Volume of powder

[Carbon 6]

I was looking to reduce the powder load in a plains pistol and ended up with the "dry ball" because of the patented breach, I found the hard way, don't go below a certain load.

Been there, done that.

 

[tenngun]

Ok, I'm not going to measure an old Goex can. What if we weigh 1 fluid ounce (volume) of powder and see if it weighs 1 ounce.

P.S. I thought Pyrodex was a 1:1 volume equivalent to black powder. It is less dense, but more energetic .

It’s close enough. Pound to a pint. Eight pounds to a gallon container forty to a five gallon keg. pyrodex is lighter per volume, about eighty grains in a hundred grain measure.

 

[Zonie]

Ok, I'm not going to measure an old Goex can. What if we weigh 1 fluid ounce (volume) of powder and see if it weighs 1 ounce.

P.S. I thought Pyrodex was a 1:1 volume equivalent to black powder. It is less dense, but more energetic .

Pyrodex is loaded with a 1 to 1 volume equivalent to black powder. Loaded this way it gives about the same amount of energy as the black powder load.
But, it is less dense. Density doesn't have anything to do with the amount of power Pyrodex makes.
Because Pyrodex is less dense, one cubic inch of it actually weighs less on a scale than one cubic inch of black powder weighs.
Put another way, one pound of it needs to have a bigger bottle to hold it than one pound of black powder needs.

 

[Carbon 6]

Gee guys, I forgot what we were originally trying to figure out ?

Were we comparing them to the weight or volume of water. I nodded off and am a bit groggy.

Put another way, one pound of it needs to have a bigger bottle to hold it than one pound of black powder needs.

If the volumes are the same, the same bottle can be used. That is exactly what Hodgedon does with Pyrodex and Goex, don't they ?

If the weight difference between Pyrodex and goex is 30% that means that goex would be 4.8 ounces less in volume. If the cans hold 28 ounces, and I estimates that pyrodex was filled to the 24 ounce mark and we subtract the 30% difference (4.8 ounce) that gives us 19.2 ounces.
Now you said;

If real black powder weighs about 252 grains per cubic inch (which I think it does), that can would hold 8568 grains of powder. Filled to the top, that would be 1.22 pounds of powder but remember, they don't fill these one pound of black powder cans up to the top.

If we multiply the 1.22 pounds by 16 ounces we get 19.52 ounces.
That is close enough for me to say that we agree.

Except for one thing, both of our calculations are more than 3 ounces more than the volume of water per pound. a difference of more than 1312 grains.

 

[longcruise]

All this math makes my head hurt!!