The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Someone popped in to see us today, the conversation as ever came round to guns and stuff and I mentioned Black Powder. They headed off and 5 minutes later they were back with what appears to be an unopened tin of Curtis's and Harvey Black Powder.

Does anyone know about this particular brand of Black?

I have a few tins of that, I was told that it was a type of mining powder, how true that is I don't know.

Does it shoot OK?

I have only shot it in cartridges, No 2 musket.

It shot well enough with softish fouling, grain size looked about ffg, my tins had cork stoppers sealed with wax.

The back label usually has numbers in the corner which relate to the grain size, I suspect that these are Curtis's and Harvey's own granulation codes and I am not sure how that translate into our current fg classifications.

The rear label on mine also has a picture of guns and game birds as far as I recall which makes me think that the tin at least was for sporting powder.

I am always dubious about the contents of these tins as to how original its contents may be.

Mine has the guns and game birds on the back and I have just noticed a No 3 on the back on the horizontal axis with '24 Size' at the bottom, no numbers on the front. The tin is still sealed.

If you are certain that the seal is original then it could retain more value unopened.

Yet again storing and selling black powder in a metal can isn't deemed safe anymore and no doubt will breach some regulation.