Originally Posted By: Ted Schefelbein
"Were" four varities, Larry. Further, I'm going to suggest if the differences between them had been critical, it would have turned up in the proof marks.
It didn't. Proof with powder J is proof with powder J.
This seems to be one of those things that didn't matter for very long, and didn't matter all that much when it did matter.


Best,
Ted


Well Ted, we might say that powder J doesn't matter at all now, and hasn't for over a century . . . as far as proof goes. But those other varieties--which Journee explains were used in pistols or for hunting loads--were important enough for a noted French ballistician to include them in a work which delves much deeper into the subject than any source I've read. Sort of like ignoring the Dupont work from the 1930's comparing the pressure curve of several smokeless powders to black powder, showing that there's not nearly the difference that many more modern sources told us to expect.

When we ignore information from the past, it often seems someone has to go back and reinvent the wheel . . . unnecessarily, if only we'd paid attention to what we used to know and somehow managed to forget.