PA Bow/Flinter

Ok, stick with me on this one, it's slightly long winded, but I think it will work.
Alright I just picked up a scale to weigh my arrows and I was thinking that it might work for me to use it to measure my black powder charges. I know that when you measure them you are doing it by volume, so what I was thinking of doing is takinga chargethat I made by volume, measure it (weight), record the weight, and then from there on I could just make up my charges by weighing out the same weight of powder. Now if I were the change between 2F and 3F per say, than I would have to re-weigh that granulation of powder because it would settle more and inturn weigh more. BUT..If I just went off of one granulation and follow those steps I think I would be able to make very similar loads.
OK, so am I correct in my thinking because it seems to make sence in my head, but that doesn't always mean a lot. Any improvements on this are also welcome.

kevin1

Seems lot a lot more work than just using a volumetric measure .

cayugad

Since for instance you take a 100 grain load by volume and then weight that, and make all other loads to that weight, I see no reason why it would not work. I have thought of doing the same thing myself just to see if it would improve accuracy with the loads, but I have no scale to do that. It would be interesting to find the load your rifle likes, shoot a five shot group using just the powder measure as your guide and then repeating the same conditions with weighed charges and see if there was a large difference in accuracy....

Pittsburghunter

You can safely weigh most charges but using a powder charge thower with some powders can be dangerous. I don't know why but they tell you not to use your RCBS powder charge measue to throw bp charges. I'm sure it would not hurt anything to use your scale though.

roundball

It's a logical question that we all seem to come toas we get into this BP arena...but as Kevin said, there's really is no benefit to it...and it's results would not be as precise as with smokeless powder anyway.

The biggest single reason that it's not beneficial to weigh blackpowder (& BP subs) is that they are lessefficient thansmokeless powders to begin with.
ie: a few 10th's of onegrain of some smokeless powders can be significant, however with black powder, it usually takesseveral grains one way or anotherto actually notice any difference at the target...if I poured/ measured a dozen 100grn charges,and in realitythey varied plus or minus 3-4 whole grains from that, I'd never be able to tell it at the target.

And there's another reason not to weight BP charges...you've already gone through the centerfire reloading experiences, reloading, weighing charges precisely, etc, etc...traditional muzzleloading is not about any of that anyway and I assume your interest in getting into traditional muzzleloading is to experience "how they did it back then"...sowe really DON'T want to drag modern instruments into the picture...weDON'T want to try and fast forwardthe traditional blackpowder era up into the 21st century...we WANT to do it like they did it a couple hundred years ago...otherwise...why bother doing it at all...we could just stick with the 7mm magnums and weighing charges to 1/10th of a grain, etc.

Andyou'll be shocked at how accurate, and consistent, your shots will be just measuringpowder by volume...most anybody can shoot impressivebullseyes with modern rifles and big enough scopes, but shooting a single ragged hole at 50yds with apatched lead ball is very impressiveconsidering the technology and variables.

Then...when the day comes that you lay your muzzleloader down across your lap, white smoke drifting off through the trees, a nice buck laying in the leaves 50 yds out front...then you'll know real satisfaction and accomplishment...and will be glad you did it the old fashioned way...

Roskoe

I read somewhere a number of years ago that a test was done with measuring by volume and measuring by weight, and the volume method produced a narrower SD of velocity with black powder. This is also supposedly the case for certain ball-type smokeless powders.

rick_reno

I use a volume measure, haven't noticed any great variation in my shots because of it.

HighDesertWolf

why make something simple into something complex?? If you really want to weigh every charge by all means go for it, its your time.

HighDesertWolf

thats because Black powder is highly sensitive to static electricity, black powder substitutes arent as sensitive to static electricity but I still wouldnt use even substitutes in a powder measure. even with modern smokeless powder you still have to cautious with static electricty, but deffinately more so with BP and substitutes. thats why most BP volume measuring tools are made from an acrylic plastic, aluminum or brass these materials are less prone to creating or attracting static electricity. hope this helps answer your question.

Mark whiz

.308hunter,
Like everyone else has said, you CAN weigh out your charges like that........but theremay not bemuch to be gained by it.

But if you do try it, you need to get the exact weight established for every powder and cut (2fg, 3fg) you load. To do this, measure out and weigh at least 10 loads at whatever volume you want to reproduce, average those weights and the average is your target weight - doing it this way should make your load more consistent.

I did this a couple years back and I really didn't like the results, as I got better groups using the old hand measure at the range than with the pre-weighed charges. But I tried that only with 2fg Clean Shot powder which had huge granuals - so that could have made a difference. One day I'm gonna try weighing again with 777 powder, I think thatmight work better.

Good Luck if you try it