ORIGINAL: Underclocked

The chart Cayugad posted at the beginning of this thread is "reasonably" accurate but would leave a lot of questions and has, by itself, no real application as energy content is not even a factor. All that chart is telling you is that Pyrodex (probably the original RS variety) weighs 80% of an equivalent volume of "some" black powder (which?).

That's neat, but it tells you nothing about the energy content or load behavior of either powder. The chart is not advising loads for either powder, it's simply showing that same weight relationship for a variety of volumes. Replacing that chart with a simplestatement would have provided just as much information... "Pyrodex (?) weighs 80% as much as Black Powder (?) when comparing equal volumes." And that by itself is as useful as saying 1 cup of nitroglycerine weighs 80% as much as a cup of water.

That bit of information is useful only when combined with the added knowledge (claimed) that Pyrodex(?) and black powder(?) possess roughly equal power for roughly equal volumes. So volume to volume, the two powdersproduced resultsessentially the same.Not such a heavy information load to carry around and one which worked well with the common equipment in use by muzzleloaders -namely volumetric measures.

But then comes BlackMag (in one of its numerous formulations and names), Triple7 (whose energy content has changed), Clear Shot, Clean Shot, American Pioneer, PELLETS!!! of this or that, and yadda-yadda powders all trying to use volume equivalence in the description of their power potential. It's really pretty crazy and no wonder at all why folks are so easily confused.

Look in any reloading manual for centerfire rounds and you won't see much mention of "volume equivalence". You will find grain weights and correspondingpressures/velocities developed for a given set of components in a specific test rifle. Things are a whole heap more standardized in the centerfire world, data is much more specific and useful, and the safety factor involved in using that information must be considerable in this world of lawyers and law suits.

Part of the appeal of muzzleloading has been theindividual'smethodology and the personality of his equipment. Hopefully that will remain the case but the vagueness of load description by the various manufacturers is cause for concern. There MUST be a way to more reasonably describe both recommended and maximum loads than the confusion that exists today.

Even aside from the nonsensical approach used in describing the power of "pellets", comparing regular black powders can be a challenge. What rules of thumb does one use if switching between Goex, KIX, Swiss, or Elephant...? The differences even there are not insignificant.

Mypersonal opinion is that pellets have done more to add confusion to this quagmire than any other single element. And now we have "magnum" pellets. [:-]