Black Powder & Muzzleloading

This article is about black powder, gunpowder, black powder substitutes, their use as a propellant for all muzzleloaders and muzzleloading.
Did you know that brown charcoal makes the best black powder and that you can buy books on how to make your own high quality propellants.
How To Make Your Own Black Powder:
The Do-it-Yourself Gunpowder Cookbook Learn how to make black powder from such items as dead cats, whiskey, your living room ceiling, manure and even maple syrup with simple hand tools and techniques that have been used for centuries. This is a practical and safe approach to making the oldest firearm propellant known "black powder".
Black Powder Loading Manual:
Lyman Black Powder Handbook 2nd Edition Lyman has teamed up with Sam Fadala to produce the most comprehensive black powder manual available. This manual includes thousands of pressure tested loads using Goex and Elephant black powders, Pyrodex RS, Select and P, and Pyrodex Pellets, along with a large assortment of round balls, conicals and sabots.
Down range velocities and energies are also given for each load. In addition, black powder cartridges are covered as well. There are also hundreds of pressure tested black powder cartridge loads for such calibers as the 45-90, 45-100, 45-110, 45-120, 44-40, 45 Colt and 44 Special, as well as 10, 12 and 20 gauge black powder shotshells.
(Black powder shooters should own this manual, very informative).
ATF Ruling In 1998:
Black Powder, Muzzle loading weapons with "in line" firing mechanisms designed or redesigned to use modern conventional firearm primers do not meet the definition of antique firearms and are subject to regulation as a firearm.
Modern centerfire primers are not an antique ignition system and are ammunition for firearms subject to regulation.
Historic Fact:
The first percussion cap ignition system for use with black powder firearms was patented in 1799 by Joshua Shaw in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the first mass produced in-line ignition systems were black powder, revolving cylinder, pistols. (Colt is legendary)
Modern Black Powder Firearms Innovations:
While Tony Knight of Knight Rifles admits he only slightly improved on a 100 year old black powder percussion cap in-line ignition system, I have yet to see a similar admission for this black powder projectile by Big Bore Express, maker of PowerBelt™ Bullets.
Big Bore Express company claims they were frustrated with hard loading black powder sabots, and inconsistent accuracy of old style conical projectiles so they came up with a belted bullet design that gives consistent gas pressures which is provided by the PowerBelt™ base and gives almost identical bullet velocity every time.
The Parrott black powder projectile employed a sabot made of wrought iron, brass, lead or copper and was attached to the projectile base. When the projectile was fired, the sabot expanded into the rifling of the cannon tube and a perfect gas seal was made therefore obtaining consistent distance and accuracy.Historic Innovations:
Clearly with what history shows us, is the fact that there are no major improvements to true black powder firearms in well over 100 years. It was the inventors and innovative thinkers of the 19th century that added dependability and accurate distances to all black powder guns.