Black Powder vs Smokeless

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Bump with pic of the revolver that's coming in

>mfw it's considered a "primitive weapon"
>no FFL required

>>31539794
No matter how much less smokeless powder you use, the pressure curves will be different. The gun was engineered to work with black powder so you should probably stick with it if you want to keep your eyeballs/fingers. If you want to shoot smokeless, buy a gun meant to shoot smokeless. If you're going to go ahead and do it anyways, post results.

>>31539794
What blackpowder and waht smokeless? There are multiple kinds of both.

>>31539794
ABSOLUTELY NOT INTERCHANGEABLE.

That being said, you don't want to use real "black powder" either. You want something like Pyrodex. Much easier to use, much more consistent, and way less fouling, smoke, and residue.

Pressures of smokeless powder is far and away too much for old-style muzzle-loaders, even made with modern alloys and manufacturing techniques.

To help put this in perspective, .38 Special is derived from a black powder heritage is a low pressure round, and one of the lowest still being made regularly, with a chamber pressure of 17,000psi.

.380 ACP has a chamber pressure of 21,500 psi .

Pressure in black powder guns is measured in Lead Units of Pressure since there is no brass case for the bullet to work with. You can't convert the 2 units back and forth either, really either.

From the Lyman manual: shooting a .44cal model 1860 w/ 8" barrel:
Using Gearhart Owen FFFFg black powder
.451 Roundball, using 37 grains if powder -- 7420 LUP -- 960 FPS max safe load.

>>31539794
That's not how any of that works.

>>31539794
Well your wrong.


But do it any way and enjoy you hand grenade.

>>31539997
>pressure curves
An interesting thought. Ill look into it a bit more, get a feel for the black powder itself, and when i get the chance, a bit of testing myself. Start with, say, 20% smokeless compared to recommended BP, depending on what the internet says about energy

Then slowly increase it until i get reasonable results?

The thing with a different pressure curve is you'll still have max pressure on that curve, so using grains below the never exceed pressure should, worst case, result in lower velocity rounds

>>31540103

Explosion eminent.

>>31540047
>pressures of smokeless powder
>too much
So you're telling me a single grain of smokeless will turn a bp revolver into a glock? I get they're higher pressure but there WILL be a middle ground between a single grain and too much pressure.

>>31540141
Ignore the idiots saying the pressure is too high or the curves are different.
Every cartridge company out there offers smokoelss loads for BP cartridges.This has been done for over a century. Likewise smokeless muzzle loaders are nothing new.
As long as you know that you can;t simply fill the scoop with powder and dump in you're fine. This is exactly like reloading for regular smokeless rounds. You wouldn't substitute 75 grains of Unique instead of 75 of RL25 so don't use the same volume of random smokelss to replace the BP.
For a BP revolver you're looking in the 2-2.5 grain range of Unique.

>>31539794
Do not fuck around with mixing powders. You will fuck up your gun at the least. You will probably lose some fingers, maybe a hand. You'll burn the shit out of your upper body. You will very likely set your clothes on fire.

Do not fuck around mixing and matching powders.

>>31540057
Kek

Surprisingly relevant:

https://youtu.be/Q_XNWeMqCT0

sure are a lot of nobooks in this thread

If you want a very expensive, pretty looking pipe bomb, and have the money to afford dozens of reconstructive surgeries...
Sure, go ahead and use smokeless.

https://youtu.be/en384qVqrug

>>31539794
What I don't get is why ask the question if you're hell bent on doing it despite our warnings not to?

I was just looking this up this last week smokeless powder is usually around 3x's as powerful as blackpowder.
It would seem reasonable that you could just use less of it and get less bang but they're made out of very different reacting chemicals.
Smokeless powder when it ignites makes something closer to a small explosion to create gas while blackpowder burns to create the gas. It's apples and oranges, if you want apple juice use apples unless you find the info in a reloading book. The pressure from smokeless even for a comparable boom will create a bigger pressure spike from the nature of how it reacts. There's a reason why people didn't just load up their blackpowder built guns with smokeless and not have them explode otherwise people would of done it more often the metal from older guns was probably inferior in basic tolerance deviations than industrial stuff that has had a lot of refined industrial processing techniques going on for practically dozens of decades at this point.

