OT Makin' smoke?

[mikld]

Jes sitting here recovering and thinking (I know, a dangerous thing at times). I'm gonna get my wife to shooting my Puma .44. I can load up some soft shooting rounds for her w/no recoil but while doing all this in my head, I thought mebbe I could make the rounds smoke, somewhat like black powder. I don't want to go with black powder. Been there done that and I don't like cleaning black residue and stuff from my guns, but I was wondering, Pyrodex? don't know about cleaning or corrosiveness, or something added to the powder charge to smoke? I'll prolly be using Ranch Dog's 265 gr bullet with Unique in magnum cases. I think she'd (and me) like to see a big poof of smoke ...

[Pete44ru]

I kin see the smoke, comin' from the top o' yer head, from here...............

.

[horsesoldier03]

IMO, you would be better off keeping with a smokeless powder and go with light 180 or 200 grn bullets so the recoil isnt so stiff. I like a 200 grn LRNFP at approx. 1500 fps. Then take her to a range where you can have milk jugs, watermelons or other targets that will explode on impact. Thats what tends to get new shooters excited. I must confess, I still get a bit excited over that stuff too.

[mikld]

IMO, you would be better off keeping with a smokeless powder and go with light 180 or 200 grn bullets so the recoil isnt so stiff. I like a 200 grn LRNFP at approx. 1500 fps. Then take her to a range where you can have milk jugs, watermelons or other targets that will explode on impact. Thats what tends to get new shooters excited. I must confess, I still get a bit excited over that stuff too.

I kin get the load light enough, I just wanted the smoke for effect!

[Nath]

If you don't like cleaning BP up, stay off the Pyro, it is worse!

nath.

[Pisgah]

If you don't like cleaning BP up, stay off the Pyro, it is worse!

nath.

Amen! It will make BP look mild when it comes to corrosion. It MUST be cleaned as quickly as, and more thoroughly than, BP.

[Chas.]

Last week at the range, the range officer asked me if I was shooting BP because of the smoke. It was 24gr. A2400 and a 300gr RNFP in a .45-70. It did make a lot of smoke.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I shoot nothing but Black Powder in Cowboy Action Shooting. Clean up is simple and quick. You just have to go about it the right way.

First of all, if you use real Black Powder you MUST use bullets lubed with a Black Powder compatible bullet lube. SPG is a popular one, so is Bore Butter. If you use real Black Powder with Smokeless lubed bullets, that is part of the problem. If you combine Black Powder with conventional Smokeless lubed bullets, the fouling quickly turns to a hard deposit that is difficult to remove. But when you use bullets that are lubed with a BP compatible bullet lube, the fouling stays moist and a few patches soaked with your favorite BP compatible water based solvent will clean up the bore in a jiffy. I cast my own soft bullets for BP shooting and size them and lube them with SPG.

If you shoot Pyrodex you will have to do the same thing. Pyrodex requires the same type of bullet lube that real Black Powder needs or you will get the same difficult to remove hard fouling.

But.............

If you don't want to go to the trouble of using special bullets with special lube, try APP. With APP you can use conventional bullets lubed with conventional Smokeless lube. No special bullets or lube required. Clean up is easy, use the same water based solvent that you would use with real Black Powder. Just pour enough APP into the brass so that when you seat the bullet the powder is compressed by no more than 1/16".

http://www.americanpioneerpowder.com/index.html

Another BP substitute that will allow you to use regular bullets is Hodgdon's 777. You have to be a little bit more careful with 777 though because it is more powerful than real Black Powder. Hodgdon does not recommend any compression with 777, just put in enough so that when the bullet is seated there is no air space and the bullet meets the top of the powder charge.

http://www.hodgdon.com/tripleseven.html

Lastly, let me tell you how I clean a rifle after I have shot it with Black Powder. You can use the same technique with either APP or 777. First off, place a fired shell in the chamber and close the action. Then, take your cleaning rod and slip a wet patch into the slotted end of the rod. Don't use a jag, use the slotted end. Use your favorite water based Black Powder solvent. Holding the rifle vertical, twirl a wet patch all the way down the bore. Remove it, it should be coated with black, crusty fouling. Repeat several times, each time with a fresh patch. After three or four times, the patches should emerge a dirty gray color with no more crusty fouling on them. You have now succeeded in washing all of the fouling out of the bore and down into the empty case in the chamber. Your bore is basically clean. Turn the rifle upside down and eject the empty onto the ground. Watch out, a spray of filthy black solvent will come out with it, so don't do this on a white carpet. I usually do this at my car at the end of a match. Your bore is now clean. You can run another patch down the bore to soak up any more solvent, or better still you can run a bore snake from the chamber to the muzzle, to clean the chamber too. With a cartridge like 44 Mag or 44 Special, you will probably have a little bit of fouling that got past the empty and into the action. A couple of patches and Q-tips and your solvent will make quick work of that too. If you were shooting a nice old bottle necked cartridge like 44-40 you would get no fouling into the action at all, because 44-40 cases are thinner. Last thing, run some BP compatible oil like Ballistol into the bore to oil it and prevent any corrosion.

Total elapsed time about five minutes for a rifle. Easy, peasy, been doing it for years.

P.S. The reason you do not use a jag on your cleaning rod is because you will probably jam a patch into the empty case in the chamber and be very unhappy. If you use the slotted end of the rod, you will not get a patch jammed in the empty.

[C. Cash]

If you don't like cleaning BP up, stay off the Pyro, it is worse!

nath.

Amen! It will make BP look mild when it comes to corrosion. It MUST be cleaned as quickly as, and more thoroughly than, BP.

+1

[GonnePhishin]

Excellent and easy to understand instructions 1++

[M. M. Wright]

What Driftwood said but:
Make your solvent by dissolving 1 part Ballistol in 10 parts water. This will dissolve the residue from the bore plus after the metal is "seasoned" with the Ballistol it will clean up much easier than anything else I've found after (what's 1954 from 2011?) years. The bullet design is important too. It must carry enough lube to make it to the end of the barrel. When you see a star of lube on the muzzle you'll know you have enough. Only important in rifles and most bullets carry enough for 20 inches. I use real GOEX. You can make your own lube too from toilet bowl waxes and olive oil but that 's another story.

[Nath]

What Driftwood said but:
Make your solvent by dissolving 1 part Ballistol in 10 parts water. This will dissolve the residue from the bore plus after the metal is "seasoned" with the Ballistol it will clean up much easier than anything else I've found after (what's 1954 from 2011?) years. The bullet design is important too. It must carry enough lube to make it to the end of the barrel. When you see a star of lube on the muzzle you'll know you have enough. Only important in rifles and most bullets carry enough for 20 inches. I use real GOEX. You can make your own lube too from toilet bowl waxes and olive oil but that 's another story.

Sound advice, I tend to just use water for initial wipe outs.

Melted beef fat and olive oil is very good.

N.