I shoot smokeless in whatever I want long as it's safe.   

A modern made Cody Ballard is no stronger than an original forged Ballard. 

the problem with 140 year old rifles is we don't know how much abuse or fatigue they have suffered.  just because they didn't blow up yesterday doesn't mean they won't blow up tomorrow  fatigue is cumulative.  best  art

art_ruggiero wrote on May 2^nd, 2020 at 5:32pm:


There are tell tale signs of abuse and wear, Art.   

In all the years that I have known Westerner, I have never seen him verbally abuse a firearm. If he does it in the privacy of his own home, I have no way of knowing. 

Jack

In my previous post ( #94 ) I said that anyone who uses smokeless powder in these old guns deserves all that they get.
I wish to state that, I certainly didn't mean personal injury, so I just want to clarify that point.
Secondly, there are many shooters who have great deal of experience with re loading using smokeless powder, there are also no doubt a few with less experience who think they know it all, and, are prepared to pass on information to someone with an antique rifle who is just starting out in this game. This information could easily be faulty, resulting in an accident. 
Thirdly, as we get older we may not all get smarter, no one likes to admit this of course, but it's a fact of life for most of us.
I have no doubt that it would be very easy to double charge such a large capacity, such as a 40-65, without noticing you had done it.
Double charging a 40-65 with BP however is not possible, no matter how inexperienced you may be, to the best of my knowledge this goes for all BP cartridges.
Mike.

There was an earlier comment about rifles being overly stressed over the years. Everyone of them has actualy purposely gone through that it's called proofing before they were ever sold.

I guess one thing that hasn't been stated is black powder has an absolute maximum pressure that will not surpass the yeild limits of quality steel. Smokeless will easily wreck any rifle designed whatever the steel composituon. When all the single shot rifles were designed years ago only black powder was available and the designs for the most part were safe in that timeframe. Then here comes smokeless and the various designs began to fail to no fault of their own rather the lack of respect of the potential dangers in loading smokeless whatever the action. Know the actions strengths as well as the powder's capabilities and all is well but it's some folk's nature to push the limits and disaster is their educator. How the reloading business manages to stay in business is a marvel to me when so many have it in their genes to learn the hard way. They should be commended for there efforts.