Gitten ready to shoot................

Gitten ready to shoot................

Aladen,

There has only been two lots of Swiss powder imported into this country so far. That was a unmarked lot distributed by Goex and lot #001 there are severeal different date codes for this same lot of powder. There has never been ,to the best of my knowledge, a lot #2000. I have had severeal conversations with the importer of this powder and this information is from them. I also was in Switzerland early this year and was lucky enough to take a tour of the Swiss factory. The 2f you made reference to, is today is truley a 2f granulation. In the begining when Swiss first came here and Goex was the distributor Swiss did use a # system that was different than what we are used to. They have sense changed to the more common system that we are more familiar with. Also you made reference to 1 1/2. Swiss does have a granulation of Swiss 1 1/2f. This is not 2f powder it is 1 1/2f and has nothing in common with any other granulation.

When it comes to the brand of powder anyone chooses to use I do not have a dog in that fight. I say use what works for you. Swiss is a bit pricey, I paid $406.21 for the last case of this powder I bought and this year I am on my third case of powder. But as a competitor of BPCR silhouette I feel that the price of the powder is the last place I want to cut corners. What with the cost of rifles, transportation, rooming and all of the other things included with the cost's of shooting I don't care what the powder cost's. Now I shoot a lot, I have attented 32 silhouette shoots this year and that adds up quick. Swiss powder works for me. In the three cases i have purchased there have been no load changes with the new case of powder. That for me is something new. Before I started useing Swiss I shot Goex, and with every new case i had to do my load workup all over. No two cases where the same, and some of it was so bad that it was difficult to ever workup a load for. Goex will shoot if you are willing to do the work, the new 2002 lot seems to be just as fast as Swiss but Goex must be loaded a differnt way altogether. Goex almost demands compression and a lot of it. My Swiss loads have no compression, and as a matter of fact when i tried compressing Swiss it was just bad. Now Swiss does foul there is no doubt about it. But that fouling can be controlled with good lube and good use of a blow tube. Without a blow tube I think you are out of luck. I can not even think of shooting a bank of animals in a silhouette match what with the time requirements and the rate of fire and not using a blow tube. ALL BLACK POWDER FOULS. There is no way to get away from that. If we take this as a constant now we must learn how to deal with this fouling. The blow tube will do that. I personally hate using a blow tube, and wish there was another way. If I ever find it I will be a happy man.

Good Luck Gunny

Gitten ready to shoot................

Butler,King,

Glad if I was of any help. I will relate this somewhat to be lengthy story and my first use of Swiss powder.

The BPCR Nationals at Raton in 2001 where my first Nationals. At that time I had only been shooting Silhouette for a few months, and as a matter of fact my first day at Raton was my 7th Silhouette shoot ever. While I was there, there where vendors for all of the powder Co's. I purchased all of the then available powders except one and that was Swiss. The distributer of Swiss sold out in the first day (that should have told me something). So with a case of Elephant, Goex and KIK I thought I was ready for some serious load workup.

I had meet and was shooting with some new friends from Bishop Ca. one of those being Jerry Vanway. Jerry had won the Nationals a couple of years befor and I told him about my powder purchases. Jerry informed me that I had all of the bad stuff, and good luck. This really pissed me off. What did he know I thought. After the Nationals i shot a couple of more ,matches and then in Jan of this year I took a couple of weeks off and went up to some rural property that I own in Redding Ca to do the load workup. This property is 40 miles outside of town and very remote. I can do some long range testing there and not be bothered at all. As a matter of fact the CLOSEST I can get a target is 375 yds. After thinking about what Jerry had said i did purchase a case of Swiss as well. So now I have 4 different powders plenty of time and plenty of room to get some serious work done. I left Redding 3 weeks later with a **** of a good load, I had shot over 1500 bullets downrange and had learned alot about my rifle and shooting Black Powder. I also had learned that Swiss powder was not just a little better, but a **** of a lot better than the other three powders I took. The first load I shot with Swiss was better than anything else I had tried. With each different load it just got better. With the Swiss i shot so many 4" groups that it wasn't even funny and that was at 375 yds. not all of the groups where that good, but most where and i even had one group shot early in the morning when i was fresh and my eyes where not tired that went into a group at 375 yds of 1.911". I couldn't believe it, not to shabby for an old Marine.

My first Silhouette match with this new load was the next month in Sacramento Ca. Now guy's you need to know that in my Silhouette career so far i had never broken a 20 the best score I had shot was a 17. At that match in Sacramento with my new load I shot a 27 I ran the Rams and the Pigs and had 7 Turkeys took zip on the chickens. I was a A class shooter when this year started. I made AAA in three shoots, thats right 3 shoots. It took me a little longer but I finally made Master Class this year. Now think about this I went from class A to Master in one year. That hasn't been done very often. Now I bring a lot to the table in the shooting sports. I am a retired Marine and after 30 years in the Corps I had damn well better know how to shoot. It was the powder and taking the time, let me say that again, TAKING THE TIME, to do the load workup. If a feller is willing to do the work this Swiss powder is something else. Price be damned!!

