BP substitute ID?

[deadin]

I picked up 100 rounds of reloaded 44/40. When I pulled them down I found a 200 gr LRN and ~22.5 grs. of this powder. It appears to be a BP substitute that I'm not familiar with. It's sort of brownish and produced lots of smoke when burned and leaves a somewhat reddish ash. Doesn't have much of a distinctive smell.
Any ideas?

 

[arcticap]

Because of the brownish color, that's probably one of the ascorbic acid based powders. There's Clean Shot/American Pioneer Powder (a.ka. Shockey's Gold). Another was called Black Canyon that was discontinued a long time ago. Both brands had very large ffg granulations like yours.
To the naked eye, Clean Shot appears to have a very uniform dark chocolate brown color and shares a distinctive smell with Black Canyon from the canister.
I recently opened an old canister of Black Canyon from someone that had it stored for years, and it deteriorated into a mostly solid moist clump.
You might have the larger granulation of APP, even though I would describe the powder residue as being whitish.

This is Clean Shot fffg:

www.whitemuzzleloading.com/black_powder.htm

http://www.americanpioneerpowder.com/

 

[deadin]

I think you're right. A litte further research revealed "33gr. C/S" marked on the label. (Clean Shot?) The "33 gr." could refer to a volume equivalent in regular BP. (The actual weight was 22.5 to 23.0 grs.)
They're all going to be pulled down and reloaded so I will know for sure what I'm dealing with.
I haven't messed with the "smokey ones" in years and all of my experience is with Black Powder. What's considered the best substitute these days? I will be shooting these 44/40's in an antique BP revolver that has some value, so I don't want to stress it.

 

[arcticap]

This conversion sheet shows that 23 grains of APP by weight equals ~27 grains of Goex by volume or weight.
If they measured the APP by volume, the large granules might cause it to measure like a greater volume due to lots of airspace.

http://www.curtrich.com/BPConversionSheet.htm

The APP powder is suppose to be less stressful than the other subs. I ran into a fellow shooting a .45-70 with APP at the range, and it approximates the velocity of black powder by chronograph.
Every sub has its advantages and disadvantages.