Drams to grains?

Today I saw a large copper flask with an ajustable spout. It went from 3-1/2 Dram to 4-1/2 dram. Got me to wondering, what a dram equals in grains? What is Dram? An english method of measure, perhaps?

John

16 drams=1 oz I believe.

John,
On a conversion I believe you will find 1 dram equal to 27.5 grains.
Mark

Agree, 27.5 grains = 1 dram.

A comparison to something current is a box of modern shotshells...the "dram equivalent" is always printed on a box of modern shells (which use modern smokeless powder of course) so there's a tie back to the old days of blackpowder.

ie: one of the shot loads I use in a smoothbore is 80grns Goex and 1 ounce of shot to simulate a modern shotshell load...80grns = 3 drams. (3 drams is actually 82.5grns but close enough)
A modern box of shells equivalent to that blackpowder load would be labeled a "3 & 1" load.

Closer to 27.34375 grains to a dram . . . but who's counting. ;-)

Hard to whittle an antler tip to five decimal places.

There are plenty of conversion charts available to learn these quaint bits of trivia. But, 27.34 grains is the accurate amount, by WEIGHT. since BP is measure BY VOLUME, we tend to round things off, and up a bit. ERGO, 27.5 grains will get you there.

There are 7000 grains to a pound; 437.5 grains to an ounce. 2 drams = 55 grains( roughly). 4 drams equals 110 grains( 2 x 55= 110).

Actually, now that you know what a "Dram" of black Powder weighs, you have a better chance of understanding why modern shotgun cartridges list the Dram Equivalent Load on the outside of the box, along with the weight of the shot in ounces, and fractions of an ounce.

If you then, also, Understand the Rule of "17", which tells you the diameter of the shot pellets in bird shot,you can best understand what kind of load(s)to put in a shotgun. ( Subtract the # of the shot from 17, and the result is the diameter of pellet in hundredths of an inch. So, for example, # 6 shot is .11" in diameter; # 2 shot is .15" in diameter; and # 8 shot is .09" in diameter.)

In the avoirdupois system, the dram is the mass of 1⁄256 pound or 1⁄16 ounce. So the dram weighs 875⁄32 grains or exactly 1.771”‰845”‰195”‰3125 grams. 875/32 is 27.34375 grains.

Stumpkiller said:

Closer to 27.34375 grains to a dram . . . but who's counting. ;-)
Hard to whittle an antler tip to five decimal places.

Click to expand...

:thumbsup:

jmac17 said:

What is Dram? An english method of measure, perhaps?

Click to expand...

http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/224942/

Also see Mathematical Shooter

http://members.aye.net/~bspen/math.html

Good information!! Thank you all...

John