Smokeless powder

[dmoreno]

I am new to all this so bear with me. I have repeatedly heard that one should never use smokeless powder in a muzzleloader. The reason given is that smokeless powder is so much more volatile and would destroy the weapon. My question is, if it is so much more powerful than black powder, why can't one just use a proportionally smaller load.
This is of course just a theoretical question. I have no intention of trying to use it.
I still don't have a muzzleloader yet but i've been dreaming of that Pedersoli Kentucky.

 

[Jblk]

The preasure created by smokeless powder burning has a different rate than blackpowder.Most of the weapons designed for blackpowder are not capable of holding this rapid preasure increase and something gives.Many of the hunters learned the hard way by using smokeless powder in their old shotguns and lost their hands or parts of the hand.DO NOT under any circumstances use smokeless powder in any weapon designed to use black powder.

 

[bwhoffman]

DO NOT under any circumstances use smokeless powder in any weapon designed to use black powder.

In so much that we dont even talk about it here!

There is a reason that modern made muzzle loading guns have "BLACK POWDER ONLY" stamped into the barrel.

 

[Dave K]

Great questions that needs an answer. Everyone will tell you that you need to read the manual, but that doesn't answer the question. One of the answers is that on a smokeless powder gun, the breech is sealed. There is no vent or nipple in which the ignited gases can escape, so this is good for the operator. Another is that smokeless creates much higher pressures than BP. There are many more answers I am sure. I hope they will be addressed here. I feel it is very important to know why a reduced charge would not work. I received the same "no" answers, when I asked this here years ago as well. I am the type of guy that looks for answers, just not a "take my word" for it.

 

[roundball]

Plus...there's even another reason beyond safety.
If I'm making a move away from modern firearms, powder, ammo, etc...to the old ways of doing things, ie: learning to use traditional forms of muzzleloading, I wouldn't WANT to use modern smokeless powders

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Black powder is wonderful stuff. It always behaves in a totally predictable manner. Increase the charge or reduce the charge by 10%, 20%, 30% and you'll always get the results expected.
Smokeless powder does not so behave. It operates efficiently only within a rather narrow range of pressure. A one grain increase in powder may produce a very dramatic increase in pressure while a one grain reduction in powder may reduce pressure so much that it doesn't burn at all. That is why there are several dozen different types of smokeless powder produced, many different powders are required to serve the various needs in rifle, pistol and shotguns. Good old blackpowder can do it all, so long as one accepts rather mundane velocities
Every gun shop has shelves full of manuals for reloading smokeless powder. Those manuals are absolutely necessary because safe and effective smokeless powder loads can be developed only in a well equipped laboratory. If you have access to such a laboratory you probably could develop a safe smokeless powder load for your ML rifle but it would require weighed charges exactly as specified and the load developed for one firearm would not be applicable to any other.
Savage did produce a muzzleloader for use with smokeless powder. It was based on their very strong and safe model 110 centerfire action. There have been several of those very strong and fully enclosed actions totally wrecked by a slight overcharge or by substitutions of the wrong powder, or by some unexplained phenomenom. It is very dangerous to go experimenting on one's own even with modern firearms designed for smokeless powder and vastly more dangerous to play around with smokeless in a muzzleloader. Even when working with "book loads" in modern firearms one must start light and work up charges in small increments, sometimes 1/10 of a grain. One "reads" the cartridge case for signs of excessive pressure such as sticky extraction, flattened primers and case head expansion, warning signs that pressures are becoming questionable and one should back off. The muzzleloader gives no such signs, one has no way of knowing if the shot fired produced 5,000 PSI or 50,000 PSI, no warning before she blows!

 

[dmoreno]

Thanks all for your replies. As I said, this is strictly a theoretical question on my part. For me, questioning is a good way to learn.

 

[musketman]

Thanks all for your replies. As I said, this is strictly a theoretical question on my part. For me, questioning is a good way to learn.

It is a question that is worth asking and it could help save someone from trying it for themselves, but were was hesitant to ask.

Lets say (hypothetically speaking), that you do have a muzzleloader barrel that is strong enough to withstand the high pressures of smokeless gunpowder.

That doesn't mean that the ignition system used to set it off is able to withstand the pressure. As you know, a modern cartridge is an enclosed system surrounded by lots of steel, the nipple of the percussion gun has only it's threads along with the spring force of the hammer to hold back the gasses created by the black powder going off.

Now with the higher pressures generated by the smokeless powder, that same nipple (and hammer) become projectiles themselves and the closest target for them is in fact the shooter's face.

I don't mean to be so blunt, but purposely putting yourself at risk with a potential pipe bomb isn't worth any experimentations in my book. I am glad that this was just a thought experiment and nothing more.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

CoyoteJoe has it fairly well nailed, I will add that smokeless powder comes in many different burning rates somewhat determined by the shape of the grain. it's practically impossible to select the appropiate smokeless powder that would be safe in a muzzle-loader even with very low-power charges.
some older cartridge guns were first loaded with BP then later with smokeless (.45 Colt, .45-70, .30-30 etc) but a type of the new smokeless was carefully selected and testing was done to ascertain safe operation.

