Funky Powder

[Many Klatch]

I was at a range yesterday with a bunch of friends shooting muzzleloaders. We had a couple of new guys with us and we were all having a good time. One of the guys had a nice custom made .32 caplock that should have been a real shooter. The problem was that the gun would NOT go off. With two of us helping him, of course we did eventually get it to go off and he would reload and the same thing would happen. We removed the nipple and poured in more of his 3F Pyrodex into the drum, we replaced the nipple and he still had very poor results. Even when it did go off it was with a "Pop" instead of a BANG.

After our final success in getting the gun to go off I had him load with my Goex 3F Holy Black instead of his 3F Pyrodex. The gun went off with a real bang and there was not a bit of hesitation.

In further conversation with him he said that his powder might have gotten damp as it was a bit clumpy. I told him that the best thing he could do with that batch of Pyrodex was to pour it onto the flowers. He really enjoyed shooting his rifle once we discovered that it liked real black powder.

He said that the can of powder was only about a year old. Can Pyrodex go bad that fast? I had no idea that Pyrodex would get to the point where it wouldn't even go off with a cap and 25 grains of Pyrodex would barely push a ball to the 25 yard line.

 

[mooman76]

If not stored properly, sure it could. I have Pyrodex that is 20 years old and still shoots fine.

 

[wayne terry]

It and all black powder is hygroscopic

 

[coloradoclyde]

Can Pyrodex go bad that fast?

YES! If stored or handled improperly.

Standard nipples are designed for use with real black powder. The “HOT SHOT’’ nipple was designed to offset ignition problems associated with BP substitutes. Modern muzzleloaders of the kind we don’t talk about even went to inline ignition and using 209 primers to compensate for this since they almost exclusively use substitutes.
I just open up the flash hole diameter of the nipple a little bit and it should solve your ignition problems using pyrodex..BUT! You got to keep your powder DRY!

 

[hanshi]

I beg to differ, Showtime. Black powder is NOT hygroscopic; only the fouling is hygroscopic. Guns have been found loaded for around a century and they still fired; and with no corrosion where the powder was located. Contrast that with a barrel fired and left for just a few weeks; it will be a sewer pipe. Pyrodex may be hygroscopic but black powder is not.

 

[azmntman]

I was given an OLD can of pyrodex by a buddy, its round and cardboard like. Works just fine even though there is a few clumps (I break em up and they shoot fine)?

However I just went to shoot my new never fired hawken Springfield and it did not like nothin but 3f goex so thats what I shall use (terrible hang fire with T7). Balls touching at 40 yds first time out with old store bought patches, should be a tack driver when i put the dutch method to work.

 

[wayne terry]

We will just have to agree to disagree;"Blackpowder is hygroscopic by nature; it attracts moisture. AS it breaks down it becomes more hygroscopic partly because of degraded kernal integrity"
Dr. Sam Fadala
Blackpowder Handbook 3rd edition revised
page 101

 

[hanshi]

Actually it doesn't "break down" unless exposed to water, not dampness, but water. And still, NO, it is not hygroscopic; only the fouling is.

 

[nit wit]

I bought a loaded fowling piece,loaded since around 1900(newspaper wadding). I unloaded it and put the powder in a pile. Took out a striker and struck one spark. Woof!
Nit Wit

 

[Flash Pan Dan]

According to The Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Vol. 11, No. II page 1032. Hansi is correct. And Mr. Fadala is quite wrong.

 

[coloradoclyde]

HMMM! :hmm: when I read it I thought it said that the potassium salts like all salts and properly made charcoal are hygroscopic.
I must have misread it. :idunno:

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

I was at a range yesterday with a bunch of friends shooting muzzleloaders. We had a couple of new guys with us and we were all having a good time. One of the guys had a nice custom made .32 caplock that should have been a real shooter. The problem was that the gun would NOT go off. With two of us helping him, of course we did eventually get it to go off and he would reload and the same thing would happen. We removed the nipple and poured in more of his 3F Pyrodex into the drum, we replaced the nipple and he still had very poor results. Even when it did go off it was with a "Pop" instead of a BANG.

After our final success in getting the gun to go off I had him load with my Goex 3F Holy Black instead of his 3F Pyrodex. The gun went off with a real bang and there was not a bit of hesitation.

