As of yesterday I' ve switched back to Pyrodex as I ran out of 2F T7. I had a box of Pyrodex pellets and two pounds of Pyrodex powder (one RS and one Select, I prefer Select). Yesterday I decided to shoot off the pellets as I typically prefer loose powder because it' s cheaper per shot and I have finer control over the charge.

Here are my observations with each powder.

Pyrodex, charge for charge, is definately not as " hot" as T7. I don' t have a chrony to take exact velocity measurements, but at 100 yards there was a noticable shift in the group of about 2-3" down when using Pyrodex. Not a tremendous amount, but the Pyrodex is definately slower.

The recoil of 100 grains of loose T7 2F with the same bullet isn' t really any greater than 2 pellets (100gr) of Pyrodex, but the recoil of the T7 is much sharper like a centerfire rifle, while the Pyrodex recoils with more of a hard shove similar to black powder.

With T7 and my Knight DISC I always had a great deal of blowback and fouling in the action. When I shoot I shoot a lot (30-40 shots typically), and after 20 the bolt will be hard to move and require cleaning. While there is still blowback with Pyrodex, I would say that it is less than half as bad as T7. I fired 40 shots yesterday with Pyrodex and the action still didn' t need cleaning for it to function smoothly.

Fouling in the bore with T7 is MUCH worse than Pyrodex. With T7 the bore needed to be swabbed with a spit patch after every shot or the next bullet would be difficult to load. T7 also formed the infamous " crud ring" after every shot, which meant that, if I didn' t spit patch, even if I could get the next bullet down the bore without mangleing it with the ramrod, it might still be impossible to seat it properly. The " crud ring" caould be so bad that if I ran my jag into it too far on the first stroke I might not be able to get the ramrod back out. I' ve had to disassemble the rifle to get a stuck ramrod out several times. On the other hand, Pyrodex seems to maintain a consistant level of fouling shot to shot and doesn' t require cleaning unless one had a leading or plastic buildup in the bore. With the Pyrodex, each shot wasn' t any more difficult than the last one to load and seat, and no swabbing was necessary between shots. In fact, swabbing the bore seemed to result in the next shot being a flyer most of the time.

In T7' s favor I will say that it smells much better than Pyrodex when fired. As most know, Pyrodex smoke and residue does have the sulfer " rotten egg" smell similar to but weaker than black powder. T7 doesn' t have any sulfer smell at all. I don' t really mind the smell of Pyrodex, so the lack of smell for T7 isn' t a major factor for me to choose it.

T7 is much easier to clean. With T7 I had gotten used to NOT going through the " bucket-of-hot-soapy-water" routine. To clean T7 I' d mostly just clean like it was smokeless powder, except instead of using nitro solvent I' d just dip the patch in a cup of hot soapy water, swab it out to get the fouling wet, brush a few times to break ub the hard stuff, dry patch then a couple patched soaked with CLP. Fast and easy. The Pyrodex, on the other hand, really needs the full treatment to get the rifle and bore clean.

Accuracy was just as good with both powders. Group sizes and consistancy are excellent with both powders as long as one doesn' t get carried away with T7 powder charges. 100 grains of T7 is TOO MUCH for a sabot that weights less than 300 grains, but 100 grains of Pyrodex shoots perfectly, at least in my rifle.

To summarize:

T7 produces greater velocities than an identical charge of Pyrodex.

T7 creates a sharper recoil than Pyrodex.

Pyrodex causes much less blowback and fouling in the action of my DISC rifle.

Pyrodex creates much less bore fouling than T7, and the Pyrodex fouling stays at a consistant level where T7 fouling builds up with each shot. Pyrodex does not create a " crud ring" where the bullet was seated on the powder charge like T7.

T7 smells better than Pyrodex. No sulfer smell.

T7 cleans much easier than Pyrodex, which needs a full service cleaning. T7 can be cleaned with spit patches and CLP.

Accuracy is comparable with each powder. Just don' t get too carried away with your charges of T7.

Hope this helps.

Mike