OK, I'm going to throw out a lot of general comments based on my personal experience.
Pellets vs. Loose Powder: I have never used pellets myself, but have shot on the range next to several hunting club members who use them. Pelletsdo seem to be a little more convenient, but not so much as to justify the extra cost
to me. One clear advantage loose powder has is the ability to tailor loads to the gun (i.e. 75, 80, 85, 90 etc. grain loads). With pellets you have someability to play around with different loads, but it's pretty much limited to some combination of 30 and 50 grain pellets. If you're a hunter and not a recreational shooter, the ability to fine tune loads maybe of little importance, especially if you get decent hunting accuracy with pellets. Find a load for the gun one time - fire a half dozen shots before the season to check the gun and sights -go hunting - buy a new box ofpellets every other year. With loose powder you need a powder measure, a funnel top for the powder canister (both pretty inexpensive) and something to carry extra loads in when you hunt (powder tubes, speed loaders, etc. - which you will need with pellets also). As far as a quick second shot when hunting, I don't believe pellets are any quicker from a speed loader than is powder. I know that loose powder (Pyrodex, Triple 7 or GOEX) will keep well several years in a tightly closed container. I've seen stories of pellets degrading over the course of a year, but don't personally know thatthey do.
Pyrodex vs. Triple 7 (Don't know squat about White Hots): They are both good powders and you can't go wrong with either one. Given equal loads, T-7 definitely has a slight velocity advantage over Pyrodex. Some of my guns seem to favor one powder over the other. I have even found that in the same gun, one bullet/sabot combination shoots better with Pyrodex and another bullet/sabot combination will favor T7. T7 is a little cleaner than Pyrodex in all of my guns -
but it's not significant. I've found final clean up to be about the same with either powder after a range session. As far as the T7 crud ring goes, I find it can be significant with some guns and some loads, and hardly noticeable with others. Yes, in the same gun I will get a noticeable crud ring with one load combination and little or none with another combination. I always swab between shots anyway, so whatever crud ring there may be is of no concern to me. I find Pyrodex is a more "forgiving" powder and I seem to be able to find a usable load quicker with it and the load range that shoots well seems to be broader (i.e.a bullet will shoot well with from 70 to 100 grains of Pyrodex, but only with 80 to 90 grains of T7). Pyrodex is generally recognized as easier to ignite in a caplock, but if you're using 209 primers ignition isn't going to be an issue.
FFG vs. FFFG & RS vs. P vs. Select: What your dealing with here is the size of the granules of the powder, and with Select, the consistency of the size. FFFG is a finer granulation than FFG and produces slightly higher velocity with the same volume load. Here again, some guns and/or bullet combinations seem to favor one over the other, but I have never found the difference to be that great so long as the velocity is equal. If a certain load of FFG produces 1700 fps with a certain bullet, a lesser load of FFFG that produces 1700 fps will usually have about the same accuracy. I do find FFFG seems to burn a little cleaner (more completely?) than FFG. Pyrodex P is a finer granule than RS, and Select is coarser than RS. As with T7, the finer granule produces higher velocity with the same volume load. Select receives extra screening so that the granules are very consistent in size. I have found smaller deviations in velocity with Select, but have not seen results on targets that justify the extra cost to me.
Much of the above is based on my personal opinion and/or observation, so take it for what it's worth. I probably have more to sayonthis subject, but can't think of whatever it isright now.
