On a Percussion Revolver Kick Again

Lately I've been on a percussion revolver kick again, and chronographing several different loads. With the Garmin Xero C1 chronograph I got last year it's very easy to measure the velocity of your loads. Among other things, this tells you the relative strength of different powders. I've put my results into a spreadsheet hosted on my Google Drive here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DUpnrvYi4rrXWYR4gLM9YhW5mkkv1WjWNZwE3c2W0sM/edit?usp=drive_link

I'll update the spreadsheet as I get more data, but as you can see, from least to most energetic are Scheutzen 3Fg, Goex 3Fg, Swiss 3Fg, and Hodgdon Triple 7 3Fg.

Incidentally, I've read in several places that Triple 7 begins to lose power once you open the bottle, due to it absorbing atmospheric moisture. If that's true then it must've really been energetic because this is from a bottle I bought at least 10 years ago. Up until a couple months ago the T7 powder had remained in the bottle with the lid screwed on tightly, inside my house with central air conditioning. A few months ago I put the remaining T7 into a powder flask, which doesn't seal nearly as well as the factory bottle.

For the most part, I use loose powder and ball, but have experimented with combustible paper cartridges. The cartridges can be handy but many modern replica revolvers have loading ports which make using them difficult, unless you grind away some excess metal.

A good compromise between the convenience of cartridges and loose powder and ball are the Quick Load tubes sold by Dixie Gun Works. I've seen them in the Dixie catalog for years (really, decades) and more recently on Blackie Thomas's YouTube channel. I finally bought a couple bags, one each for .36 and .44 caliber.

Dixie tubes: https://www.dixiegunworks.com/index/page/search?FullText=dixie+tubes

I got the target tubes. In .44 caliber the maximum charge they'll hold and securely hold a roundball is 40 grains of black powder. Likewise, Dixie lists 25 grains as the maximum charge for the .36 tubes but I found 20 grains to be the most it can hold with a .380 ball. It's possible the batch I got are shorter than older batches.

(Yeah, my workbench is a mess.)

Compared with combustible cartridges in a properly setup revolver they're a bit slower to use but they are much quicker to load at home, and also more robust. That "properly setup" part is important. While the 19th Century revolvers were setup with the proper dimensions around the loading port to accept cartridges, many modern revolvers won't without some grinding. If you don't want to modify the loading port on your gun, the Dixie tubes are a nice alternative.

The Dixie tubes should also be more water resistant than combustible cartridges.

The .36 caliber tubes will fit into an MTM flip top cartridge box for .38 Special or .357 Magnum cartridges. The .44 tubes are a little too fat to fit into the MTM .44 Mag boxes but fit well in the MTM box for .500 S&W.

Another good option for field carry of pre-measured black powder charges are flip-top centrifuge tubes. I've been using them for several years to carry reloads for my rifle during the muzzleloader deer season. Patches balls are carried in a loading block.