I was naughty today and i liked it :-)

[Chickenthief]

Friday i got a brainfart and thought of loading some 45 ACP with black powder.
16grains of 4f and a 230gr plated bullet.

Dusted off my trusty Kongsberg Colt from 1921 to empty the rounds with.
Well guess what, they worked like a charm and racked the slide enough for it to stay open after last round.

And man can it produce a cloud of thick smoke in a jiffy with 8 fast rounds :-)
Only drawback is that it is a smoothbore after the first 8 rounds, anyone who knows John Moses design will know that the rifling is shallow in a 1911.
Because the barrel and slide is locked up until after the bullet exits, the action didnt gunk up like i expected.

[bergwerk]

You should have videod the smokingun 👍, here in medieval , dark ages uk my brain fart would have been reduced to jamming a door open with it or throwing my paperweight at a naughty squirrel in the garden 😄😄

[mrerick]

That was an interesting experiment. I don't know of published loads for using Black Powder with the .45acp. Did you find some from a manufacturer?

Black Powder must burn at rates quite different from smokeless powder. I know that, unlike smokeless powder which is an accelerant, it can also detonate.

What chamber pressures did you measure? What did the pressure curves look like?

[DonVoigt]

Marc,
you are kidding about him measuring the chamber pressure - right?

Unless there is some new age, magic device I have not heard about one needs a special rig to measure chamber pressure.

Maybe chickenthief has one, but it would not be in a 1914 colt clone.

[mrerick]

I just think when you experiment with those pressures, you should be measuring things.

Actually, it is not that expensive, and much less costly than medical bills...

The latest has a Bluetooth interface available to the PC. The entire package is about $900 shipped.

https://www.shootingsoftware.com/index.htm

When I teach reloading, I make the point that the reloading manuals are not recipe books giving you guidance on working up a load. They are documentation of the results of experiments using specific components and conditions.

They document the safe range of a specific powder, bullet, case, barrel and primer which will predictably operate within SAAMI specifications.

Anything else is an experiment. I don't know about you, but I don't like to experiment with pressures ranging from 40,000 to 75,000 PSI without the proper instrumentation.

While black powder in a revolver is not likely to detonate, I'm not exactly sure what the recoil forces and abrupt slamming of a cartridge into the chamber would do to a chemical that could potentially detonate.

This is one reason that the world had to wait for Smokeless Powder (a fast burning chemical propellant) instead of Black Powder (an explosive that can detonate from physical pressure) for the development of semi-automatic firearms.

I guess that you can take this as my opinion that substituting black powder for smokeless powder in a modern semi-automatic handgun is not a very good idea. While some have done it without injury, I would never attempt to do it.

I'm also not comfortable with using other people's reloads...

Marc

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by mrerick

I just think when you experiment with those pressures, you should be measuring things.

Actually, it is not that expensive, and much less costly than medical bills...

The latest has a Bluetooth interface available to the PC. The entire package is about $900 shipped.

https://www.shootingsoftware.com/index.htm

When I teach reloading, I make the point that the reloading manuals are not recipe books giving you guidance on working up a load. They are documentation of the results of experiments using specific components and conditions.

They document the safe range of a specific powder, bullet, case, barrel and primer which will predictably operate within SAAMI specifications.

Anything else is an experiment. I don't know about you, but I don't like to experiment with pressures ranging from 40,000 to 75,000 PSI without the proper instrumentation.

While black powder in a revolver is not likely to detonate, I'm not exactly sure what the recoil forces and abrupt slamming of a cartridge into the chamber would do to a chemical that could potentially detonate.

This is one reason that the world had to wait for Smokeless Powder (a fast burning chemical propellant) instead of Black Powder (an explosive that can detonate from physical pressure) for the development of semi-automatic firearms.

I guess that you can take this as my opinion that substituting black powder for smokeless powder in a modern semi-automatic handgun is not a very good idea. While some have done it without injury, I would never attempt to do it.

I'm also not comfortable with using other people's reloads...