In further conversation with him he said that his powder might have gotten damp as it was a bit clumpy. I told him that the best thing he could do with that batch of Pyrodex was to pour it onto the flowers. He really enjoyed shooting his rifle once we discovered that it liked real black powder.

He said that the can of powder was only about a year old. Can Pyrodex go bad that fast? I had no idea that Pyrodex would get to the point where it wouldn't even go off with a cap and 25 grains of Pyrodex would barely push a ball to the 25 yard line.

Now that we've all figured-out that Sam was NOT infallible, lol, let's chat for a minute about ignorance & cheapness causing problems such as we see & learn of here..... Using clumping powder--especially pyrodex--is a Newbie MISTAKE (ignorance) and reloading it AFTER with the SAME powder is just CRAZY askin' for trouble!

Pyrodex, if used & stored correctly, is fine for caplocks in good working order. Once allowed to clump, it becomes fertilizer for the garden. THE WHOLE POUND, not just the CLUMPS! We had a similar situation occur to one of our newer League shooters several years ago, using clumping, JUNK pyrodex with the exact same net effect! YES, pyrodex is hydroscopic (absorbs moisture) and looses its' ability to go BANG over time, even when stored correctly.

Submerged cannons have been recovered, found loaded, and FIRED after being submerged for over 100 years.....a water-tight seal is a GREAT way to ensure a gun will fire!

Glad you were able to properly diagnose the issue & supply the poor bastard with REAL powder so he could go BANG, lol!

Dave

 

[Many Klatch]

The shooter was 80 years old. This was apparently a new gun for him. He dry balled a couple of times, dropped things, and had a generally tough outing, but once we got him lined out and shooting black powder he had a smile a mile wide.

The only thing we really had to watch was his safety. He really wanted to cap at the loading bench and then swing the gun past all the other shooters on the way to the shooting line. I had to stop him from doing that several times.

 

[Britsmoothy]

The problem here was the nipple hole being to small. Been there done that, got the T-shirt. Opening the nipple fixes it.
The powder, black or p is not hygroscopic. No more than a sponge is! Will a sponge or those powders absorb liquid water? Sure, but not vapour, unless heated steam.
Their burnt residues how ever will absorb water vapour, the true meaning of hygroscopic.

The real issue here is the potential instant possible creation of a cavetated load by a hesitant pyrodex charge!

I am so glad I stopped using Pyrodex. It has probably done more to put people off using muzzleloaders than anything else!

 

[Dr5x]

From what I have heard mr. Fadala was frequently wrong.

I read everything from The Muzzeloading Caplock Rifle on down and nowhere did nyone spell out how to make a rifle accurate.You got the history of muzzle loading, the different types of ignition systems, descriptions of rifles, lectures on cleaning etc and etc.
Noting on how to make a rifle shoot accurately.

Fadala was cricized by some folks in the '80's for promoting things without trying them but

His books still sell on Amazon

Follow at your own risk.

Dutch

 

[coloradoclyde]

Ok ! I got tired of arguing, so I called Hodgon powder co. and talked to one of their technicians (very nice fellow).
Hodgon is the maker of Pyrodex and Goex.
I asked him if Pyrodex and Black powder were hygrosopic.
He said “YES! All pyrotechnic powders are hygroscopic, BP or substitute it doesn’t matter there is no such thing as a non-hygroscopic pyrotechnic compound.”
Straight from the horses mouth.
:v

 

[wayne terry]

:thumbsup: :hatsoff:

 

[mooman76]

Black powder is mix wet and then dried. It can be mixed with water or alcohol when made before drying so I see no reason if it gets wet that is cannot be dried again and used. Pyrodex on the other hand I don't know about if you can do the same.

 

[Rifleman1776]

It and all black powder is hygroscopic

Not so. :shake: BP is basically inert. Until ignited it just sets there doing nothing.
The residue from burnt bp is very hygroscopic. Clean powder in a dirty rifle will act like a moisture magnet, but that is not the fault of the bp.

 

[Rifleman1776]

He is wrong about bp. And many genuine experts before him have written on the subject. Test it yourself. Put some bp in an open container and leave setting in your bathroom for a period of time. (the most humid room in a house) It will not get funky or clumpy.