You asked about Pinnacle Powder experiences
 

I was lucky enough to shoot off two pounds of Pinnacle FFFg grade this winter. The picture above shows the patches and the degree of fowling found on them after shooting pinnacle for 12 shots without swabbing. The rifle was a 22" barrel Knight Wolverine II LK-93. This rifle uses a #11 cap ignition. I was shooting it in the winter when there was snow on the ground. I shot this Knight Wolverine 12 times using a 240 grain T/C Mag Express XTP and 80 grains of Pinnacle. The accuracy was excellent and loading was easy. In fact I think I ran out of the XTP's swabbed the barrel like this, and then got something else out and shot more Pinnacle that afternoon.

The red you see on the first three patches is Black Off Rusty Duck solvent which I use to swab a barrel when I really want to pull out the fowling before I fully clean the rifle. As you can see, by the third patch the fowling was really about gone. This is not to imply that the rifle was clean and ready to be put away. It just means that Pinnacle leaves very little fowling, and is easy to clean. The rifle still had to be broken down and cleaned properly.

FLINTLOCKS

There was a claim that Pinnacle could be used to fire a flintlock. Well I have to report that it is true. Pinnacle will work in a flintlock. What they fail to mention is it does not work very well. You can not judge when the rifle will or will not fire. When it did, using only Pinnacle, there was a very distinct Swish... Boom! of the ignition. This is not the case with my T/C Hawkins Flintlock and Goex. The ignition is instant.

The Pinnacle powder behaved much better when it had a pan charge of Goex 4f. Then the ignition was much more certain. To even increase the chances of ignition, I took Goex 4f and dribbled (for lack of a better word) some into the vent liner hole. I then picked the vent liner with a vent pick. This caused much better results shooting the Pinnacle and the igniton was much faster.

PERCUSSION CAP SIDE LOCKS

Here the Pinnacle Powder was a pleasure to shoot. I tried it in .50, .54, & .58 caliber rifles. The ignition time was excellent. The fowling was next to nothing. In fact I did not even worry about fowling or swabbing the barrel. The accuracy was exceptional. In my roundball barrel .58 caliber shooting 100 grains of Pinnacle and a .570 patched roundball, the bulls eye was an easy target. I just kept pounding it away. It did real well in the other calibers also.

PINNACLE IN INLINE RIFLES

As I mentioned earlier, I shot 12 rounds out of my Knight and never had to swab the barrel. The accuracy was exceptional although I did run out of powder before I could do some real long range testing with it. I tried a number of different weight sabots and the Pinnacle behaved perfect. I also tried Pinnacle in different inline rifles and again, if fired the sabots off with no problems and accuracy was very good. As good as any of the other powders.

The one place Pinncacle seems to fail was when I tried shooting large conicals and powerbelts. In a rifle that normally is very accurate with 460 grain No Excuse Conicals, the Pinnacle seems to throw them all over the paper. I ran out of conicals before I could play with the charge more.

Many ask, would I recommend Pinnacle. Well it is more expensive then the normal Goex that I shoot. It does burn clean and seems to fowl very little. It was mentioned that it is nothing more them American Pioneer Powder. Well APP is gray. Pinnacle is black in color. It is also very course, so get the finer grade FFFg. Would I buy more? I intend to when I purchase the next case of gun powder...

RE: You asked about Pinnacle Powder experiences
 

Looks like pretty good stuff. A buddy of mine shoots replica powder...will have to clue him in on it. What's it going for a pound?

RE: You asked about Pinnacle Powder experiences
 

Around $18.00

RE: You asked about Pinnacle Powder experiences
 

Thanks.

RE: You asked about Pinnacle Powder experiences
 

:D

The powder actually produced some excellent groups with the inlines and cap locks. I only wish I had not shot all of it up because I wanted to try some at much greater distances, like 150 yard shooting. Out to 100 yards I could tell no difference in accuracy between it and the Goex I normally shoot.. (other then the lack of fowling)



This is what 12 shots with Pinnacle looks like. There was no swabbing done during this shooting and I was using 90 grains of Pinnacle and a 240 grain T/C Mag Express XTP

Where I hunt with this rifle the deer cross a creek on the edge of a cedar marsh in front of me at 30 yards. I think I might be able to give them a little trouble with this load. The rifle shot perfect that day even though there was snow on the ground....

RE: You asked about Pinnacle Powder experiences
 

Thanks for the info. I wonder if it gives velocities comparable to black when loaded on a volume-fro-volume basis? That was one of the main complaints against GOEX ClearShot-it only gave about 60% of the velocity produced by a similar volume of black powder of the same granulation. I had to use 140 grains of it (FFFg) in a .50 to get 1700 FPS with a 370-grain Maxiball!!