3A Powder?

According to this article, a 1:3 combination of 3A and G12 (FG) powder produces the best muzzle velocities. What's 3A powder? I found a PDF referring to 'A3' powder as a 'special purposes' grade, but if I wanted to replicate this experiment's conditions, where would I get the powder?

I guess it might help us if we knew what article you are referring to...do you have a link?

That said, I did a little searching and it looks like the A grades are blasting powders??? I don't see 3A or A3 on this chart, but this shows comparisons between Sporting Grades and Blasting Grades.

Spikebuck said:

I guess it might help us if we knew what article you are referring to...do you have a link?

That said, I did a little searching and it looks like the A grades are blasting powders??? I don't see 3A or A3 on this chart, but this shows comparisons between Sporting Grades and Blasting Grades.

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It was linked; click the word 'this' in the first line. it's the first one in the pdf.

It's an interesting article but I'm not keen on them simply claiming, "Once the likely muzzle velocity of 1500 fps (457.2 m/s) was identified through the use of data from historical sources,..." I for one would really like to know how they got that figure for muzzle velocity.

LD

Loyalist Dave said:

It's an interesting article but I'm not keen on them simply claiming, "Once the likely muzzle velocity of 1500 fps (457.2 m/s) was identified through the use of data from historical sources,..." I for one would really like to know how they got that figure for muzzle velocity.

LD

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Benjamin Robins tested the velocity of bullets and wrote the results down in his 1742 book New Principles of Gunnery.

OK that's one "source"....did THEY use it? Was that all they used? "sources", plural, was what they wrote....


LD

Loyalist Dave said:

OK that's one "source"....did THEY use it? Was that all they used? "sources", plural, was what they wrote....


LD

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Also A. Mordecai's 1845 Report of Experiment on Gunpowder. Both are cited in the article.

Two sources a century apart is a bit much to try to use as determination sources for powder effectiveness .....
I question all of this because they conclude that powder was more powerful in the past, when the ingredients were much less pure....

LD

Loyalist Dave said:

Two sources a century apart is a bit much to try to use as determination sources for powder effectiveness .....
I question all of this because they conclude that powder was more powerful in the past, when the ingredients were much less pure....

LD

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Charles Hutton's work from 1783-1791 corroborated Robins's, and Euler used Robins's work as a foundation he expanded upon. J.G. Benton's 1862 textbook backed up Mordecai's research as well. The ingredients weren't noticeably less 'pure' in the 18th century, the difference was that the grain sizes were less uniform, which this test demonstrates actually increases strength. Modern commercial powder kinda has to be weaker, since it needs to function in a wide variety of firearms, some of which are less robust than others.