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T7 is noted for spiking pressures with heavy bullets or even balls in muzzleloading rifles. Pyrodex and Black Mag 3 seem to require compression,s o anyone who is familiar with them, automatically compresses T7 - I guess. If Hodgdon says it shouldn't be compressed, I'd heed their instruction on that. Firing the rifle, might just set the wads back and compress the T7 in the other tube? Just a thought.

I'd stick with real BP- it is forgiving and isn't made of potassium percholates, so it's fouling doesn't turn into an acid after moisture is absorbed into it. I have been warned by someone in the industry that this happens and that too, the phoney propellents are more hydroscopic than black powder fouling and normal cold water cleaning won't neutralize the acids produced by the phoneys - apparently. He didn't think Black Mag 3 was made with potassium percholates and because so, might not be as hard on barrels as the other ones that are made with that stuff. Guns that have shot a lot of the phoney powders are recognizable with a bore scope! - word of caution. He went on to state, that any barrel that has shot even a pound of Pyrodex or T7 could be picked out of a bunch of barrels that had been shot and cleaned the same, but with black powder - with the use of a bore scope. That was good enough for me.

Thin disk wads will spin away from and in front of the ball as they do from a shot charge. The do not hurt accuracy. Accuracy is hurt by the ball not being centred in the bore. Some form of a bore fitting cup, like a hollowed wad as used by Alan MacKenzie will work to perfection to improve accuracy. I use WAA12 base wads cut for this purpose - cutting the gas check from spend trap wads and using those, cup-up underneath the ball for centering. BTW - do not introduce any plastic against BP flame - the flame will melt the plastic and smear it all over your bore. Hard card wads are needed to insulate the plastic and they must be somewhat oversize to the bore or flame will blast past them, melting the plastic.

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Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V

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