Lee Loader

A friend has a cap and ball revolver and we used up his can of Goex last shooting session. We are looking at substitutes. I have used Pyrodex powder in a rifle but have no experience with the pistol formulation or the pellets. Any sage advice?

Most of them are 50 gr pellets and configured for 45 & 50 cal rifles . After a brief flirtation with them from a guy getting out of ML I can say that they really aren't the best way to do business . Maybe in a Dragoon ? I know some that did try them had difficulty with consistent ignition also . If you nose around a little bit maybe under ownself powder there is a pretty good primer on small batch reasonably safe , no more hazardous than handling smokeless , BP making . Gun slingers gulch has a lot of really specific high detail information and lots of test data . I haven't seen Fly from Castboolits but for a while , he was making a powder press to make corned powder .
The first pound costs about $70 but the second one is about $12 with Walmart or Ace hardware parts .

As you're no doubt aware BP is hard to get off the shelf . I think it's powder valley that does case specials getting the price down around $18 lb . The bug is of course that you have to buy like 24-32# to get that price .

I've shot Pyrodex in long guns, revolvers and shot guns and each different arm required a different pyrodex formulation, mostly like the difference between 2,3,and 4f BP. I tried the pellets and never was satisfied with the results.
I occasionally use pyrodex in my revolvers, but when the last is used up I'll stick with the BP. Anyway the pellets were finicky in either rifle I had at the time and never got consistant accuracy.

I bought a Knight inline years ago to do a muzzle loader Elk hunt. Enough of that story.. I've shot the thing probably in the neighborhood of 20 times and that was when I first bought it to see how it shot...and the hunt itself.... . One thing I seem to remember about the "pellets" was that you weren't supposed to "crush"/"break" them when seating the bullet/sabot. I actually still have quite a lot of the pellets, sabots and musket caps. The only thing I've ever used in black powder pistols was, well, black powder...

The problem is getting black powder here. The shipping costs are really high compared to the substitutes. The Pyrodex P is supposed to be equivalent to BP pistol powder.

Spectrum stump remover (potassium or ammonium nitrate) , soft wood charcoal ( black Willow is best but the Confederacy ran of cottonwood , Hucules used alder , gum and grape wood are pretty good) , and sulfer ( rose fungacide ) in correct proportions ground to powder in a cheap rubber drum rock polisher makes a fine 70% by volume powder . Add a piston and cylinder that you can put 1200 psi on (92 BAR ?) and a ceramic coffee grinder with a set of 60,80&100 mesh screens and powder as good as Goex or , Old Ensford is available in F-FFFFg . It's no more hazardous than handling smokeless from store to locker .
If you have no need for a particular granual throw it in the next batch or regrind it .

Just use the Pyrodex, it'll do fine. Especially if you're just gunfighting pine cones and dirt clods. I remember it burning a bit "cleaner" than regular (read cheapest) black. Not sure about the pellets in a hand gun though. It's been a lot of years since I've used any of that stuff and my rememberer isn't so good anymore....I DO remember you want to be sure to "grease" the front of the cylinders.....

horseman wrote:Just use the Pyrodex, it'll do fine. Especially if you're just gunfighting pine cones and dirt clods. I remember it burning a bit "cleaner" than regular (read cheapest) black. Not sure about the pellets in a hand gun though. It's been a lot of years since I've used any of that stuff and my rememberer isn't so good anymore....I DO remember you want to be sure to "grease" the front of the cylinders.....

and clean and clean some more. Stuff is worse than black when it comes to corrosion.

Make smoke,

Ohio3Wheels wrote: and clean and clean some more. Stuff is worse than black when it comes to corrosion.

Make smoke,

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Ohio3Wheels wrote: and clean and clean some more. Stuff is worse than black when it comes to corrosion.

I bought a can to test it some years ago. Then used the real thing instead, never opened the can. Since we have such strict rules in Germany, I tried to get rid of it legally so I could buy one more can of smokeless.

That stuff is so terrible, it took me four years to find someone who would take it for free! No joke!

Use 777 ("tripple 7"), it's also OK as a sub, but isn't corrosive.