. With large bores, .58, .62, .69, .75, you don't need a lot of powder to kill game out to 100 yards or so, which represents about as far as most shooters can use iron sights accurately, and about as far as round balls can be shot at Point Blank ranges( ie. hitting no more than 3 inches higher or lower than POA). 70 grains is usually all that is needed in these big calibers. Its the weight of the ball that controls the depth of penetration, and not velocity, after about 50 yards. Increasing velocity is done to try to flatten the trajectory of the ball going down range. Again, at 100 yds, the trajectory is just not that much using a reasonable charge of powder.

Whatever caliber you choose to use, do some penetration testing. The medium you use is not as important as using some other gun you know will kill the game you are hunting to shoot into the medium to establish a comparison benchmark. I made a penetration box using 1 inch pine boards, spaced 1 inch apart. I learned a lot about my gun, and other guns I own, shooting both round balls, and bullets, until the boards were falling apart.
 
Old wives tales and armchair theories...the rule of thumb is to reduce 2F load data by 10-15% when substituting 3F so the pressure is in the same range...I use 3F in heavy .62cal shot charges for turkeys and squirrels, not a problem at all.

Save this website and if you follow this gentleman's hands on experience you won't go wrong...I've used his Turkey load for scores of shots while patterning, killing turkeys, killing squirrels, etc
[url] http://members.aye.net/~bspen/SmoothboreLoads.html[/url]
 
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I have used up to 125gr fff in my .62Jaeger.

Impressive load to say the least.

No problems.
 
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