what pan powder do you use?

I often use 4F in a brass "thingy" that puts about 3 grains in the pan. This is fine for all my locks except for the really big ones. For them at least two pushes are needed for the large pan.

My brass pan primers do not properly dispense 3fg powder. The grains are too large to pass through the valve. Those pan primers are for 4fg or finer powder. So yes, I admit I usually use 4fg powder in my pan at the range. 2fg or larger goes into the pan of the Bess, 3fg in the Deringer and 1803. What suits my fancy for all the others.

Interesting thread. I have always used 4F but in a pinch (forgot primer container) I have used 2F from horn without an issue. It may be the gun and the builder (Allen Martin) as this rifle has never failed to fire. Cows Knee always used in wet weather and priming swapped out as needed. As noted from others I purchased 4F a number of years ago and still have enough to last for my hunting life time.

steam1993 said:

After reading all the comments, I have one QUESTION? What did they use in the old days, when all you had was flint locks. I can not see the military carrying 2 grades of powder, or even the pioneers out in the frontier.

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Most sketches of the pioneers, mountain man, and colonists commonly had a "standard" complement of two powder horns.
A large one for the main charge of the arm, and a significantly smaller/shorter one for the priming powder.

The military used paper cartridges. They did not normally load from a horn (or horns).
I've seen some at reeinactments close the frizzen and slap the stock to move some of the powder dust and broken powder granules from the breach into the pan. Allegedly that was faster than priming the pan with FFFFg.
Those I saw doing that did not have misfires from what I saw.

I have always used meal-d, which does not seem to be available any more. (I have read that it is the same as null-b, but as I have never tried null-b, I don't know.) At any rate, meal-d appears to be uncoated powder with an almost dust-like consistency. In my very dry part of the world, it allows tremendous reliability in even poorly-made locks.

3fg. Never have a problem, flows fine through my dispenser, fast ignition. TVM southern rifle in .45 cal.

what is meal-d and null-b? I have never heard of either one.

Swiss 4f. 1lb will last as long as I do. I have primed with Swiss 3f and it worked fine. Of our 3 flintlocks(.50 & .54 cal rifles and a .62 cal pistol) I generally shoot 2f and prime with 4f.

Null B is not the good appellation for the FFFFg, the Swiss 4Fg is the Swiss N°1 and only the primer only have the name of OB the granulation is minder than 4Fg (fuse powder)...
I personally don't like the OB: too sensitive and very expensive. The type of thing that nobody needs but that everybody must have in stock to be considered as real "BP Shooter"...
- http://www.blackpowder.ch/powder/shooting-powder
- http://www.blackpowder.ch/powder/fuse-powder-ob

Here are the Swiss powders (N)1 etc) and the french powder are all the "PNF" and the other are Swiss BP:

ugly old guy said:

Most sketches of the pioneers, mountain man, and colonists commonly had a "standard" complement of two powder horns.
A large one for the main charge of the arm, and a significantly smaller/shorter one for the priming powder.

The military used paper cartridges. They did not normally load from a horn (or horns).
I've seen some at reeinactments close the frizzen and slap the stock to move some of the powder dust and broken powder granules from the breach into the pan. Allegedly that was faster than priming the pan with FFFFg.
Those I saw doing that did not have misfires from what I saw.

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Can you point to some of these I’ve only seen one horn. The only contemporary drawing I can think of that show a priming flax is Military match lock shooters. They loaded from ‘apostle’, wooden tubes full of premesured chargers. They Would load and then prime with flask.

toot said:

what is meal-d and null-b? I have never heard of either one.

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Null-B is a Swiss powder meant just for priming flintlocks. According to an article in Muzzleblasts "This powder is reputed to be the tailings (sweepings) left from production runs of the other grades of Swiss." The same article contained a write-up of some testing they did with a few brands of powder (including Swiss FFFFg) which found that Null-B had the fastest ignition by a small margin.

Per Wikipedia, "Meal powder is the fine dust left over when black powder (gunpowder) is corned and screened..." so perhaps it is the same as Null-B. I ordered two pounds from Goex many years ago and am not close to finished with the first pound, so don't anticipate ever needing more. I see that the Goex website claims they still manufacture three types of meal powder (Meal D, Fine Meal, and Extra Fine Meal - I do not know the difference between the three and cannot find further info) but cannot find any online source for it. From what I can tell it appears to be primarily a fireworks powder. The only other thing I have found is Wano Meal-D from a place calling themselves "Crater Fireworks".

I live 45 minutes from the NMLRA in Friendship, IN and hunt 10min from there. I'm a member, so I can go buy real black powder easily. They have a compliant powder magazine and stock a bunch: swiss, Goex, Schutzen, Old Enysford, etc in all granulations I asked what's their best priming powder, said 4f Swiss, so that's what I bought.

