Left work early today and picked up so pillow ticking for patch material. First I had ever used it, had always used those precut patches before. I tore off a strip and light covered it in someolive oil (don't ask me why, for lack of anything else, it was there), grabbed the balls,the 1:48 hawkenand pyro P and went to the range. I used pyro p because of the success I had with it when using ballets, it seems to like small weight projectiles.
The charge today was 60 grains. Never used more. Mostly I was just wanting to shoot my traditional and get it ready for my nephew to shoot.
I chronoed all my shots to day. In all, I shot 13 times, then ran out of patch material and went home. The first eight shots were with powder, patch, and ball only. The last 5 shots were with powder, 5 grain filler, patch and ball.
The first8 chronied 1652, 1489, 1689, 1606, 1473, 1656, 1658, 1633. They averaged 1607 fps and I thought that was a pretty good putting the velocity at the muzzle at about 1633 fps or about the same as the 30 yard velocitywith 100 grains of BP. At 6000 ft elevation this delivers the roundball to 80 yards at a velocity of 1133 fps and 500 ft-lbs.
Then I tried the 5 grain filler of ground oatmeal. The results were remarkable. The next 5 shots chronied 1705, 1733, 1683, 1839, and 1729 for an average of 1738 fps or an estimatedmuzzle of 1766 fps. An extra 130 fps with no extra powder. The filler really stops alot of blowby and gives the same 60 grain charge an additional 17% energy at the muzzle. To put this in perspective, in order to get 17% extra at the muzzle by putting in more powder, I would have to probably add 20% more powder, maybe more. That 5 grains of oatmeal was, in essense, equivalent at the muzzle to 12 grains of powder.
Later I'll try some bigger charges and I'll also try some 3f Goex and report on that. For now I'm just lining it out for my nephew, who seems to have gainedconsiderable interest in pouring the roundballs in mymouldand shooting them. Been thinking, if he wants to hunt roundball for deer, I'm not going to discourage it, only I'll just make sure he knows his range and shoots well enough. Which reminds me. Because rear sight won't go down all the way, one has to aim below POI. The screw under the sight just prevents it from going all the way down, I'll work on that tomorrow and get it right before he shoots it.
Phil if you should happen to put a greased wad over the top of that filler you might be suprised how many shots it will shoot accurately with out cleaning. If you are an old timer like me and just happen to have a few cans of Brownells spermoil laying around you might try that.I was cleaning out the grage today and found some from the 50's.Lee
I guess I need to break out the corn meal... sounds like you had fun.
__________________
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, a total wreck, screaming Yahoo, with a big smile on your face."
What is this whole filler thing? How doese it work?
instead of putting a bore button or wonder wad on top of the powder, the old trick was to put something like; oatmeal, cream of wheats, corn meal, bee hives, and other items to act as the wad. Normally with the cereal grains 5-10 grains is plenty. I usually put 10 grains of the filler as a wad. I might get some out and play with that.
__________________
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, a total wreck, screaming Yahoo, with a big smile on your face."
What is this whole filler thing? How doese it work?
How does it work? Not to say this is it, but this is my sense of it. When the charge ignites, the filler is pressed against the projectile or PRB, flowing into the edges between the bullet and bore where the grain-meal acts to inhibit the flow of breech gas around the bullet.
The increase in performance depends mostly on how inefficient the projectile (without the filler) is. For exampe,when I used it with the GP conical, I didn't getvelocities substantially higher than the highest velocity obtained with out the filler. Instead, I achievedahigher average and the span of velocities was incredibly narrow, only 7 to 14 fps depending on the range session. With the roundball in the Hawken, the effect was much higher velocity andenergy, which i think is because, the RB was lettinga greater percentagebreech gas escape than the GP conical. So with the roundball, my slowest velocity with filler was as high as the fastest without filler, even while, the fastest was much higher with filler than the highest without. Had I been using BP, I think the velocity distributions would be much more narrow than with Pyro-P (which powder I have never achieved tight velocity distributions).
(knowing this is off topic). The tightness of the velocity distribution is of, i say little, but really no importance for ranges less than 90 yards at PRB velocities. No importance because its effects on POI precision are minor relative to the sighting precision of the shooter and the size pattern required to stay in the kill zone. From this standpoint, I feel the Pyro P delivers enough extra energy and velocity to more than make up for its wider velocity distribution. Where I am interested in being able to shoot 120 or maybe 150 yards with the GP conical, blackpowder and its consistent velocities shines.
The use of filler, i sense, is a complex system of adding extra ejecta weight/preserving breech gas. In my experience so far, using the chronograph as a guide, the filler will at the very least tighten velocity distribution and may, depending on gun and projectile, substantially increase the energy an velocity of the projectile. I also think the filler is good for the bore in this regard. If one hasless breech gas blowing by the projectile,then it would seem thatless bore is eroding with each shot, preserving the quality of the bore. Just my opinion of course, but it makes sense to me. Phil
What is this whole filler thing? How doese it work?
instead of putting a bore button or wonder wad on top of the powder, the old trick was to put something like; oatmeal, cream of wheats, corn meal, bee hives, and other items to act as the wad. Normally with the cereal grains 5-10 grains is plenty. I usually put 10 grains of the filler as a wad. I might get some out and play with that.
I thought about using 10 grains. I might try that myself. I built a flask from walnut wood as a teenager and carved a relief of a 8 pt whitetail's headon it. Has a valve of the standard flask on it. I think I will cut a measuring spout to the grain volume of filler that I finally settle on. Then I can easily meter the volume without resetting my powder measure. Cornmeal will probably work better for metering through a flask than the oatmeal grinds. Uh-oh, now I have another project.
yep, i shot roundball today
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