Swiss 3f ?

[Mossie]

Does anyone use Swiss brand 3f black powder in their 50 caliber when shooting conicals? If so; how much do you use?

[cayugad]

70 grains, a wonder wad, and a 500 grain conical in the White UM. It is a good hard hitting load for deer or hogs.

[Mossie]

Cayugad,

I have an RMC 50 caliber 1/28 twist rifle with barrels of 24" and 28". I need to buy some powder and was considering Swiss brand in 3f to useunder300 grain .452 bullets in an mmp black sabot and 385 grain great plains bullets. I have used 100 grains of Goex 2f in the past and was looking to zip it up a little bit. I am considering a load of 100 grains of the Swiss 3f. Do you think this may create a bit too much pressure? I could go with the Swiss 2f but I would think the 3f would be a little faster considering the lengths of the barrels. What's your opinion. I can't find much information on the net about Swiss other than quite a few use the 3f with their rb loads.

[sabotloader]

Mossie

I use T7-3f in my sidelocks... 90 grains in the GM LRH 1/28 barrel and 80 grains in my TC Renegades...

Rifleman did some testing a couple months back... I do not think it was the best testing but it can serve as light.

The chart shows 15,700 LBS of pressure for 100 grains of T7-2f - so 3f is going to increase that some...

Here is the chart comparing GOEX and Swiss

[cayugad]

This is out of my 28" GMB with the 1:28 twist. I think the .430 300 gr XTP's in a crushed rib are the best. Also with 120 grains of Graf's 2f there would be little that could take that hit. Graf's is the same strength as Goex. I personally did not Swiss 3f as a sabot powder. As a conical powder it did real good.

Actually your 100 grains of Goex 2f should be more then plenty for about anything you want to shoot, out to 150 yards. But all you can do is try different powders. Good luck.

[Mossie]

The Goex works real well; but because I am a black powder junkie I am always tinkering around with rifles, bullets and balls, and of course powder loads. I would like to see some data on pressures created with Swiss 3f in a 50 caliber using the 100 grain load under a 300 grain saboted bullet. Actually the chart sabotloader posted shows a big increase with just 2f and it has me wondering about heavy charges of 3f.

I did get some Swiss 2f and a can of Null-b to prime with; but work is keeping me too busy to shoot for a couple of weeks at least. At least I have a little overtime money to purchase some Swiss 3f to tinker with. I wasn't sure what your last post said... Did you say you didn't like the Swiss 3f when pushing a sabot load?

[cayugad]

I never had real good luck with Swiss 3f when shooting sabots. But with conicals, the Swiss 3f worked great. Actually the best powders I found for sabots is still Pyrodex RS and Triple Se7en.

[Mossie]

Thanks for the replies. I wish I could try some of the subs but my rifles are flintlocks. Who knows the Swiss 2f may give me a boost in accuracy and power over the Goex. I need to work with the Goex 3f a little more in my roundball twist rifles as well. I plan on doing some wet newspaper testing with different powders and bullets as soon as I get a little break from work.

[cayugad]

In my flintlocks, I was shooting some duplex loads and they actually were shooting very well. I would drop 10 grains of Goex down the barrel and then Pyrodex or Triple Se7en, use Goex as my pan powder and they were going off just fine.

My .50 caliber Hawkins flintlock likes the Goex 3f. I shoot 90 grains of that and a patched roundball. Lots of powder there. Good luck with your testing.

[sabotloader]

Mossie

here is the other part of the chart...but, you need relly look closely at the info - I believe they got some of the results in the wrong columns especially in the T7 information....