I say all this because, if there was something SIGNIFICANTLY better than 4f Swiss, I'm certain they'd sell it. The best muzzleloaders in the world compete there twice a year.

Here is a link to the test comparing Swiss 4f and Swiss Null-B, among others.

https://www.blackpowdermag.com/priming-powder-timing/

As I mentioned, the Null-B is slightly faster, and both are much (relatively speaking) faster than 2f. It is interesting to note, though, that the author could not tell the difference between the very fastest and the very slowest using only his senses. That has been my experience as well. My primary reason for using Meal-D is that it ignites much more easily than any "f" powder I have tried. This probably makes no difference to people using best-quality flintlocks, but not all of mine fall into that category, and Meal-D allows those guns to work reliably.

The author of the article in the link you provided is a member of our forum. He goes by the name Pletch here.

If there are any questions about what he wrote, I'm sure he will be more than happy to answer them here.

olskool said:

I was shooting my 62cal. jaeger flintlock today. I normally use 4f goex to prime it, I shoot 2f goex olde eynsford. today I tried the 2f in the pan. I did years ago but forgot the results. I also primed with the 4f for comparison. I could tell no difference at all in ignition, it was instant with both. I also use 3f to prime in my 40 and to shoot it with. what are yall's thoughts on the matter,,,,,,,,,,,,

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ABOUT 20 OR MAYBE 25 YEARS AGO A BUNCH OF RIFLEMEN IN THEWASHINGTON/OREGON AREA TOOK UP THIS PAN POWDER QUESTION AND DID A BUNCH OF
TESTS AND ALL CAME TO THE SAME CONCLUSION WHICH WAS IT MADE NO DIFFERENCE 4FFFF OR 2FF THE IGNITION SPEED SEEMED THESAME. THE OPERATIVE WORD HERE IS "SEEMED'/
AS FAR S I AM CONCERNED THE WORLD'S XPET ON FLINTLOCKS AND THEIR SPEEP OF IGNITION IS LARRY PLETCHER WH HAS DEVOTED YEARS OF STUDY WITH ALL SORTS OF QUIPMENT TO HELP IN HIS PRECISION WORK.

I HAVE AREFERENCE TO HIM WITH WEB SITE IN MY BOOK BUT CAN NO LONGER READ IT.
IF YOU HVE AND LOVE YOUR FLINTLOCK YOU WILL DO YOURSELF A LOT OF GOOD BY CHECKING LARRY AND HISWEB SITE OUT.IF YO LOVE SOMETHING YOU SHOULD LEARN AS MUCH S POSSIBLE ABOUT HER. THIS ILLUMINATE AND PREVNT SRPRISES.
DUTCH WHO HAD A SPECIAL SMALL POWDER HOLDE IN THE SHAPE OF A WEE FISH WITH A SPECIAL SPOUT THAT DROPPED JUST THE RIGHT MOUNT OF POWDER INTO THE PAN
BEING SOMETHING OF A CHEAP SOUL WHO DIDN'T WANT A WHOLE POIND OF THE VERY FINE GRAIN PN POWDER I GROUNF SOME 2FF IN A SHOT GLASS IN A SORT OF MORTAR AND PESTLE SETUP THAT GAVE ME VER FINE GRAINED POWDER THAT DID NOTHIGSPEED MY IGNITION.
IF YOU HAVE NEVER FIRED A FLINTLOCK IN HE DARK YOU RELLY HAVE NO IDEAWHAT HAPPENS.
IN THE DAYLIGHT YOU SEE A WEE FLASH BUT AT NIGHT YOU SEE A BALLOON OF FLAME. THE ACTUAL FLASH. ABOUT THE SIZE OF A BASKETBALL OR SO DEPENDING ON THE MOUNT OF POWDER YOU EMPLOY. IT IS THTHAT FLASH THAT FLIES INTO THE TOUCH HOLE AREA AND INTO THEIGNITION CHANNEL TO LIGHT YOUR MAIN CHARGE.
BEGINNING FLINTLOCKERS. ME INCLUDED YEARS AGO. THINKTO SPEED THE PROCESS BY FORCING SOME PAN POWDER DOWN THE IGNITION CHANNEL AND HEAP LITTLE MORE OVER THE TOUCH HOLE OPENING. THIS WORKS AGAINST YOU AS IT BLOCKS THAT PAN FLASH FROM RACING DOWN THE IGNITION CHANNEL AND ACTUALLY TURNS ALL THAT LOVING ATTENTIONINTO A WICK THAT HAS TO BURN ITS WAY THROUGH THE HEAP IN THE POEDER PAN AND IN THE CHANNEL BEFORE IT IGNITES TGE MAIN.
THEY BOTH WILL CAUSE THE BANG AND THE DELICIOUS SMOKE BUT WHILE WAIT FO THE HEP AND HE WICK TO BURN THROUGH YOUR MUZLE IS WANDERING ALL OVER THE PLACE.
RIGHT NOW, IF ITS DARK. DON'T LOAD YOUR FLINTER. CHARGE YOUR PAN AND DRY FIRE. YOU'LL WONDER WHY YOU STILL HAVE A NOSE LRFT. GET SOMEONE ELSE TO RUN THAT TEST FO WHILE YOU STAND TO THE SIDE.YOU BE VERY IMPRESSED BY THAT BALL OF PURE FLASH.
IN WWII OF WHICH YOU MAY HAVE HEARD.AFTER SOME OF THE SEA BATTLES IN AND ROND GUADALCANAL THEY FOUND A LOT OF SAILORS, I AM TOLD, QUITE DED BUT WITH NO WOUNDS. THEY HAD BEEN KILLED BY THE FLASH OFEXPLODING SHELS. THIS LAST IS HEARSAY AND NOT BASED ON MY OWN EXPERIENCE, THANK GOD.
IN ALL RIFLE ACTIONS A LOT DEPENDS ON TINY DETAILS. WITH FLINTLOCKS SOME OF THE DETAILS GET EVEN SMALLER.

