What is the general consensus on this powder? I bought a new Encore Friday and picked up a pound of this and I'm not sure I see any advantage over the Pyrodex that I used to use. I was having a hell of a time sighting it in and gave up after 20 shots. I decided to clean it and try again tomorrow.

I bought a pound of AP 3f a year ago, and went to the range, expecting something miraculous. What happened was I experienced fouling like I had never seen before, and accuracy not even close to what I could get with Triple Seven. After the second round I nearly broke the ramrod trying to push a new projectile past the fouling...

I still have most of the AP can, and I will probably never shoot any nore of it.

Thanhs Guys I have 2 lbs of this stuff ! I got it to reload 45/90 cartridges , I saw the TV add on outdoor channel and ran right out and boaught it .

Doubless, did you have any oil or grease in the barrel? According to the website this stuff turns to tar (my interpretation of the propaganda)in the presence of lubes. If not, then I wonder if this is just another flash in the pan substitute. I was going to work up loads for next ML season with this, but I'm curious to hear what people are experiencing with it.

I didn't clean the barrel before I shot it, I just ran a dry patch through a couple of times. It's clean for sure now so maybe I'll have a better test next time I shoot it. Do you think a little bore butter would cause a problem with it? I usually put a really light coat on after I clean the barrel.

quote:

Doubless, did you have any oil or grease in the barrel? According to the website this stuff turns to tar (my interpretation of the propaganda)in the presence of lubes.

Absolutely not. I had fired some Triple Seven in the White 50 prior to using the AP, but had cleaned the rifle with an alcohol/water mix.

The stuff is nothing but re-packaged Clean Shot, if memory serves, and it looks like cat litter. Foulingest stuff I have ever seen... Give me Triple Seven or Pyrodex P and I am happy... Shoot; even black is less fouling trouble than AP, in my estimation!

I tried useing AP loose powder in two different rifles in two days at range. No groups and bad crud at powder site in barrel. Both barrels were clean with no oil. I wouldn't recommend useing it unless you like being very frustrated and wasteing your money.

quote:

Originally posted by cjp45: I wouldn't recommend useing it unless you like being very frustrated and wasteing your money.

Yeah, looks like I already wasted the money and been frustrated. I bought a pound of Triple Seven. Looks like I'll be making fireworks with the rest of the AP.

Terrible accuracy Frustating like said earlier propaganda was the reason for purchase

I bought it under the old name Clean shot and it worked well in all my ML's from the side lock Hawkins to my Remington 700 54cal.Shot as many as 40 shots in one session with out cleaning.
Ran out of it so bought the AAP stuff. Groups were awful. Picking up a few sabots and looking at them I found lots of unburnt powder in the cups. Can't say how the fouling was as I didn't try more that three shots at a time. Still have half a jar but I'll find some one that wants to try it and give it to them. I use trip 7 now. I also haven't had a crud ring problem with it.

Al

quote:

Originally posted by Rich Cale:
What is the general consensus on this powder? I bought a new Encore Friday and picked up a pound of this and I'm not sure I see any advantage over the Pyrodex that I used to use. I was having a hell of a time sighting it in and gave up after 20 shots. I decided to clean it and try again tomorrow.

Not cleaning the light packing grease out of the bore before shooting is not good.

Another no-no is firing sabots in a brand new barrel. You should always start-off using a minimum of one 20-pk box of full-fledged conicals first. That will remove tiny microscopic burrs on the edges of the grooves.

Use a quality solvent like Shooters, Birchwood-Casey 2 in 1 Bore Cleaner spray or Butch's Bore Shine. Stay away from most-all weak blackpowder solvents & use a mix of alky & windex for swabbing between every 2nd shot. I get a small scent spray bottle from an auto parts store or dollar store -- pour it out & put in the alky/windex mix.

Unless you are using the bore butter for lubing conicals, throw it in the garbage. It does more accuracy damage with sabot/bullets & more rust damage to those that leave moisture in the grooves before applying the bore butter after cleaning.

Be very careful using bore butter. One mistake applying it & not checking the bore for months may leave rust piting/permanent damage. "All" traces of water-cleaning must be removed - in order for it to work properly.

Season your frying pans only. Every time I show Bore Butter protection wordings to a centerfire, rimfire or shotgun user... they generally just laugh. If the stuff was that good, you would see it in your brand new Weatherby 30-06 rifle box & in Iraq.

Use a quality gun oil for storing your MLs.

I did clean the barrel before I shot. What you said about breaking in the barrel with sabots does make a lot of sense. I'll try abox of lead. Thanks.

Geesh. I thought it was just me. I've fired about 50 rounds thru my Omega with APP and can't get my Omega to group at all. GA now allows scopes on ML, so I took the opportunity to try APP in my Omega with 200g Shockwaves, and couldn't get a group better than 3". Most groups were more like 12". I'm not a great benchrest shooter, but dang, I was getting better groups at 100 yrds with a peep sight and 100g 777 pellets than now.

Back to shootin' 777 pellets for me.

If Jim Shocky is putting his name on it, it has to be good. LOL!!!

As I said in another posting ! I saw it on the outdoor channel and ran out and got 3 lbs of it , now I read all the bad news , I was going to load my BPCTG's with it ! I will try 5 rounds and I'll post here the results 45/70 45/90 40/65 40/90 &50/110 .

I tried the Clean Shot a few years ago and it worked good,no fouling and no crud ring.Only thing it was slow in FPS.Picked up a can of the American Pioner last week and tried it was really surprized that with the first shot there was a crud ring allmost as bad as with the T-7.
Shot several shots working my way from 100 to 150 grs no grouping at all and the fastest spead I got with a 200 gr bullet was 1741 with 120 grs.
This was tried out of an encore that has been broken in with hundreds of shots and has shot many one hole 3-shot groups.In fact I cleaned the rifle went back to pyro-select rezeroed the scope and shot another one hole useing a 200 gr 40 cal xtp (this was the first time trying this bullet in the encore) usually shoot the sst or Sw 200 gr bullets.

I have tried both American Pioneer powder and Triple 7. 7 shoots the best in my T/C Omega, but APP shoots better in my friends T/C Encore. There isn't any rime or reason to it. You just have to try as many different powders as you can and go with what works best for you.

I tried the APP FFFG in my Knight Disc Magnum 50 the other day and was pleasantly surprised! I had used 777 and the crud ring was so bad that I couldn't hardly seat another slug even after swabbing bore with alcohol/windex. Absolutely no problems with the APP and didn't swab the bore at all between shots. I still need to do some more load developement, but the accuracy wasn't bad at all.