doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com "Bored For Nitro Powder"

Personally I do not believe you could call the development of Dense powders as being irresponsible. Some of the loading of it was definitely irresponsible, but there were ample warnings issued about its use.
A former co-worker of mine over powered a small fishing boat. Several of his friends who were also into boating warned him about the dangers of this. He laughed them off saying he always opened it up slowly & he liked how fast it moved once underway. Well one day he opened it too fast, the bow went straight up in the air & the engine pulled the whole rig to the bottom of the lake. I would not call this irresponsible on the part of the Outboard maker for building too powerful an engine for they did not recommend it for this type of boat.
Neither did the makers of dense powders recommend loading a 3 dram "Bulk" measure of their powder. Old loading instructions I have for the dense powders all give load weight in grains while those for bulk powders give the dram measure, same as black without giving an actual weight.

Were we to stop tech development because of 'entrenched mindset' we would still be in the horse and buggy days.

Some people simply will not, ever, heed warnings and sound advice.

I know of a guy who thinks 'gunpowder is gunpowder' and uses completely inappropriate loads in spite of being told that what he is doing is foolhardy and dangerous.

You can't fix stupid.

There were abundant warnings

1902 Sears catalog No. 112
"Gun and rifle barrels can only burst by having some obstruction in the barrel or by overloading with Nitro powder."
FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS




Some were not paying attention

Hatcher's Notebook, 1966
https://books.google.com/books?id=yESNUKSg5aMC&pg=PA184&lpg
�E.C.� blank powder burns with extreme speed�to give a sharp report when it is not heavily confined. An enthusiast once got hold of some of this powder, being familiar with �E.C.� shotgun powder�and loaded a bunch of shells. To try out his new load he got out his fine Lefever gun, and put up a target in the shooting gallery to get the pattern. There was a terrific detonation, and a big piece was blown out the side of the barrel near the breech, flew across the room and buried itself in a wood bench.

Then and now

On the LCSCA Forum in Dec. 2014 regarding a 1906 No. 0 10g; barrel composition unknown:
I was at a farm where a guy I have known for a couple years came out with this L.C. smith. He first shot the gun with Federal Premium Vital-Shok 3 1/2 Inch Magnum copper-plated 1100 fps 27 pellets No. 1 buck (27 pellets of #1 buck is about 2 1/2 oz.). I still have the box and 1 live shell. He fired one shell out of each barrel with no problems. I asked if I could shoot the gun...and fired 1 shell out of each barrel.
I have never seen a gun this old nevertheless shoot one. I thought it would be cool to hunt with it. I'm guessing from your comment not such a good idea.

1903 Baltimore Arms Co. catalog courtesy of David Noreen
"Do not load any smokeless or nitro powder in brass shells. There are two kinds of smokeless powder (dense and bulk) and care should be taken..."





No doubt part of the problem was the many powders, with different Dram Equivalents, available. Ah capitalism

42 grain = 3 Dram Equivalent Bulk Powders

�E.C.� No. 1
�Schultze�
Curtis & Harvey �Amberite� (40 grains)
Sporting Smokeless Powder Syn., Ltd �Cannonite Shot-gun�
Smokeless Powder Co. �S.S.� (Smokeless Shot-gun) (43 grains)
Cooppal & Co. �Cooppal�s No. 1�
United States Smokeless Powder Co. �Gold Dust�
Dynamit Nobel�s Troisdorf Powder Co. �Troisdorf� (41.5 grains)
American Wood Powder
�J.B.� Powder

36 Grain = 3 Dram Equivalent Bulk Powders

DuPont Bulk (36.5 grains)
Laflin & Rand Bulk (37 grains)
Hazard Powder Co. �Blue Ribbon� (37 grains)
�E.C.� No. 2 (Improved)
�New Schultze�

33 Grain = 3 Dram Equivalent Bulk Powders

�New E.C. (Improved) No. 3� (introduced in U.S. in 1904)
Curtis & Harvey �Diamond Smokeless� (1903)
Walsrode Smokeless & Waterproof Gun Powder Co. �Walsrode Gray�
Louis Muller & Cie S.A. �Mullerite No. 2�
Nobel�s Explosive Co. �Empire�
�Cooppal�s No. 2� (30 grains = 3 Dr. Eq.)

