cybersniper

Hello all,

I just wanted to see how everyone weighs their charges. We all know that the key totight groups is consistancy in how you do things, including your powder measure.

I always measured my 100 grain charge in a plastic T/C powder measure scale. I noticed that if you bump or tap the side the powder can move down quite a bit.

I do quite a bit of rifle reloading and wanted to see how close the weight would be with the plastic measuring tube. My 100 grain charge actually weighs closer to 85 grains.

I began to weigh all of my charges and found that 100 grains is actually 135 on my volume scale.

We had the debate today as to which way is correct. I have been told that blackpowder is supposed to be measured by volume and not weight. It seems that weighing it is more accurate, you may have to check and see what the actual weight is for 100 grains of volume. I use 777 in a Knight Disc Extreme stainless thumbhole stock w/ a holosight.

How do you guys do it? Any thoughts!

cayugad

By volume..

the key is when you pour the measure, do it the same way each and every time. If your a tapper, then tap them all. I like the measure that cuts the charge at the top.

I have always thought that measuring them would be a good way to do it, just that in all the years of shooting, I never have bought a good quality scale yet. Maybe for Christmas.

Wolfhound76

I do it by weight. All my guns shoot best with weighed charges. I've noticed group size drop 1/2" - 1" vs. thrown charges. First I find the volumetric load that works best then weigh a number of thrown charges and go with the average. I've got the same gun with a 2-7X32 scope. Mine likes 80 gr (weight) and 260 gr Win. Platinum Tips.

sabotloader

cybersniper

As a reloader you know the importance of having the same charge in all of your bullet - you know the difference that a 1/2 grain by weight can make. In smokeless it is much more significant that BP of any of the subs...

Throwing BP charges by grains does not mean that is what they will weigh. I have relaoded for years and I know what you are thinking - same thing each time and how-in-the-heck do you get the same thing every time throwing the powder - you do not, but BP or thesubs are not as explosive as smokeless (creates less pressure) so a small difference in the charge will notmake a big of difference down range as it does with smokeless.

I did weigh charges for awhile and put them in pill cannisters for shooting. But after all these years I have gone back to just throwing the chargetapping 4 times cut the load off and dropit in the gun. The difference down range@ 100 with a 50 caliber gun just wasn't that significant. The other thing I found as I changed cans of powder the weight changed a little bit from lot to lot so i would have do the calculations all over again.

I also use t7 and have the variations between my loads to be veryinsignificant. Shooting through the chrono can verify this. I think how clean/dirty your bore is, the small differences in the thickness of the sabot and even the bullet have a greater effect on velocity than does the powder.... HOWEVER, if money was on the line for cutting a piece of paper in the right spot you can bet your sweet bippy I would measure each load, each sabot and each bullet - and if I could figue out away to measure the power of each 209 I would do that also.. Face it, hunting in different temperatures, different elevations, different winds - plus the variations of loading - a lot of things can effect the point of impact. I rationalize this by saying a 2" group at a 100 is what i need from this semi-primative inline, but I am always trying to get it tighter.

The biggest factor I can share is have confidence in your rifle - shoot it shoot it a lot in all the conditions...

All that said I am probably preaching to the priest - your experiance with center fire has already probably taught you all of this.

Good luck and remember:

Tahquamenon

By volume in 5gr increment is fine for hunting purposes.

For serious target shooting:
For match-grade accuracy, then first find the most accurate average volumetric load and then weight it.

Then you can further fine-tune the load by single grain weight measurements around the vicinity of your average volumetric load.

But, never start out measuring loads by weight without first verifying the volume load that is most accurate within the loading limits of your given rifle.

M2C

Tahquamenon

eldeguello

Cayugad is right. Contrary to what a lot of folks would have you believe, variation of a couple of grains one way or the other will NOT effect the way a BP rifle groups, be it a ML or Schuetzen BP cartridge target rifle.There are some groups that were fired from a bench in the late 1800's withSchuetzen rifles that have not been beaten yet with anything like such a rifle.....and those old boys invariably used a volume measure for loading both their Schuetzens and their extreme-range slug rifles.

This however does NOT mean that you can get away with throwing charges inconsistently! I have a powder measure for smokeless that will throw charges within 1/2 grain, if I operate it with consistency-the same rule applies to a hand-held volume measure. I tap mine 5 times per charge, and my measure has a built-in cutoff plate.

The rounds fired for this group were thrown with this 120-grain MAX. volume measure set at 70 grains, so each charge required two throws... I doubt that it would have been better if the charges were weighed!