Marc

One thing I can say. The original .45Colt was 40 gr blackpowder behind a 250gr bullet. The pressure was in the vicinity of 12 000 C.U.P., and you can't put half of that amount in a .45 ACP case. Only possible source of problem is if there was empty space behind the bullet.

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by Chickenthief

Friday i got a brainfart and thought of loading some 45 ACP with black powder.
16grains of 4f and a 230gr plated bullet.

Dusted off my trusty Kongsberg Colt from 1921 to empty the rounds with.
Well guess what, they worked like a charm and racked the slide enough for it to stay open after last round.

And man can it produce a cloud of thick smoke in a jiffy with 8 fast rounds :-)
Only drawback is that it is a smoothbore after the first 8 rounds, anyone who knows John Moses design will know that the rifling is shallow in a 1911.
Because the barrel and slide is locked up until after the bullet exits, the action didnt gunk up like i expected.

The action would't gum up, not with so few shots. But the acuracy must have gone out the window after the third shot, if not earlier.

[DonVoigt]

Originally Posted by mrerick

I just think when you experiment with those pressures, you should be measuring things.

Actually, it is not that expensive, and much less costly than medical bills...

The latest has a Bluetooth interface available to the PC. The entire package is about $900 shipped.

https://www.shootingsoftware.com/index.htm

When I teach reloading, I make the point that the reloading manuals are not recipe books giving you guidance on working up a load. They are documentation of the results of experiments using specific components and conditions.

They document the safe range of a specific powder, bullet, case, barrel and primer which will predictably operate within SAAMI specifications.

Anything else is an experiment. I don't know about you, but I don't like to experiment with pressures ranging from 40,000 to 75,000 PSI without the proper instrumentation.

While black powder in a revolver is not likely to detonate, I'm not exactly sure what the recoil forces and abrupt slamming of a cartridge into the chamber would do to a chemical that could potentially detonate.

This is one reason that the world had to wait for Smokeless Powder (a fast burning chemical propellant) instead of Black Powder (an explosive that can detonate from physical pressure) for the development of semi-automatic firearms.

I guess that you can take this as my opinion that substituting black powder for smokeless powder in a modern semi-automatic handgun is not a very good idea. While some have done it without injury, I would never attempt to do it.

I'm also not comfortable with using other people's reloads...

Marc

Marc,
what you say is true, and thanks for the info on the new fangled strain gage at a reasonable price.

Do yo have one?

I doubt that very many reloaders do, or even think much, knowing what I've seen over the years happen with "reloads".
And you know as well as I do, that what folks should do has nothing much to do with what they actually do!

I won't shoot anyone else's reloads either- and I'm too busy to roll my own!

But I did buy a chrono as I was interested in measuring the velocity of the many luger loads when trying to get various pistols to work properly.

[Chickenthief]

I have reloaded black powder for the last 30+ years and it's quite safe.

Weight for weight it has @1/3'rd the energy of smokeless and the theoretical max. pressure of a bp burn lies in the 40kpsi range whereas smokeless will pass 200kpsi easy.

BP burns slow thats why they have such long barrels for rifle/shotgun cartridges.
http://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_...p_burning.html

I think my bp load would put me in the 600fps range out of that 5" barrel.

It was for fun and giggles and i was a little suprised there was enough energy to rack the slide.

[mrerick]

Don, since I am not creating new loads (but rather following those in the published books) I have not bought the pressure transducer system. i just buy the books and follow them.

I also have a nice Chrony (the brand name of my chronograph).

Isn't the radar based one interesting?

Most people don't realize that under loading a cartridge is just as dangerous as overloading one. Both can produce excessive chamber pressure. The first because the powder burns and produces it's gas before the volume available behind the moving bullet is large enough to contain it. The latter, of course, because too much gas is produced before the bullet can exit.

Proper engagement with the rifling is a function of how forcefully the bullet is driven from the case (overcoming case mouth friction) and how sharply it bites into the leade and rifling (overcoming engagement bite and friction). If things are too slow, there is quite a buildup of pressure before the bullet travels very far.

it's interesting to see the multiple pressure pulses that they are measuring in some loads.

