When breech seating with Black powder I just fill the case to the top and add a thin card wad.   There will be a small gap but it doesn't seem to cause any harm.  I use gaps up to 1/8" and have never had any problems.  I have played with using felt wads to fill the gap but they do not seem to be necessary.  For further info on this stuff I'd recommend getting Randolph Wright's latest book on Schuetzen shooting.  It's quite good and in addition to doing a great job teaching us some history, it describes how he reproduced original black powder and Black powder/duplex loads.

Chris.

JLouis wrote on May 1^st, 2020 at 10:08am:

I have done it, but it is really  PIA not worth the effort, IMO.  Do you have any  BP matches at your events?

TRR and Springfield, OR always had BP in coinjunction with schützen, both BR and offhand at 200 yds.  Only .22 RF was at 100 yds.  Several people BS BP, most shot fixed and occasionally there was a Pope ML style cartridge rifle. 

I did all 3 in BP and various times, but ML and BS were a bit messy, so I normally brought a fixed ammo rifle for BP.  I hate waiting for cease fire to retireve the false muzzle to continue  , especially when it goes down range on the first or 2nd shot.    BS or fixed is a lot more efficient use of time 

I may have risked being removed from Springfield flyer list, not sure    I wasn't paying much attention to the score board. When I won all three aggs; CF, RF and BP at the prize giving, I was a bit shocked.    I don't recall what my BP rifle was, probably my .40-65 Ballard with fixed.  .45-100 RKS barrel would shoot better scores, but too much recoil for BR could spoil offhand in the 100 shot.  Pope Ballard .33 BS for CF and BSA with fixed for RF..  Frank was the only BS RF guy I ever remember seeing.

U R forgiven    I always got better results with wads in BP loads.

mr.card1 wrote on Apr 24^th, 2020 at 2:04pm:


Hey! That was the original question!  

What happened to mr.card1 ??

Breech seating for BP and the necessity of a wad. Depending on the BP being used, a wad is essential for powder compression; which will show up in accuracy. As little as .010 difference in compression shows up on group size. In my 3/240, using Swiss 1 /12 F I use .075 compression. I tried different compression rates from .050 to .120. At .075 my groups showed that gave the best accuracy. BP and breech seating is time consuming but rewarding. In a discussion in the past one person said that with BP they did not believe one could shoot groups under 1". Now, it doesn't happen every day, but I have seen five, five shot groups that the agg. for 100yd was under .8" Have a great day.
Bob
Iowa

A good friend of mine made this seater for my CPA 32-20. Never did find anyone on this ASSRA forum that built seaters for CPA rifles. Nice to have good buddies who can make things.