Q: powder measures & black powder

[das bear]

What is the prefered method for dropping black powder charges? Powder measure or by hand? are there any prefered powder measures for this task?

[PA-Joe]

There are special all brass powder measures for BP, you can't use your normal steel measure.

[das bear]

whats the deal with steel? is it a safety issue?
So something like this wouldn't work? It doe's have a brass measure that fills to whatever level you set it at.

[kitchawan kid]

A drop tube is the only way to go,thats all some of the best BP shooters use.

[Nobade]

Yep, those Belding & Mull measures work great! Plus they'll throw Fg, most normal measures don't work with the big coarse stuff. Anyhow, I throw my charges from a Redding measure into a little paper cup, then slowly trickle it into the case through a 24 inch drop tube. Yeah, they say a Redding powder measure won't work with black powder, but I've never told mine it won't work so it's just fine.

[John Boy]

A drop tube is the only way to go,thats all some of the best BP shooters use.

Kid, somewhere on this vast Internet Wealth of data, a person did a test comparing drop tube compaction of powder v vibration compaction.  The results were that both methods gave nearly the same results.

As for powder measures charging black powder, here's an interesting test that I performed with surprising results ...
http://shilohrifle.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7037