First Shots with Goex Olde Eynsford Black Powder

Yesterday I went up to Cabela's to put my Cabela's Bucks towards some primers before election year buying goes full derp. I bought 1K each of CCI Large Rifle and Large Pistol primers, and 1K of Sellier & Bellot Small Pistol primers. (They were out of CCI SPPs.)

Ammo and powder stocks were in pretty good shape, they even had several kinds of pistol powder, which has been absent there for the past several years.

On the way home I stopped at Dixon's Muzzleloading Shop where I got a set of Lee commercial mold handles for the Accurate Molds 43-215C I have on order, and a pound each of Swiss and Olde Eynsford 3Fg black powder.

If you have to buy black powder in a shop rather than doing a bulk mail order, the price per pound is high. The Swiss was $32, Olde Eynsford was $29, and plain old Goex was $27. If you're willing to order a 25 pound case, Graf's has OE at $18.99/pound, only $1/pound more than Goex. Swiss is $24.99/pound in a case from Graf's.

Note: Graf's also carries their house brand BP made by Wano Schwartzpulver in Germany for $14.99/pound in a case lot. I've never tried it myself.

Swiss powder is a known-good quantity. I.e., it burns cleanly for BP and is more energetic than Goex. I wanted to get some OE to compare.

Olde Eynsford was introduced by the Goex company back in 2012 or 2013, IIRC. It's designed to compete against the high quality Swiss powder. The reports I've read on various sites like THR, cascity.com, and castboolits.gunloads.com indicate that they succeeded.

After a two hour long drive home due to an accident on I-476S, last night I went with my dad to his indoor range. I brought my Euroarms Rogers & Spencer percussion revolver.

My load consisted of a Remington No.10 cap, 30 grains of Olde Eynsford 3Fg, a home made lubricated felt wad, and a Hornady .454" lead ball. I put 7 cylinders -- 42 shots -- through the R&S.

We shot at only 7 yards but accuracy was good. The only shots which left a ~2.5" - 3" group were fliers caused by me. That's as good as I can shoot one handed.

Recoil felt like I was shooting Swiss powder, while the fouling was also similar to that left behind by Swiss. I.e., surprisingly little if you're used to shooting regular Goex, and easy to clean up. I'd forgot my .44 caliber cleaning jag so I had to use a brush, then a patch over the brush to clean the bore and chambers. The fouling inside the frame wiped off easily using a patch wet with MPro-7.

My next test of Olde Eynsford will be in loading .44-40 WCF cartridges. When shooting BP .44-40s using a bullet cast in the original Winchester mold I can shoot at least 50 rounds without fouling out. I expect that cartridges loaded with OE will behave similarly.