Black horn VS. 777
 

I have been using 777, but the owner of my gun shop told me he starting using Black horn he said it's great. Anyone else try it?What do you think?

I tried it good stuff but too much $$$ for me . I started using 777 for the first time a few months ago and love it . But i also started using a .25acp conversion so i still get a small crud ring . They want 39.00 for BH around here and i don't shoot enough to make it worth paying the 20.00 haz mat fee to get it elsewhere . Shot my fist buck two days ago with my Encore , 777 and the .25 acp conversion so i am a happy camper .PLus walmart will drop 777 down to 8.00 -15.00 a pound in the next few months or so in our area , after the muzzleloader elk hunt ends . so i will buy a few pounds and stock up for next year . If you do a search on here you will see many threads on B H209 . some LOVE it and some like me think its over rated for $$$ . I find 777 just as easy to clean at the end of the day and its a good idea to let your barrel cool between shots , so you might as well swab your barrel .Also I did not like the seal ( or lack of ) i was getting with 209 primers and they are also hard on my breech plus .

I actually was using it a short while before it was generally available, is has worked as advertised or a little better for me. The only draw back is the price, it is very expensive, I am one of those who believes that it only cost as much as normal smokeless to make and that we are being had. The problem is there is no competition to adjust the market, the corrosive powders is some thing a lot of us would like to get away from and the nearest thing to competition is 777 and those of us that get bad crud ring are not going to scrub for 5 minutes every shot to get the crud ring out when we have a powder available that we can shoot all day with and clean when we get home.
Beyond that aspect there is an other for some of us. I dearly love to shoot for group and shoot competition for many year's and when I found that my groups I was fighting with to get down to an inch suddenly started to get down to a half inch when I used BH209, well you could not pay me enough to go back to 777.
There seems to be a lot of people who disagree about this and I have wondered if it is because they are limited more by how well they can shoot or not having tweaked their guns or load. Half inch groups do not come with any regularity by accident.
The best advice I can give is to try it and compare what it does for you to what you got out of the powder you are now using.

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BH -Great Powder! - to much money for me for a 10 ounce bottle. T7 does everything I need it to do + when I buy it - I buy a full pound.

Disadvantages: Price, availability, can only use 209 primers, only works in certain gun/breechplugs.

BUT, if you can get it, can afford the price, and your rifle will shoot it, there are a lot of advantages. I also have an easier time getting good accuracy with it, and waiting between shots or not, I just hate to swab between each shot. Lots of dirty patches to clean up with 777 too! In my guns where it will work, doubt I will ever use anything else.

That said, if I were just starting out, and had to pinch pennys, I would use pyrodex or 777 and never look back!

Well the pros vs. cons might be pointless if your gun will not shoot it. What gun(s) do you have?

I just got a cva optima elite, but have not shoot it yet.

Look for it...again....yesterday. No dice.

I'm sure the price would have turned me away anyways. At this point I would not buy any until I saw it on the shelves of at least 2 stores with regularity. So far, I've never seen it in real life.

The price is just stupid. There is no big advantage to me, I have no issues with 777 and like 25acp more than 209s.

I have only had one range session with BH in my Optima Elite and it worked great. It took a 1.5" group using Shockey's Gold down to .75" edge to edge and I'm sure the velocity is much higher.

I really don't understand why some people pay what they do. I compare prices on the net [I can get it locally but he wants 37 dollars a can for it] I usually get it for 24 to 26 dollar a can and buy a case of 10 cans after I pay the hazmat fee then the price is usually 28 to 29 dollars and the best I can do with 777 is 24 so it costs me 4 or 5 dollars a can more. My time and the feeling I get when my rifles shot like my varmint rifle is worth it to me. I know that by the time I manage to get them awful crud rings out after 3 or 4 shot I am ready to quit in disgust and I can shoot all day with BH and enjoy every minute. And then clean the gun, BP and all in 5 minutes.
Of course being 72 years old I had to face the fact that you can not take it with you a long time a go.

Lee

I know you and I have been over this before but i would like to point out a couple of things...

Point one.... how many peole are willing to buy a case of powder? Most users are not avid shooters like you and I they are hunters one or two bottles might last them all year or maybe a couple of years.

Point two... both you and Busta compare the price of BH on line and paying the the Hazmat to your door, but when you mention the the price of T7 you always use the retail price in your area. Iy tou were to compare online prices you would see you can get a T7 for $18.40 per bottle.

Point three.... simple math will tell you that you are going to get more shots per bottle from T7 than BH because you are buying a full pound vs 10 ounces of BH.

Point four... the velocity gain, with heavier bullets only, is still only 100-175 fps with BH in normal loads and if you spread that across 200 yards the normal max range of a normal ML shooter how does that compute out?

Point five... you mention moving from 1 MOA to 1/2 MOA - the rifle you are shooting is a hunting rifle not a target rifle - most people are using it for a hunting rifle in a hunting situation what is 1/2 MOA going to matter to the target. You normally will not get a bench shot anyway while hunting.

It is to me also, I enjoy shooting an accurate gun - but in your case you a far more accurate than most guns - you have the ability to take a bad gun and make it shoot well. How many normal hunters have the abilties that you have?

And for some this is not a problem. There are a lot of people that can shoot T7 with out the tremendous problems that you have encountered.

I really feel that I am catching up with you - actually more rapidly these days than in yesterdays...

But in all reallality(sp) BH is a great powder and if it fits in your buget and your abilties - I would highly suggest shooting it. I still resist because of price and the amount of ML shooting that I do. One of the reasons I turned to shooting a ML was the money that it saved vs shooting CF guns and continually reloading. I enjoy the relaxation and the pace of shooting a ML vs the rat race of the real world.

Finally I hope most of you shooting BH continue to do so as it helps keep the price of T7 down, more of you need to shoot BH, at this point BH is estimated at taking about 10% of market. More Pyro is being sold than BH - which really seems odd.