England had the same problem
1896 UK Rules of Proof Service Charges for Nitro Powder
https://books.google.com/books?id=inQCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA7



After WWI, the standard for 2 1/2� shells became 1 1/16 oz. with 42 grains (Old) �Schultze� Bulk (3 Dram), 36 grains �E.C. No. 2 (Improved)� or 33 grains Imperial Chemical Industries (Eley & Kynoch Cartridges) �Smokeless Diamond� powder.

DuPont purchased Laflin & Rand in 1902, and American �E.C.� & �Schultze� Powder Company in 1903. �New E.C. Improved� and �New Schultze� were introduced in 1906 as DuPont products.
Hazard �Blue Ribbon� Bulk Smokeless was listed as a DuPont product in 1908.
In 1912 under the Sherman Antitrust Act, Laflin & Rand was dissolved and DuPont was split into DuPont Powder Co. (later DuPont American Industries), Hercules Powder Co. (which retained �Infallible�, �E.C.� and �Schultze�) and Atlas Powder Co. L&R �Orange Extra� black powder was still offered in the 1927 �Hercules Sporting Powders� booklet.


An attempt to bring order to U.S. smokeless powder chaos

Simplified Practice Recommendation, Loader Paper Shot Shells, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Standards, Jan. 1, 1922 - https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=oSwXAQAAIAAJ

Note though that whether a 42 grain, 36 grain, 33 grain or other all those powders listed as "Bulk" were intended to load a 3 dram equivalent load with a 3 dram Black Powder Dipper. When things went out the window though was when folks loaded Infallible, Ballistite or other dense powders with a bulk dipper.
A 3 dram dipper full of Infallible was not the equivalent of a 3 dram dipper full of either Schultz or New Shultz. The 3 dram dipper full of Schultz would weigh 42 grains while the same dipper full of New Shultz would only weigh 36 grains, but they were both 3 dram equivalent.
A 1913 LAC catalog list 24 grains of Infallible as a 3 dram equivalent load. Heaviest load listed ion 12 ga was 28 grains for a 3� dram Equiv. A 3 dram bulk dipper full of Infallible would have weighed about 48 grains. (This derived from the settings from an old Lyman Handbook for setting the #5 powder measure) Note also that Black Powder burns at virtually the same speed regardless of conditions, not so with Smokeless. Double charging with Black is not near as Catastrophic as Double Charging Smokeless.

Now I know why my Parker 12ga Hammergun circa 1887 has bores of .752 which means it was intended for Black powder. !

A helpful comparison

.....................BULK.................................DENSE
.......E.C. No.1.....DuPont�...�Schultze........Walsrode Green.....Ballistite�.....Infallible
3 Dram....42...........36.5..............42................30���..�...24..............22 grains
3 1/4�....45.5.........40................45................32��..�.�..26..............24 grains
3 1/2�....49............43................48................34���..�...28..............26 grains

The original �Schultze� & �E.C.� No. 1 Bulk Smokeless were 14 grains/drachm.
�New Schultze�, New �E.C.(Improved) No. 2�, and DuPont Bulk Smokeless were 12 grains/drachm.
�E.C. No. 3� was 11 grains/drachm or 33 grains = 3 Dr. Eq.

Later advertisements and load listings showed �Ballistite� and �Infallible� as equivalent.

Thank you Gentlemen for taking my comment & shining light on it so that it could be expanded into this very useful information on page two.

Just one more thing.
Why is it always recommended to not load smokeless powder into brass shotgun hulls ?
O.M

Moses;
My very first experience with loading shotshells was back in the late 1950s. I loaded brass 20 ga shells I acquired from Alcan, Fiocchi brand. These were primed with Berdan primers which made for rather slow reloading but it worked for the amount of shooting I was doing at the time. I loaded with smokeless powder exclusively. Only the quick burning powders could be properly ignited such as Red Dot, Dupont bulk & an imported powder know as Nike.
Black powder was very easy to ignite & I think many of the primers available in the early days for the brass shells simply would not satisfactorily ignite the smokeless powders. A bit later Alcan brought out a line of brass shells using the old Remington 57 shotshell primers which could be satisfactorily used with any of the smokeless powders. As I recall these were only available in 12ga. They were made to fit a 2 3/4" chamber but would effectively hold the 3" magnum load.
I hope this answers your question just a bit, but I really feel it was the matter of ignition.