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Old April 5, 2005, 05:29 PM   #1
mec
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Swiss fffg/Goex fffg/Pyrodex P compaired

Some light preliminaries this morning with the 60 Army, A Dragoon and a Lyman .50. Swiss has the rep for being hotter than other black powders as well as cleaner and more consistent. I haven't debunked any of those claims.

The 60 Army- on different days with different conditions has clocked 855/37fps spread with Goex FFFG and: 1047/116 with Pyrodex P. Bullet was the 140 gr 454 RB. Most of my Pyrodex P loads are lighter and show extreme spread in the 50-70- fps range with this revolver.

The Swiss FFFG ran 1040/ 69

The Dragoon holds 50 grains of black with the ball right at the front of the chamber- more than likely, ballistic wonks haven't changed much and the early shooters would stuff as much powder in the chambers as possible just like modern reloaders.
50 grais of Goex FFFG has averaged 890/37 for me. I haven't loaded the volume equivalent of Pyrodex P, but have loaded 45 gr vol/equiv. for 1157/55 fps.

Fifty Grains of Swiss averaged 1217/51

Best guess is that the Swiss is pretty closely equivalent to Pyrodex P in these two revolvers and clearly outruns Goex FFFG.

My .50 Lyman Pistol and the.490 Hornady Ball with 40 gr Goex FFFG gets 884/24. Pyrodex P does 934/72.

the Swiss averaged 1041/48. Again the Swiss left the Goex equivalent in the dust and this time, stomped all over the pyrodex P load too.

All of the above was based on six rounds over the chronograph at about 70f for the swiss. Other powders were shot under unrecorded weather conditions but do not seem to vary a whole lot over time.

I'll be checking other revolvers with fairly maximal swiss loads but I think some trends show up here and are much like a number of shooters have reported. I haven't done enough to say anything about any difference in extreme spreads though black generally does show more consistency than the substitute in that regard.
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Old April 13, 2005, 06:33 PM   #2
mec
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Swiss in Remington Uberti and Lemat

Clocked some more Swiss through these two .44 revolvers. The lemat is slow compared to most other revolvers while the Remington seems to get optimum velocities. The ball load from the remington was an inch or so better at 40 yards than the Lee Bullet load.

Last edited by mec; August 28, 2010 at 09:22 PM.
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Old April 13, 2005, 11:54 PM   #3
bunker43
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I have found that with Goex loads over a wide range of rifles & handguns can be reduced by around 10 to 15 gr when using Swiss & shoot the same velocity & sometimes I believe better accuracy.

Last edited by bunker43; April 14, 2005 at 01:49 AM.
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Old April 14, 2005, 12:26 AM   #4
fastforty
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I'd been shooting Pyrodex for many years (couldn't get my hands on real BP) when I finally got to try some Goex. I'll have to look through my data for exact specs, but I found in .44 revolver that BP kicked harder & produced less velocity then Pyrodex. BP was also a LOT stickier and messier, but I like the smell better then Pyrodex.
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Old April 14, 2005, 12:59 PM   #5
mec
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With the guns/loads I've been trying, the pyrodex p usually gets higher velocities than Goex fffg and close to the same as swiss fffg.
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Old April 21, 2005, 09:03 PM   #6
100W_Warlock
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What about tripple-7?

Curious what folks think about Tripple7.

I have used that, except for a small batch of GOEX I got from a fellow C&B shooter I know. (he drove back from Texas and brought several cans of stuff with him)

Need a GOEX distributor in MN...just not fair.
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Old April 22, 2005, 06:42 PM   #7
mec
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There are not nearly enough black powder distributors anywhere. I got my swiss in Clarksville Arkansas. Nobody within 100 miles of here ever has it and when they do, its just as likely that a cowboy will come in and buy up the entire supply the first day it hits.

777 can be the hottest of the black powder substitutes. The problem I've had is trying to use it as the same volume as fffg. With these loads, I often get very erratic velocities- spreads way up over 200 fps. Generally, loaded back a bit and compressed little or none at all, it settles down and provides good consistency and accuracy.
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Old April 24, 2005, 01:02 PM   #8
ktw
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100W_Warlock wrote:
>Need a GOEX distributor in MN...just not fair.

I occasionally wished I lived _in_ MN so that it would be easier to drop by the retail outlet of http://www.trackofthewolf.com/. They sell GEOX/SWISS mail order in 25lb lots. Should be able to pick up a few cans at their store.

I've also found GEOX at Gander Mountain (Marquette, MI). Storage requirements dictate that its in a red locker in the back room, not on a retail shelf. You have to ask for it. If your local outlet doesn't stock it, at least it's in their system and they can get it for you.

I had one local gunshop owner give me a rant about how it was not possible for him to carry real blackpowder as the law makes it illegal to store real blackpowder within 300' of a public road.

-ktw
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Old April 27, 2005, 09:03 PM   #9
mec
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The dealers can get a few pounds of it at a time without the blast safes. Most seem to consider it To Much Trouble! (whiiinnnneee). That's the way it is in Waco, Texas anyway. Of course this area is historically known for retailers who don't want to do anything that would be To Much Trouble. You can't even find a topwater fishing lure anywhere in the Waco-Mclennan County Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. Have to order them from Bass Pro. The local merchants really whine about internet shopping.
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