Howdy
First of all, let's get something straight. Different brands of Black Powders weigh different amounts. It's not like with Smokeless where the manufacturers go to a great effort to make the weight of the powder consistent, so 7.5 grains of Whiz Bang will have the same energy today as a batch made ten years from now. So you can count on using the same data to reload with Smokeless from year to year, pretty much whenever the powder was made. (Yes, occasionally the Smokeless manufacturers will change the recipe a tiny amount, but you can pretty much count on consistency from year to year with any particular Smokeless powder.)
The same is not true of Black Powder. If you are measuring strictly by volume, you WILL get a different weight of powder, depending on what brand and granulation you are using. Here is a chart I made up years ago comparing the actual weight of a few different brands of Black Powder. Notice they are all related to the standard sizes of Lee Dippers. This is probably because the different BP manufacturers use their own process to make their BP, they do not follow any particular standard. The charges I measured were the standard charges I was using for various Black Powder cartridges. Notice how much more Elephant brand (which is no longer made) weighed than the other two brands.
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Over the centuries the actual formula for Black Powder varied a bit. I have an old explosives textbook that gives the percentages of the three components of Black Powder; Saltpeter (Potassium Nitrate), Charcoal, and Sulfur. The percentages varied quite a bit, but by 1781 the British had settled on 75% Saltpeter, 15% Charcoal, and 10% Sulfur. The American Army adopted this formula sometime back around the 1870s or so, the exact date escapes me. Even so, different brands of modern Black Power will vary in their weight and in their power, simply because the components may vary in quality. The better brands off Black Powder today use charcoal made from Buckthorn Alder, I believe Goex is still using charcoal made from willow. How the charcoal is produced will also have an effect on the power of the resultant powder.
Now, having said all that, it really does not matter, unless you are trying to milk the utmost repeatability out of your cartridges, for instance the way the guys in Black Powder Cartridge Rifle competitions do. Those guys are shooting their single shot rifles at targets several hundred yards away, and want to get the utmost accuracy out of their rifles. So they will document everything they are doing, they often requalify their loads when they get powder from a different lot. The same brand, but a different lot. And a lot of those guys weigh their powder down to the last .1 grains, they do not rely on volume alone to portion out their powder.
When I started loading Black Powder cartridges; 45 Colt, 45 Schofield, 44-40, 44 Russian, and 38-40 I was using Lee dippers, as well as some custom dippers made from cut down cartridge cases.
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I will add that my technique for dipping was to scoop the dipper through about 1/2 pound of powder in a ceramic cup. To be as consistent as possible I always scooped with the same motion, just like scooping ice cream our of a pint container. I scooped consistently every time, bringing up a heaping full dipper of powder. I would then skim the excess off with a piece of index card, back into the mug of powder. I never tapped the dipper to settle the powder, that leads to inconsistent charges. I always skimmed the excess off and dumped it directly into the empty brass with a funnel.
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There is nothing wrong with dipping charges as I have described, I did it for years. The only disadvantage is it is slow. These days I load all the above mentioned cartridges with Black Powder on a Hornady Lock & Load AP progressive press. I have mounted a Lyman Black Powder measure on it for my Black Powder cartridges. The linkage of the press does not activate the powder measure as it does with the standard Smokeless powder measure, I have to remember to flip the handle for each cartridge, which I have gotten pretty good at, knock on wood. And just like with any Smokeless powder measure, I make an effort to throw the handle of the press consistently from cartridge to cartridge, so the loads will be consistent. Throwing the handle with a different amount of force will vary the vibration of the column of powder in the powder measure, which can result in inconsistent loads. No, I am not using a drop tube, the powder goes directly from the powder measure into the cartridges. The purpose of a drop tube is it uses gravity from the powder falling about 24" to pack the powder more densely and more consistently than just pouring it in without a drop tube. For the revolver and lever rifle cartridges I mentioned above, that is plenty good enough for what I am doing. What the powder measure buys me is charging cartridges much more quickly than I could using a dipper on my old single stage press.
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I buy old Lyman powder measures whenever I find them at the white elephant table at a gun show.
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The rotor Lyman puts in their Smokeless powder measures is the same one that is in their Black Powder measure. The actual rotor is brass, so it will not create a mechanical spark rotating in the cast iron body of the measure. I preset these rotors to my standard charges that I use for my different BP cartridges. When I change dies to change calibers, I pop a different rotor into the Black Powder measure so I am all set to load that cartridge with the standard powder charge I use with that cartridge. In order to set the rotors in the first place, I adjust them until they are throwing the WEIGHT of powder I want, according to the chart above.
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Here is a shot of my Hornady press all set to crank out a couple of hundred Black Powder 45 Colt cartridges. Pardon the mess at the back of the bench. I have lined up my brass in loading blocks so I know how many rounds I have loaded, and I have set my bullets out in rows of 5 each. That way, if either a bullet or a piece of brass is left over at the end of the session, I know there is something wrong somewhere.
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Here is a close up of 5 45 Colt cases being loaded on the Hornady press. The level of powder is visible in the case nearest the camera, a bullet is about to get seated and crimped in the next station. The conversion cylinder in the background is my 'cartridge gauge'. It has the most precise chambers of any of my 45 Colt revolvers. Any round that does not drop nicely into one of the chambers of that cylinder will get a little bit of 'extra attention' at the crimping station at the end of the loading session.
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The only time I use a drop tube is when I am loading 45-70 with Black Powder for my Trapdoor or my Sharps. The pistol is only in the photo for sale.
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I do not load 45-70 on my progressive press, I load them on my old single stage Lyman Spartan press.
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I use a compression die to compress the powder in my 45-70 rounds before I seat and crimp the bullet.
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In my humble opinion, all that extra work is not necessary for my revolver and lever gun Black Powder ammunition.
That is a little bit of an over generalization. Yes, I typically use 2.2CC of Schuetzen FFg in my 45 Colt and 44-40 cartridges, HOWEVER it depends on how far into the cartridge mouth the base of the bullet extends. I compress the powder by 1/16" - 1/8" when I seat my bullets. With the bullets I use for those two cartridges, 2.2CC gives me the amount of compression I want. But a different bullet design may require a different amount of powder to achieve the amount of compression I want.