 

[arcticap]

There is a British company that makes a Remington New Army & Ruger Old Army based Cal. 38 Nitro Conversion that uses smokeless powder.
It's designed to shoot .38 wadcutter bullets which are rammed into the cylinder just like with any other standard cap & ball revolver.

The conversion consists of a new Two part Stainless Steel cylinder. The front part has a forward chamber for the bullet with a reduced diameter for the Nitro powder charge. A small flash hole is drilled into the rear primer pocket, which takes a Shotgun Primer. Current production cylinders have longditudinal lightening flutes as shown on the Ruger below. The rear section is keyed onto the front part by two dowel pins and has a firing pin for each cylinder and the ratchet cut into the rear face

http://westlakeengineering.com/4640/4694.html

 

[DanChamberlain]

Don't forget, another weak component to the flint or percussion guns, is the vent or the nipple. Neither of these components are able to resist the pressures even a moderate smokeless load would generate. If the barrel steel held, there's no guarantee the vent or the nipple wouldn't become projectiles.

Dan

 

[Otter]

As one sage shooter said to me once upon a time - "Smokeless powder is just a passing fad."

 

[F.G. Ford]

Hi Davey,
Welcome to the site!
The best way to respond to a question, regarding smokeless powder in a traditional muzzleloader is,
You, a part of you, or somebody near-by to you, is going to die or be injured. :nono:
Wise words from, Three Fingered Sam
Best Regards
Old Ford

 

[roundball]

A picture is worth 1000 words...smokeless powder in a T/C caplock:

 

[davemcg]

Please tell me that was done intentionally under controlled conditions i.e. (rifle well clamped and a long piece of string to pull the trigger, with no bystnaders inthe area) inorder to prove a point.
Please tell me that.

 

[roundball]

:hmm: I kind of doubt it...I wonder if the breechplug is in the guys head or something...its not in the picture

 

[ohio ramrod]

You can compare the two powders as black powder "pushes" the ball/shot. Smokeless powder "explodes" the ball/shot. The breach pressures of smokeless powders is approximately 4 to 6 times that of black powders. This is why the military still uses black powder in the large 16 inch navel guns etc. Black powder burns slower and pushes the projectile rather than "exploding " it out the barrel.

 

[10 gauge]

In the 40s and 50s my father used many pounds of smokeless powder in his muzzle loader. This powder was made by Dupont and it was called "BULK POWDER" This powder has not been around in many years, it was used volume for volume like BP.
Today Savage Arms makes an inline ML that will take smokeless powder.
To answer your question though, not any other manufacture other than Savage Arms will offer a smokeless ML due to liability reasons. There is just to many chances for this mixture to become very dangerous.
ML + smokeless powder + human error = "FATALITY"

 

[Zonie]

As was mentioned, black powder is an explosive which has a rather predictable burn rate and somewhat limited power. This is not to say that overloads are safe in a muzzleloader but a person has to work at it to get pressures that will blow up a well made gun.
After a fair breech pressure is reached the burn rate stays fairly constant. The one variable is the granulation size with fine grain powders producing higher pressures than the course grain powders.
This is the reason we can measure by volume and if we use a little caution we will have safe loads in our muzzleloaders.

Smokeless powder on the other hand has a burn rate that is totally dependent on the breech pressure.
A small change in this pressure greatly changes how fast the stuff burns.
Of course, the faster it burns, the quicker and higher the breech pressure becomes. It is a vicious circle.
This is the reason that when loading smokeless powder a smart person will measure the load down to the 1/10 of a grains weight.
A change of 3 to 4 tenths of a grain can change a nice working good shooting cartridge into a potential bomb.

If you have access to some smokeless powder and place it on a steel plate and light it it will burn so slowly that it may take a second or more for a little pile to finish burning.
Because of this if there is too small of a load of smokeless powder the small breech pressure may not be enough to even move the ball.

Now, when this sort of thing is placed in an "open breech" gun like our percussion or flintlocks the escaping gas can cause this slow burn even with a moderate amount of powder.
The problem is, if the pressure starts to "spike" for any reason at all, suddenly the smokeless powder will develop a tremendous amount of pressure which as said above will make the remaining unburned powder light and burn even faster.
I may be wrong but I believe that in addition to the high strength steels Savage used in their abomination they also used a modern rifle or shotgun primer to control the leakage and thereby control the speed that the smokeless powder burns.

Add to the above the fact that the steels our muzzleloaders are made of are among the weakest available. These weak steels work fine with black powder but with sudden extreme pressures like smokeless powder can make they will easily explode.

 

[DanChamberlain]

No wonder that gun blew up...The barrel's upside down!

By the way, the hooked tang is still in the stock, so it appears the patent breech did not go straight back. That's a miracle in itself. A waste of a good gun.

Dan