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Old March 10, 2010, 01:01 AM   #1
DG45
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whats a 12 ga, "vintage" load using 777 granulated powder?

After having had no luck in my neck of the woods trying to buy small quantities of black powder or small shot, I left my home town area and found a little village about 25 miles away with a gun shop. It was one of those wonderful places like you used to see back in the 1950's with natural light through the windows and well-used machinery where they actually fix guns, not some place where you drop your gun off and they ship it somewhere (to this guy probably.) Anyway the owner had everything I needed, he just had to look around for it in the back for it for a while. He came out with about 7 or 8 lbs of 7 1/2 lead shot left in a 25 lb. bag, a 1 lb. plastic jar of Triple Seven granulated powder thats a FFG substitute, a big dusty bag of wads, and about 35 overshot cards, all for $30 and no shipping fee.

The Triple Seven wasn't exactly what I was looking for but I took it to get the shot and I'm going to make it do. Unfortunately, it's actually hotter than black powder, and I've got a 110 year old gun and I'm trying to achieve a "vintage" load that keeps pressure low. I had planned to set my measuring cup at one ounce of shot and use that same setting to load an equal volume of FFG black powder (which the dram setting says would equal 2 1/2 drams). But I'm going to have to reduce the volume of powder using Triple Seven and I don't know how much less to use to get the same velocity and pressure for that one ounce of shot. Anybody know how much Triple Seven granulated I should use?
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Old March 10, 2010, 07:27 AM   #2
darkgael
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drams

This is the time to start thinking in terms of drams. That is the way that BP shotshells were loaded.
A dram is 27.3 grains. On a box of modern smokeless shells, you might see the note that a particular load is a "three dram equivalent". The velocity of the modern shell is the same as if it were being pushed by three drams of BP (82 grains). Lighter loads are in the 2 3/4 dram range.
For 777, I would load 2.5 drams of the stuff - about 68 grains by volume. I would load 1 1/8oz of shot. You will have to adjust your wad column so that you get a proper crimp. Personally, I roll crimp the things.
The best hulls for this are paper hulls. Federal GM paper hulls are nice. Ballistic Products Inc. sells brand new paper hulls (not Federal).
BP and subs like 777 are not kind to modern plastic hulls. One load only.
About your load idea - sounds sensible. A frequent recommendation is to reduce 777 loads by 15%. Going with 2.5 drams or a bit less, maybe 60 grains by volume and 1 to 1 1/8 oz. of shot will be a pretty mild load.
Pete
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Old March 10, 2010, 04:41 PM   #3
oneounceload
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RST, BPI, Polywad all sell some form of "Vintager" load; while not the cheapest in the world, one flat of 250 will probably last you a long time.

You might seriously ask the folks at doublegunshop.com - they shoot double gun, and many the very old ones - they might have some recipes for you

Good luck and stay safe
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Old March 10, 2010, 05:01 PM   #4
jaguarxk120
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Why not call the help line at Hodgdon? Explain what you want to do and the materials you have on hand. They will give you a recomendation for loading powder and shot. They kinda of know what they are talking about since they make the stuff.
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Old March 10, 2010, 05:07 PM   #5
darkgael
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RST

RST shells are great. I use their Falcon Lite in my old Parker (when I'm not shooting brass hulls). They are, however, smokeless loads.
There are quite a few smokeless load combinations that develop only "low pressures". Look at Lyman's Shotshell manual. The powders involved are typically Red Dot, SR 7625, PB, Clays, N3SL.
Quite a few loads develop less than 7K psi. A few of the SR7625 loads are substantially less than 6K LUP - down around BP pressures. One that I like is at 4900LUP .
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Last edited by darkgael; March 10, 2010 at 05:21 PM.
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Old March 10, 2010, 07:32 PM   #6
B.L.E.
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Quote:
This is the time to start thinking in terms of drams. That is the way that BP shotshells were loaded.
A dram is 27.3 grains. On a box of modern smokeless shells, you might see the note that a particular load is a "three dram equivalent". The velocity of the modern shell is the same as if it were being pushed by three drams of BP (82 grains). Lighter loads are in the 2 3/4 dram range.
For 777, I would load 2.5 drams of the stuff - about 68 grains by volume. I would load 1 1/8oz of shot. You will have to adjust your wad column so that you get a proper crimp. Personally, I roll crimp the things.
The best hulls for this are paper hulls. Federal GM paper hulls are nice. Ballistic Products Inc. sells brand new paper hulls (not Federal).
BP and subs like 777 are not kind to modern plastic hulls. One load only.
About your load idea - sounds sensible. A frequent recommendation is to reduce 777 loads by 15%. Going with 2.5 drams or a bit less, maybe 60 grains by volume and 1 to 1 1/8 oz. of shot will be a pretty mild load.
Pete

Good info however let me emphasize these measurements are by volume. Do not weigh out these charges with a scale when using black powder substitutes.
Black powder substitutes are less dense than black powder and when they say "68 grains" they mean the amount of powder that would be measured by a powder measure that measures 68 grains of real black powder.

As a general rule, using the same volume of powder as the shot is a good starting point with BP loads. A lot of muzzleloading shotgun shooters use the same measure for both the shot and powder.
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Old March 11, 2010, 02:47 AM   #7
DG45
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I appreciate all the responses. I think I understand what darkgael is saying about drams because while Pyrodex is a BP substitute that is approximately the same weight per volume as BP and gives approximately the same performance as BP, Triple Seven isn't. Triple Seven - if I understand what I'm reading correctly - is about 30% lighter per the same volume as BP but about 15% more powerful at the same volume.

Practically,the difference is (if I understand this correctly) that using FFg black powder, if I wanted to use a very light square load of 1 ounce of shot, and the same volume of black powder , I'd set my shot measurement cup at 1 ounce of shot, and then use the same cup, at the same setting to load both shot and black powder. (The dram measurement for that amount of black powder would be about 2.5 drams)

However, with Triple Seven FFG, if I wanted to achieve about the same velocity and pressures as the light black powder load I mentioned above, I couldn't use a square load with Triple Seven. I'd still set the shot cup to measure 1 ounce of shot. But I'd need to reduce the amount of granulated Triple Seven powder I use to about 15% less volume of Triple Seven than I used with the black powder. (That would probably be about 2.25 drams of Triple Seven granulated FFG -or thereabouts) Does that sound about right?
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Old March 11, 2010, 06:58 AM   #8
B.L.E.
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That sounds about right, however, Pyrodex is about 30% less dense than actual black powder. That's why you don't measure it by weight.
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Old March 12, 2010, 06:45 AM   #9
darkgael
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subs

Yes. What BLE said.
Pyrodex and 777 are both less dense than real BP. Triple Seven is, evidently, more energetic than Pyrodex.
Pete
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