For teaching purposes, we have a small collection of "KaBoom" .45acp barrels at the club showing what happens when things go wrong on a bad day... None of them, thankfully, are mine...

Henrik, I'm glad that you have extensive experience doing this with black powder without consequences for so long. I thought it important to respond from my own experience - especially since an inexperienced shooter might read such a post and act without thinking.

I still would never do something like that, but wish you the best as you do...

[mrerick]

Originally Posted by kurusu

One thing I can say. The original .45Colt was 40 gr blackpowder behind a 250gr bullet. The pressure was in the vicinity of 12 000 C.U.P., and you can't put half of that amount in a .45 ACP case. Only possible source of problem is if there was empty space behind the bullet.

Mario,

CUP (copper crush) pressures can't be related to PSI strain gauge measured pressures. The relationship between them is not linear.

in studying Mauser's work (actually Feederle's design) on the C96 Broomhandle pistol for the Mauser Archive book Mauro and Gerben just finished, I realized that he could did not proceed on it's design until he had smokeless powder from Max Duttenhofer's powder mill in Rottweil. (1884)

The difference is that in single shot firearms and revolvers, you don't have the violent recoil movement of the action against hard stop parts during cycling, and the force that slamming the cartridge into the chamber in a semi-auto represents. That generates pressure waves within the cartridge itself.

Since explosives like Black Powder detonate, this must have always presented a risk and prevented progress into semi-auto designs before the late 1880's. Detonation is the chemical reaction of an explosive due to physical pressure. Smokeless powder doesn't detonate, it combusts (or burns very fast).

In any case, this has been an interesting thread...

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by mrerick

Mario,

CUP (copper crush) pressures can't be related to PSI strain gauge measured pressures. The relationship between them is not linear.

in studying Mauser's work (actually Feederle's design) on the C96 Broomhandle pistol for the Mauser Archive book Mauro and Gerben just finished, I realized that he could did not proceed on it's design until he had smokeless powder from Max Duttenhofer's powder mill in Rottweil. (1884)

The difference is that in single shot firearms and revolvers, you don't have the violent recoil movement of the action against hard stop parts during cycling, and the force that slamming the cartridge into the chamber in a semi-auto represents. That generates pressure waves within the cartridge itself.

Since explosives like Black Powder detonate, this must have always presented a risk and prevented progress into semi-auto designs before the late 1880's. Detonation is the chemical reaction of an explosive due to physical pressure. Smokeless powder doesn't detonate, it combusts (or burns very fast).

In any case, this has been an interesting thread...

First. Forget about C.U.P. then, we are talking 1 100 BAR, again for the .45 Colt.

For the rest, think repeating arms in powerfull blackpowder cartridges. IE 1886 Winchester.

Semi autos needed smokeless propellants because they also needed much less solid residue to work properlly, nothing else.

Edit. One more thing. Think Gatling gun.

[Olle]

I bought a few boxes of 9mm at a gun show a few years ago, came from a company in Crossville, TN. They must be loaded with blackpowder, because they blow more smoke than Dianne Feinstein. They are actually fun to shoot, that big, white puff kinda adds a new dimension to it.

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by Olle

I bought a few boxes of 9mm at a gun show a few years ago, came from a company in Crossville, TN. They must be loaded with blackpowder, because they blow more smoke than Dianne Feinstein. They are actually fun to shoot, that big, white puff kinda adds a new dimension to it.

I was at an outdoor range some years back, shooting a Colt Gold Cup, and the guy next to me had a .44 Pietta 1860 Colt replica. He fired off 6 quick shots, and I literally could not see the 25 yard targets...

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by sheepherder

I was at an outdoor range some years back, shooting a Colt Gold Cup, and the guy next to me had a .44 Pietta 1860 Colt replica. He fired off 6 quick shots, and I literally could not see the 25 yard targets...

Now picture yourself in a match, with some 50 fellows around you shooting the same, in a windless morning and with the timer ticking. Been there done that.