ORIGINAL: Criggster
I spoke to a gentleman today at a sporting goods store, and he told me that this powder is THE best powder to use. He stated that he only cleans after every twenty shots with a spit patch and dry patch, and has no problems with a dirty rifle. I saw that he carried some of the pellets as well, but they were square instead of round. It was $19.50 for 100 pellets of 50 grian BP equivalent. Anyone have any experiences with this stuff?
Those pellets are actually sticks, and unlike pyrodex or 777 pellets , one is supposed to crush them before loading the projectile. To give you idea how expensive those sticks are, 50 grains volume of APP weigh in the neighborhood of 41 grains weight. So your talking about 4100 grains weight of the sticks for 19.50 or about $ 33.29 per pound. Were I you and wanted to use it, I would buy a pound of loose, which by the way, I have already done.
So far, my sense is that one must use a minumum charge to get it to work well and burn properly. I would say at least80-90grains. Also this stuff burns slow and is not suited to poor fitting conicals which won't obturate well with it and allow excessive blowby. With tight fitting sabots in rifles with shallow rifling, I think you will be pleased as is lemoyne.
I'm back to black powder, so if you happen to live in colorado, I'd trade you my pound of 3f APP (purchased for $25 + tax) for a pound of swiss 3f black powder.