New to trapdoor reloading

[1886nut]

If powder fouling was so abrasive I would think that shooting more than one round without cleaning the barrel would wear it out. Never had a problem with cleaning with regular rods or "boresnakes", which I usually make on my own by tightly wrapping old face cloths that my mother in law gets from her buisiness (cleaning hotel linens and towels.) around wooden dowels. I wash both them and the comercial ones out in a diluted solution of simple green when done. Swabbing a clean bore with a little 50/50 mix of gun oil and Slick 50 before putting the gun away will make cleaning it that much easier next time you shoot it too.

[AKA Hugh Uno]

was my concern. the bore snake is just one big continuous lapping instrument being drawn over the muzzle for no great reason. low velocity lead bullet (mostly anyway) ammunition, black powder or smokeless, does NOT create any difficult cleaning issues. with BP, I can shoot all morniing via use of a blow-tube and then a few pacthes to clean, swipe out the chamber area a bit, and I'm done. BP fouling isn't copper fouling folks. with smokeless, it's even easier and faster.

cleaning BP cases is more of a hassle (and not that bad at that) than the bore (at least if you use smelly vinegar like me!).

there are simply better ways to clean a rifle bore than a bore-snake IMVHO.

[sdkrag]

I agree with those that use only black powder. I have loaded for 30 years and I HAVE made mistakes. Double charging with smokeless in trapdoor loads is not one that I ever want to make. I disagree that the rolling block action is scary. They made over a million of them including 7mm and others chambered for smokeless powder. I do use balck powder in my 50-70 rolling block and my trapdoor. 2F or Cartridge grade are my preference. Like others I load 56-60 grains and and slightly compress during bullet seating. I have fired ltterally thousands of rounds in the last 20 years with no problems.

[AKA Hugh Uno]

is to use a fast(er) PISTOL powders like Unique or Bullseye (maybe Red-Dot etc). Virtually anything else "normally used" will overfill on a double-charge. There are also the powders like 4227 that are riskier than others in the event of going a few grains over as well.

Of course, triple-checking your measure/scale and EYEBALLING every filled case BEFORE slapping a bullet on top is the no-brainer part.

I have NEVER had a double charge and only once remembering a squibish load (in a .32 S&W Long) many years ago that I am reasonably sure was caused by a defective primer and not an empty case.

I have maybe a couple times over many years REMOVED bullets by hand from charged cases (before final searting) because maybe half-way through placing the bullet on the cartridge case on a batch of 50, I realized I was not 110% sure in my Airborne mind I had eyeballed the cases. No biggies and each time, each case had the correct amount of powder.

Not saying I am perfect, but it's usualy not that much of a challnge to avoid blowing oneself up with smokeless.

and it's not that I don't like whiffing BP smoke either, it's just easier to make up very accurate smokeless loads for a TD than "hand-rolling" up drop-tubed, compressed, veggie-wadded, magnum-primed, BPCR loads with carefully cast and weighed (and lubed with SPG) match-quality bullets. I haven't felt the need, or had the requirement, of doing that for a good while.