Below I posted a sorry story, asking why I have lost three straight deer with my T/C 45 cal Seneca. I received some great advice and have done some more experiminting at the range. I may have found a possible explanation, but still am not sure.

I was working up some loads with my 300 RUM and was using my chrono. Afterwards I shot the Seneca with several different powder/bullet combinations and was shocked. 80 grains is the max for the rifle and per T/C's owner's manual, it would give about 1,600 fps. Wrong! 80 grains of Shockley's Gold FFF was chrono'd at a blazing 750 fps average for several shots with the Maxi Ball!!! I about fell over. 80 grains of over the Hornady Great Plains blew the target away at about 925 fps. By the way, the chrono was "on"...registering correctly for my other loads. Oh well...switched to my old Pyrodex [80 grains] and the velocity jumped to 1175 or so with the great plains (the Maxi Ball's accuracy was horrendous). On a dare, I bumped it up to 90 grains, 10 over T/C's max and got within a hair of 1300 fps and pretty decent accuracy. But never ever, no where near the advertised 1600 fps or so. I now see that the three deer lost were hit by bullets that were traveling at less than a thousand feet per second by the time the bullet arrived.

Any suggestions? or reasons why my velocity is so dang low??? Barrel is in great shape, not shot out at all, so I am lost on this one.

Comments sincerely appreciated.

Hank,

You may have to take some measures to ensure the chrono is not reading something other than the bullet. What is the distance from the muzzle to the center of your chrono beam?

By the way those numbers sound like .45 acp data!

jim

You have learned about substitute BP the hard way. Some of that crap goes bad on the store shelf. Switch to the holy black if you want something that never changes and if you want real speed, get Swiss.
I have used 90 gr's forever in the .45. I have worked to 110 gr's.
I have had bad Pyrocrap too. One batch I had was tested for velocity and I worked to 150 gr's in my .54 and still got less then 1100 FPS.
I have read some BAD stuff about the Shockley's Gold. Make a pile and throw a match to it for fun.

i just bought 30 pounds of swiss that stuff kicks ass.

Wano, Goex, Elephant . . . they atre ALL better than any of the substitutes, just may be harder to find and buy. I have a supply, but when I get to shooting a pound is only a days shooting so it does NOT go far. My 45 barrel is way oversized in the bore so I get away with lot more powder than you say is your limit.

Hunter Jim...I thought the same thing when I saw the chrono figures! First thought that entered my mind was "45 ACP"! I dunno....got me dumbfuzzled.