DUTCH

well the way I look at it is if you have to measure the difference in ignition speed of different powders with high speed photography to see the difference, it just don't matter in the real world. I was shooting my 40 mountain rifle yesterday with 3f and priming with the same and ignition was faster than lightning. looks like I have a pound of 4F I won't use in my lifetime,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

hey guys, thanks' for getting back to my queries. never knew this type of granulating ever existed.

In fact the OB is the best not for all but it is very expansive for a single primer. The OB is very sensitive et works good wit a tired flint when the 4Fg can't start.
Other way, and if this is also the best one, a good 4Fg is not really different for the shooter: the little short time of ignition is too short to feel this when shooting.
The best I had find (only for me) is the mix PNF4P (french primer 5Fg) and Swiss N°2. The PNF4P is a bit more sensitive than the swiss N°1 (4Fg) and works with all the other powder granulations.
Just take note that I mostly shoot .45 caliber so the powders and bullets are almost the same for 50 and 100 yards, it could (perhaps) be different for hunting, but .45 cal. for rabbit hunting and exceptionally a wild boar or roebuck.... bofff, bofff...

Anyway, the battle between the OB and the 5Fg or 4Fg isn't finished...

The link listed by .44... is mine. if you are one of those guys who saves his old issues of MuzzleBlasts, the article first was published in the April 2005 issue. I started timing locks in 1980s at the Bowling Green Seminar.

I was interested in timing powders when Swiss powders became available. I bought Swiss NullB and Swiss ffffg at Friendship. I had all the grain sizes of Goex at home. I started with the generalization that the larger the grain, the slower it would ignite. That is still a reasonable starting point.

The biggest problem with this type of work is eliminating variables, with spark production being the largest one. If one spark will ignite the pan, it is not hard to realize that 15 sparks will build to the ignition point a lot faster. To eliminate this problem, I ignited the pan with a red hot copper wire. Each trial got the same start. I used 20 trials of each powder type and found the average. I'll not tell the whole story here but NullB had the fastest average with Swiss ffffg a close second.

In real world shooting I cannot tell the differences except when shooting cannon grade. And I obviously don't choose cannon grade for normal shooting. I do use NullB for priming because I need all the help i can get. Also if you notice a hang fire, the ignition time is much slower than normal. Maybe a pan with 1-2 sparks instead of 15+. Ignition times continue to slow as the flint edge wears, even if you cannot feel it in the rifle. While I haven't tried this, I believe if one installed a new flint and timed every trial until it would not work, there would be a gradual slowing of times. There are exceptions to this when a flint shard breaks off and exposes a fresh sharp edge. But, by and large, ignition times are gradually slowing even if human senses cannot tell.
All this and 50 cents used to buy a coke - not sure now.
I would encourage you to read the article. There are also some slow motion videos of locks igniting at 5000 frames/second.

Regards,
Pletch

Just a precision because it is too late for editing:

When I wrote: "The best I had find (only for me) is the mix PNF4P (french primer 5Fg) and Swiss N°2" that means that the PNF4P is used like primer only and the Swiss N°2 for the charge and not a mix of them together...
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Congratulations to Larry Pletcher for the article and the videos, I know this place for few years an I many times read what is writen there.

Thanks to him for the good work useful to the community.

Erwan.