Keep black powder dry, and it last forever. If it gets wet, or clumped up you only need to let it dry again, and de-clump. There isn't really to break-down or go bad. Black Powder is a mixture of Charcoal, Sulfur, and Potassium Nitrate.
Pyrodex will also last a very, very long time if kept dry.
When I was 10 or 12, a neighborhood teenager tried to make a pipe bomb. The story is as he was screwing the cap on, it went off. IDK. What isn't in question is that it went off.
He lost his left hand, a few fingers on his right, and hearing in his left ear. He adapted pretty quickly and pretty well, kinda like a dog that loses a leg.
Modern "smokeless powder" is many times more stable than black powder.
Black powder can be set off by a direct impact, modern smokeless powder cannot.
Although modern powder can be set off by a spark , it takes much more to ignite it than does black powder which can sometimes be set off just by the static charge built up on your clothing.
Black powder does not store as well or for as long as does smokeless powder, without losing potency.
Black powder will break down faster when exposed to sunlight for long periods, than will smokeless powder.
Please do, and let me know. Of course, the whole idea of me asking is not that I can't Google, but even in this thread, I got conflicting information from the same member who Googled his answers.
I just don't know, which is why I asked. I feel pretty confident my 15 year old powder will go bang, and push the ball out of the barrel, but I'm more interested if a brand new can would show a significant difference in grouping from aged BP.
I think I also have some Pyrodex somewhere, and I would expect it to be more stable, but , I defer to actual experience to internet information.
If you don't know, you don't know. If you have actual experience, great, that's why I'm asking here.
I probably should have been a little more specific on the patch and lube question, as I was just curious as to whether any old school front end loaders are old school like me.
It's been a long time, so I would have to go to a fabric store to tell you what the material is that I use for patches. I use Crisco for lube, IIRC, but I could be wrong on that. Lard would probably be more period correct.
There is a method to the madness on the patches. I cut squares and seat the bullets partially , then trim the excess off with a knife. The theory is that trying to center a precut round patch is less precise and that little bit of difference makes a difference downrange. My experience with targets at 100 yrds. supports the theory.
Working up accuracy with a true 1 in 66 twist patched ball takes more effort than working up that teeny bit of accuracy difference in handloading modern cartridges and tweaking the firearm. It's just cheaper, requires less equipment, but is also limiting in that it's not plug and play by any means.
To even the playing field, grouping a period correct rifle like mine at 100 yards is equivalent to grouping a modern rifle at 1,000.
So that part of my question is really if there are any like minded blackpowder enthusiasts' out there.
Thanks, it's a phone glitch. It only showed one on my end. Happens with posts fairly often, and when I double check, I just delete the redundant posts.
And thanks for the link Oorah. I'll probably be checking that out a lot in the future.
And, I don't know what to call the guy that married my niece. Nephew? Nephew in law? Guess I'll just stick to the safety term; jarhead.
Poor guy survived Afghanistan, only to be stationed in California.