I've been trying different powder out that I normally can not get my hands on. I had the opportunity to pick a number of different brands and grades of powder, last month on a shopping spree.

The last couple days I have been testing American Pioneer Powder 3f. I was under the impression it would react a lot like Pinnacle 3f but I could not be more wrong. I tried it in over six different rifles total.

So far the powder did poor in the conical department with a couple conical rifles. I would rate it at moderate accuracy with three different sabot rifles. In fact I was trying the same loads that Pinnacle produced excellent accuracy with, and discovered the powder did not behave at all the same in the rifles Pinnacle does.

Today to finish off the pound I got out three traditional rifles. I was sure that with roundball it would behave better. Again, not only was the accuracy not there, but misfires and hang fires were very common. I then suspected it might be the caps. So I changed from CCI to RWS 1075 caps. Still the misfires with two different rifles. So to finally prove it was the powder I got out some Goex. The Goex was perfect for the ignition and accuracy returned in both rifles.

So overall I am not real impressed with American Pioneer 3f. I am sure some of you have had better results with it then I have. Just thought I would post my results.

Not very encouraging . . . . I have some 3F Shockey Gold - supposedly the same animal as APP. Have only tried it with one load - 200 gr. Shockwave (50/40) with 110 gr. in my Black Diamond XR. It initially shot very well. Got almost 2400 fps. Later I got some wandering zero issues that I now think were related to mylack of understanding oftheneed to not swab between shots. I may revisit this load sometime this winter when things slow down a little.

Cayugad

I usually get great results with APP, as you probably already know from my other posts. I wonder, how much pressure did you use while compressing the loads? I've learned to really put my weight into it, but not so much as to deform the tips of most bullets. APP/Shockeys Gold/Pinnacle all seem to behave better when Very Firmly Compressed.

Powerbelts are different; you can compress those loads until they don't go any more

But perhaps APP has fallen on some bad Quality Control as of late. I'll pick up a fresh pound from BassPro and see what’s up. I've got 4lbs of Pinnacle and 1 of Shockey's Gold left. We shot all our deer from the last 2 years with S. Gold, and with great results on the range with 80grains pushing 225 Powerbelts and CCI primers.

Thanks again for the detailed report, and I really appreciate your candidnessand thorough test reports with multiple smoke poles.

I will admit, I did not force the projectile down onto the powder. I seated them like any other projectle, just snug on the charge. Perhaps that was my mistake. I guess I will practice with the next pound of it (I bought two pounds of each kind of powder... ) and try your suggestion..

thanks

this is why i stick with what works for me. No reason to switch powder and pay more and later on find out its not going to work out. I only use pyrodex RS in my inline and Goex in my flintlock. No problems with pyrodex in all the years ive been shooting the stuff.

I never had all that much luck with 3 fff either; but the two FF does such a good job for me that only in my pistols do I use anything else.
I also find about 60 pounds of compacting pressure necessary for tight grouping.Lee

Again, maybe I was not seating the bullet hard enough. When I used to shoot Clean Shot, it worked just fine, but that was 2f grade. It shot very accurate. I just wanted to see if I could pull a little more speed out of things and see what would happen. You might be on to something with the courser grade and pressure as was already suggested.. thanks



frontier gander I could not agree with you more about sticking with something that works, Which is why I was able to break out the Goex and shoot groups to double check the powder. I personally like to test different powders, and projectiles to see if they might be better then what I am currently using, and just for the fun of it. But Pyrodex and Goex have always been good stand bye powders for me in the past as well.

That's too bad. I never tried any APP, but used Clean Shot back when it was on the market, and never had those kinds of problems with it. I used it with the original-style 295-grain .50 Powerbelts, and it shot pretty well.

Is it possible the batch you had was contaminated with moisture? It sure sounds like it might have been.......

anything is possible.. I will see how the next jug fires off.

Well not willing to give up, I took the new jug out today and shot it in the Knight Disc and the Black Diamond XR and a Renegade with a Stainless Steel GMB on it. The American Pioneer Powder did not let me down, it shot all over the place. I tried soft seating pressure, moderate seating pressure, and he man seating pressure. All to no avail. I was shooting at 100 yards and the APP shot about a 5 inch group. Actually that's not quite accurate... two rounds I could not find. I was shooting at a corner bulls eye with the Disc and the Black Diamond.

The strange thing is it would lay two in the bull and then throw one way out of bounds. I even tried swabbing and that only made it worse I think....

To make sure it was the powder and not the rifle I broke out my final supply of Pyrodex Pellets.. I figured these things have been around the house too long, and needed to be sent down range. The Knight with the same shockwave as the APP and the same load (two pellets or 100 grains) (although I shot a couple three pellet loads just to get kicked around). It shot a 2" group with the Knight and the Black Diamond shot just over a 2" group as I had a flyer.

With the open sights and the Renegade with the Stainless Steel Barrel I was shooting 85 grains of APP 3f and 200 grain 10mm XTP's. Actually it did better I thought in the Renegade then the other rifles. The trouble is I had two misfires and a nasty (dangerous actually) hangfire that only went down range because I failed to move off the bag.

I think I will try this APP 3f in my smoothbore next with birdshot.. accuracy there is not all that critical since I intend to spray the woods.. should do real well there...