Interesting Blackhorn/Triple Seven Velocity Comparison
 

I shot Blackhorn 209 and Triple Seven FFFG over the chronograph this weekend in the short 24" barrel of my Omega X7.

The bullet was Hornady's .452/300 grain XTP Mag in Harvester long black sabots. CCI 209M's were used with Blackhorn and Winchester 209's with the T7.

The velocity shown below is the average of five shots with each load. The chronograph was ten feet from the muzzle. The bore was brushed with a dry nylon brush between BH shots and swabbed with both sides of an alcohol patch between the T7 shots.

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.................. ................... VELOCITY ............................

LOAD ......... TRIPLE SEVEN FFFG ..... BLACKHORN 209

75 grains ......... 1642 fps ..................... 1571 fps .....

85 grains ......... 1749 fps ..................... 1685 fps .....

95 grains ......... 1817 fps ..................... 1746 fps .....

105 grains ........ 1875 fps ..................... 1877 fps .....

115 grains ........ 1915 fps ..................... 1947 fps .....

I thought it interesting that T7 was in the lead with the smaller charges. They about tied at 105 grains. Then BH took the lead with 115 grains. I didn't go to 125 grains because the recoil with 115 was about all I wanted to deal with in the little X7.

By the way, my hunting load of 105 grains of GOEX FFFg under that same bullet averages 1550 fps.

That is something I often wondered but never had a chronograph to test it. I often said that power wise, I felt Triple Seven was close. For those like you and I that do not shoot LARGE powder charges.. triple seven is a good choice in powder.

Semisane

Pretty much exactly what I found also... the Bh T7 gap gets larger as you go up in volume of the charges and @ 130 grains you see BH ahead by about 150 fps... not enough for me to be concerned with.

I will stay with T7 - guess I have to, just bought 14 lbs from my local store $19.50 for a real pound.

The Blackhorn I used for the comparison was the last of the one canister I bought three years ago. I doubt I'll buy another. But you never know. I might get curious again.

Interesting and informative test Semi.

Pretty much the same as I found also the real difference only shows with heavy bullets or loads from 130 up and in the pressure it takes 135 grains of BH to equal the pressure of 120 grains of 777.

First off you have to ask........Is BH 209 2F or 3F? It might be different with T7 2F.

I'm guessing when I say this, but maybe this is how it went when they came up with the BH formula. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that BH 209 is basically a form of smokeless powder detuned to BP velocities with some smoke added.

So, they wanted it to compete with the best sub available at the time. That would be T7. I believe T7 has stretched the velocity difference from real BP as far as they dared go, and still call it a BP sub.

I don't think they wanted to compare to T7 3F, because that's suppose to be for small calibers. They took T7 2F, and made it just a bit better without throwing up any red flags.

BH209 has many other advantages besides velocity. No swabbing, no crud ring, more consistent, and doesn't absorb moisture. They could have boosted velocity much higher, but kept it safe instead.

My .02

I am just thinking Lee's statement should maybe be clarified a little bit.

He is correct and has shown that the pressure rise in BH is slower than T7 and at any given time BH does not produce as much pressure as does T7, but because of its 'progressive' burning nature it DOES produce a greater 'total pressure' which with heavier bullets will normally produce more velocity.

The heavier the bullet the more efficient BH burns.

No matter BH is a very good powder and serves a lot of people very well, but as I have always said it is not everybodies answer.

No, not really Muley, shooting T7-2f you will see about the same thing. Especially with a 300 grain bullet as you reduce the weight of the bullet the differences become even a bit more glaring with loads under 110 grains of powder. But as you cross the 120 grain loads the velocities of BH does increase but not very dramatically. But more importantly as Lee pointed out the PEAK pressure of BH is lower than T7, either 2f or 3f.

I have posted these results many time so they are probably getting old but they do go right along with Semi's and others findings...

I never did get time to complete the table for the 50 cal shoot but the 45 with a lighter bullet shows some of the same results.





You forgot one other point BH was also built to bulky in size so that it would meter with real BP, that is very important so that it could qualify as a black powder substitute.

no one ever complained about velocity with T7. Just the crud ring and having to swab between shots.