Sorry that took so long, but I did warn you first. Give the Swiss a try!

Good Luck Gunny

Gitten ready to shoot................

GUNNY !!!!!!!. Thanks for the story. Last Feb. i purchased two (2) cases of GOEX FOR SHOOTING MY bpcr's. I was haveing a fit of a time with thier CARTRIDGE grade attempting to get good groups. After several pounds later,I had switched to 2f,and then to 3f. I keep all of my targets and chrony info stapled to each target,time,date,etc. No matter what I did,the cartt. would not shoot out of my guns in the .45 calibers. It does shoot very good in the .50-140 with several three and four shot groups doing a cloverleaf. I contacted some of the guys at BUFFALO ARMS,and was telling them my tales of woe. The advised me of the same thing. Get the SWISS POWDER,in 1 1/2 f,and go fer it. I have not purchased any yet,but im ssure going to. The best I got with the GOEX WAS A GOOD 1 1/2 INCHER AT 100YRDS,AND I got the same type of group out of my .45-120, But the loads were not consistant as they should be. I am shooting both a POSTELL AND A lyman rn. 535 grn,and 520 respectfully. Dont mind the expense,I just wann have tight froups. :toast: King

Gitten ready to shoot................

GUNNEY. Like I said earlier I have some loads that are good. They are not great,but they are good.. I kinda new to the BPCR game,and really enjoy it a lot. I think the best part is just shooting these single shooters. Some of the guys on the range,that have done it for awhile tell me to not complain and that they would be happy with the groups that I am shooting. The .45-120 took a lot of shooting,about 400 rounds before I started to get some good groups out of it. I found that it really liked the 405grn flatpoint. No tang sight on it,but I did get an honest 1 1/2 group out of it with that projo. I was using 115 of CART,215 RPIMER,AND AN OVER POWDER(.060) veg. wad. It was seated to just touch the lands and grooves on my rifle. In the ,45-70 my load is 65 of 2f,and im using a RP case. The primer is a 215 and the projo is a LYMAN RN hand cast out of WW. Im also using n over powder wad. The oal is 2.95 with SPG lube... This load out of my pedesoli sharps got me just under 1 inch for five rounds,and then I started with a couple of flyers. They were probably my fault. The chrony on that load is 1158fps. Im happy with it,but the load just seams to go up or down depending on the day even if all things remain the same,(no wind,temp 10 degrees variation,etc). I bet i have shot over 1800 rounds to this point in this gun to get this group. Lotsa work,but more importantly,lotsa fun. King. Im always looking to improve on it. :grin:

Gitten ready to shoot................

I would incourage you to give the Swiss powder a try. I have found it to be MUCH easier to load and quicker to get a good load. It for me has been consistant from case to case with the load worked up for one case working the same for the next case. Goex has never done that for me. With Goex I had to start over with a new case of powder, this for some may not be that big of a deal. But if you think about it the big difference between the two is price. Now Goex has had a price increase lately but it is not as exspensive as Swiss. Goex costs about $300.00 a case and Swiss around $400.00 a case. But for me the Goex had to have a load worked up with each new case, that can take from 2 to 5 lbs of powder to work up a load and then prove that load. So the case of Goex now only contains 20 lbs of powder and the Swiss still has 25 lbs of powder. When you think about it this way, the Swiss is not as exspensive as you thought.

As to your OAL question. All of myt match ammo is loaded to an OAL of 3.127 in a 45-70 so my bullets are seated to engage the rifling, no problem. Good Luck Gunny

Gitten ready to shoot................

It took at least 10# of Cartridge Goex for me to realize that powder was at fault more so than anything else I was doing in changing variables.
My first thought toward blameing anything that is not grouping well is the lube. Soon, Goex Cartridge had me changing lube, primer, compression, everything else. Duuh!
When I finally did change from Cartridge to ffg the results were so dramatic that if I hadn't been directly involved in all this nonsense I would have never believed any of it.
I went from six / eight / even ten inch....let's say "spreads", to groups of about two inches at 100. I have never shot a group of one inch, or less, at 100. I have, on two different occasions, shot groups of less than five inches at 385 meters..go figure!
I have never tried Swiss, I simply could not find any, or anyone who knew where to get any, in my neck of the woods. I will get some this coming year. (I just heard of a place in Portland, OR that has it.) I personally believe the Make / Brand of powder ( perhaps even the lot # of a particular brand) along with it's granulation, is as important as anything else in loading for BPCR...in your gun. It does not hurt to experiment...a lot.
Gunny mentioned having bought all of the "bad stuff" while at Raton. Who knows? He may very well be carying around another mans' Gold.
Respectfully, Russ