>>31540257
>Ignore the idiots saying the pressure is too high or the curves are different.
Ok your barrel is a metal pipe, you put 2 grains of smokeless in there and you can get something like 10k psi (making these numbers up) it doesn't mean you're going to get an equal amount of acceleration to the projectile at 10k psi of black powder. The pressure being made isn't equal between the two things there is a bigger pressure spike from smokeless. Your barrel/pipe has a tolerance about how much force it's going to take before it gives out, smokeless powder has the some of the same ingredients used to blast rocks and alloys apart you watch too many movies set in the Renaissance or prerenaissance where people use black powder to blow shit up like sticks of dynamite to storm the castle.

>>31539794
Don't put smokeless powder in a black powder gun. If you do it anyway post pics.

>>31539794
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

>>31539794
bullseye is roughly equal to black powder. just fill the cylinder up all the way and have fun!

>>31541543
Because most of your warnings are fuddlore. Half of you are saying it's doable within reason, the other half are all no never ever ever not even one grain

>>31543456
Oh no one said it wasn't doable. We're all saying if this guy is asking for advice on 4chan about it it's way above his level.

>>31540141
The problem isn't just peak pressure, but how long it takes to get there. Smokeless powder burns much faster than black powder. It would expend the "safe" amount of energy very quickly and you'd end up with a very slow projectile in a best case scenario. Or you could reach unsafe pressure before the ball even leaves the chamber and create a pipebomb.

>>31543498
OP here, i outlined this in >>31540103

>>31540103
>Start with, say, 20% smokeless compared to recommended BP,
The flare from the primer is going to shoot across the powder, light the entire top of the load at once, your pressure is going to spike way too fast and you're going to lose your revolver and probably your hand.

Use what your gun was meant to shoot, there's a reason for it.

>>31541407
They could have started out with a weak load of slow burning rifle powder, but they just tried to blow it up right away. If anything, this proves that SOME undetermined amount of smokeless powder is safe to use in this specific brand of muzzleloader.

>>31539794
I haven't read any of this thread but if you knowingly load smokeless into a black powder firearm you deserve the inevitable catastrophic failure. In short, fuck no are you crazy?

>>31539794
I'm just here for cool science bullshit.

>>31540257
While there are smokeless loads for every black powder cartridge, it's possible in a cartridge to not have the projectile right against the powder/wadding when loading. In a muzzleloader, you push the bullet down yourself so you'd have to ram the bullet down, close to the powder but with a gap like how you're not supposed to have it.

>>31539794
>What is burn rate

>>31540047
You do know that brass cartridges were invented BEFORE smokeless powder, right?

>>31541668
Other way around. BP detonates, smokeless powder deflagrates.

>>31540257
>Every cartridge company out there offers smokoelss loads for BP cartridges.This has been done for over a century. Likewise smokeless muzzle loaders are nothing new.

Smokless load goes in smokless weapon, BP load goes in BP weapon. Brass expands, it's up the weapon chamber's to withstand the pressure.

You must not load smokless powder into a BP gun, whether it's chambered for brass cartridge or not.

>>31546596
Point being that BP sets off a one time detonation happening instantly. Smokeless powder builds pressure as it burns.

I've done it. Once. I know what I'm doing, and I wouldn't recommend it.

>>31539794
No no NO...do NOT use smokeless under any circumstance.

You are going to fucking injure yourself and destroy your gun.

>>31543961
>>What is burn rate
This, OP. Every smokeless powder has a different burn rate which results in different pressure loads over time.
Look at this page: http://www.reloadersnest.com/burnrates.asp Its a list of burn rates of 266 different smokeless powders.

Shotgun ammo uses the fastest burning powders, usually number 80 or less. Pistols use fast to medium powders, 1-120. Rifles use slower burning powders, 75+. Rifles need a slower burning powder to provide pressure for a longer time to help propel the bullets down longer barrels.

>>31546596
>>31546611
What? Smokeless should burn FASTER, not slower

>>31549410

You are reading it wrong, Smokeless burns.


Black powder explodes.

>>31549562
black powder does not explode, it burns rapidly. Much faster than smokeless. The difference between smokeless and black powder is that smokeless is slower burning with a higher gas/solid production ratio than black powder. BP burns fast, but has less gas production/expansion per unit solid than the smokeless.

