BP or nitro

Topics related to Pre - 1898 Remington Shotguns
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paul harm
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BP or nitro

Post by paul harm »

Maybe Drew or Reseacher can answer when most shooters went from BP to nitro. When I say most shooters I mean shooters in competition like pigeon or clay birds. I've shot BP in SxS events where we do 50 SCs and 25 5-stand plus 25 skeet or trap. A fast round of 5-stand or trap makes the barrels get so hot you can't touch them without gloves like a welding glove. I remember shooting a 5-stand once with my 94 F grade that someone before me had installed a nice beavertail forearm. I had forgotten my gloves and without the BT I wouldn't have been able to finish the 5-stand. Well maybe, but with a lot more difficultly. Normally I shoot nitro, but BP is fun once in a while. I have trouble believing a 100 bird live pigeon event was shot with BP without some way of cooling down the barrels as they shot. I know a lot of hunters continued to shoot BP long after nitro was introduced, but I was thinking of those that shot a lot at one time.
Drew Hause
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Re: BP or nitro

Post by Drew Hause »

The ‘machine loaded’ shells and components available in the 1895 Montgomery Ward catalog included the “Trap Shooters Delight” which could be ordered with “E.C.”, “Schultze”, S.S. (Smokeless Shot-gun Bulk), American Wood, Black Powder, Walsrode, Dupont Bulk Smokeless, or “Troisdorf” (marketed in the U.S. by Laflin & Rand).

Guns and loads used at the First DuPont Grand Smokeless Championship Handicap Live-bird Tournament October, 1895 are listed here
https://digital.la84.org/digital/collec ... 7/id/53099
All competitors used Bulk Smokeless powders; DuPont, "E.C.", or "Schultze"
3 used Remington guns BTW

Bulk powders could be measured to the same volume (Dram/drachm = the proper capacity to measure one-sixteenth of an ounce by weight of black powder), but loading to weight in grains later became the standard.

"Ballistite" Dense Smokeless appeared about 1895 and Laflin & Rand's "Infallible" (22 gr. = 3 Dr.Eq.) in 1900, and thereafter barrels began blowing when the unknowing substituted Dense for Bulk powders.
paul harm
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Location: attica,mi
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Re: BP or nitro

Post by paul harm »

Drew, thank you. I knew either one of you guys would come through. I just enjoy reading about early trap or live pigeon shooting. Thanks again. Paul
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