American Pioneer Powder along with Goex have came out with a new powder that might interest some of you. The powder is called Pinnacle Replica Black Powder for Muzzleloaders. I bought two pounds of it from a Goex distributor. It was after I purchased it I learned it is made by American Pioneer Powder.

The powder is very interesting to say the least. I first would note, get the FFFg grain instead of the FFg. Like the old Clean Shot this stuff is kind of course. It is jet black in color. Still makes nice smoke, but no stink..

The powder so far out of three rifles I have tested it in has produced no crud ring at all. And fowling is little to none. I tested it in a T/C Black Diamond XR, Knight Wolverine II, and a Tradition's Woodsman Hawkins percussion cap lock.

Today in the Wolverine, I shot four shots first and then swabbed the barrel clean. It took two patches and there was no crud ring and very little fowling. I do shoot #11 caps in the Wolverine. I was shooting 90 grains of Pinnacle 3f. I was shooting 240 grain T/C Mag Express XTP's.



I then shot 12 more XTP's without swabbing the barrel. They all loaded as easy as the first one. Accuracy was very good actually. Although towards the 10th projectile they did start to string a little on me.





This is the result of shooting the Black Diamond XR numerous times and then swabbing the barrel before the final cleaning. As you can see by the five patches there really was not all that much fowling in the barrel. Even with the 209 Winchester Primers, there was no crud ring in the Diamond and fowling was slight..

Accuracy with the powder was real good all except when I tried to shoot some large No Excuses Conicals out of the Black Diamond XR. The rifle and that powder just did not click.

Overall the powder is very clean burning. It also cleans out of the gun easy. Fowling is next to nothing. Accuracy is good with sabots. Recoil reminds me of shooting Goex 3f. The only thing I noticed was there were moisture packets in the plastic jar the powder comes in. So to see if it is moisture sensative I kept it outside in the cold and we have a couple feet of snow on the ground but it was not snowing today. It never clumped or showed moisture problems.

This stuff is rumored to work in flintlocks, so we will see if that is true this weekend. I still have well over a pound to shoot out of the two with only two days of shooting under my belt with the powder.....