>>31549663

While you are right, to make it easier to understand for most who don't understand the difference its easier to say explodes versus burns. Though a caveat could be added that the explosion has less force than the burning of the smokeless.

>>31549918
It does not make sense nor does it make it easier to understand by telling people that it explodes. That is just disinformation and fails to educate the uneducated on the topic.

>>31549969

detonation includes the shockwave propogation.

no idea if BP actually explodes. just saying.

>>31546432
>>31546432
Seriously- thinking that BP and smokeless are not compatible shows how little understanding you have of firearms.
Turn in your man card and delete your 4chins acount.

>>31539921
Don't they have cylinder conversions for smokeless powder? Or was that only paper to brass rounds?

>>31540530
>I won't talk about the type or amount of powder used because I don't want to give anyone ideas
I fucking hate this 'knowledge is dangerous' mentality.

Fuck off ISIS

>>31543849
The spike is irrelevant and has been proven to be, steel isn't a fucking non Newtonion fluid, if it can take a pressure over a period of a couple milliseconds longer it can take it in a couple milliseconds shorter.

>>31550966
Saw something that it might of been Universal.
So about 25 grains in a cylinder when 5 would be in the higher end. No shit it blew up.
Overload anything and it will blow.
Different powders use different loads.
If you are to believe the brain trust here ranting about pressures and burn rates my .303 is a pipe bomb beciuse I use 7 grains of pistol powder instead of packing it full of slow burning 4198.

>>31550993
This. Max pressures are max pressures. How quickly the pressure changes is completely irrelevant in terms of structural stability

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Just make a holding device for the revolver and use a string to fire it. That way you can do your experiments and break your shit without going to a hospital.

It might work. Post results.

>>31540103
Please live stream yourself doing this. The internet needs this after this shitty election.
>live stream because you won't survive long enough to post it here...

>>31550993
>>31551605
This is incorrect. Rate of loading absolutely affects the maximum load able to be withstood.
Consider hard plate body armor - if you have researched what is needed for penetration of hard plate armor, you will notice that a heavy projectile (say, 77 gr, 5.56mm) from standard rifle and standard loading will generally not penetrate hard body armor without a penetrator core; however, a light, quick projectile (like 55 gr, 5.56mm) with the same or very similar energy will easily penetrate the same plate.

This is because of the way force is absorbed in metals - elastic (non-permanent) deformation is when the atomic lattice deforms (stretches, changes shape) and plastic deformation occurs when the molecules slip over each other. If the rate of loading is too high, the lattice structure cannot deform nor slip fast enough to absorb the force, resulting in a fracture in the structure and, ultimately, complete brittle failure of the metal.

So yes, max pressure absolutely can be too much for something to handle, if max pressure is very rapidly applied from much lower pressure. This would normally not be a concern - you load a faster burning smokeless powder in a round for your smokeless gun and the max pressure might be reached a few percent faster. It's when you do something like load smokeless powder into a black powder gun, where you might start to approach too high a rate of loading.

I'm not doing the math on it for you OP. If you want to try it, load one cylinder light and fire. Most likely the safe smokeless load will produce lower velocity than a max safe black powder load would. You'll want to check the barrel and make sure the projectiles are exiting (honestly, the most immediately dangerous thing would be a barrel obstruction).

Personally, I wouldn't use smokeless in a black powder gun without strategically placed strain gauges, a chronograph and some fatigue crack tests.

>>31552045
Nice thinking, sir

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>>31539794
OP if you are still around here is some more input. I shoot black powder in competition (pic related, as it is my shooter musket) and figure I could give some more experienced input than people reading up with their google-fu.

The pressure curve with black powder is effectively linear while the pressure curve with smokeless powders is exponential.

There are smokeless for black powder loads out there but unless you are a really experienced reloader, don't create your own, use published data. You won't see your normal pressure signs.

There are black powder substitutes out there. Some are "white powders" some are smokeless powders that have really gradual pressure curve.

Unless you have some form of allergy to sulphur, potassium nitrate or charcoal, just use black powder and clean the gun after. Black powder is not hard to clean up. I use dish soap and water and once I dry it I use WD-40 on it.

>>31550926
They make cylinder conversions for a lot of those style revolvers. Some can fire smokeless cowboy loads, but some are blackpowder loads only.