It was snowing hard today and cold with some good wind gusts. A perfect day for shooting actually. I grabbed my powder horn of Goex 2f and it was empty...[&o] I went to the powder magazine to get another pound and saw that unopened pound of Black Mag 3 I have been itching to try. So I grabbed that instead.

I wanted to shoot the Knight Disc with some strong charges and see how it behaved in the wind and snow. So I loaded 100 grains of Black Mag 3 and a 300 grain Knight Red Hot on a clean barrel. Fired at 50 yards and was disappointed to see that it hit 2 inches low. I was about to swab but figured I would see how loading another projectile was with BM3. WOW! loading was a breeze.

Took aim at the same bull and touched off putting a nice hole in the bulls eye. Without swabbing loaded and fired again. Again, another hole touching the one in the Bulls Eye. Now I was getting excited. I fired a total of five rounds (not counting the first low hit)and they all hit in an 1-1/2 group at 50 yards.

So I swabbed the barrel clean and dry. There really is nothing in the barrel to swab with this powder. A light gray comes out on the patch, and there is no hint of a crud ring at all. A couple dry patches and we were ready to switch projectiles.

I then changed over to a Hornady 300 grain XTP and shot the first shot. Again, about 2 inches under the bull. Loaded up and shot an 1-1/2 group touching the bottom of the bull with the next five shots. So I swabbed the rifle again, and gave the barrel time to cool. Even though the wind was blowing and it was 30 degrees, I could load and shoot fast enough to heat the barrel up easy.

The next projectile was the 200 grain Shockwaves. First shot about 3 inches low. The next five made a nice horizontal line on the top of the corner bull. Again not swabbing, and I was kind of impressed. The load really seemed to have a lot of power. There was talk that BM3 was 20% stronger then Goex. This might very well be true. It was sure ringing the steel trap.

I then did not swab the barrel and dropped the powder charge down to 65 grains. I loaded a 460 grain Bull Shop conical and shot at a corner bull. At 50 yards it held them all in the 3" corner bull circle but kind of all over the place.

I then kicked the charge up to 90 grains of BM3 and shot 6 245 grain copper cased, hollow point powerbelts. It shot an excellent group with the powerbelts. Actually about an 1-1/2 group in the 2 o'clock position of one of the 3" corner bulls. I was kind of impressed.

I then got out some 385 grain Buffalo Bullet Conicals. It sprayed them all over the place. Some actually missed the target when shoot at a corner bull. Not acceptable at all.

Since the snow had really kicked up and I had shot well over 30 rounds, I decided to call it a day. Clean up with this powder is a dream. A couple patches and it is all done. It took me longer to clean the breech plug threads then it did the barrel.

Overall a nice powder. I am kind of impressed with it and want to test it in a couple other rifles....