When I first experienced Swiss, I was a Black Powder Cartridge Silhouette shooter, using Goex Cartridge grade almost exclusively. Goex had a plant explosion (several, I think) that led them to producing a sub-standard lot of Cartridge which they chose to sell rather than wait until the good stuff was available. That case of powder was so underpowered, there was a 5' drop when comparing old vs new at 600 yards. When Goex refused to replace the bad lot, I went to Swiss, even though it was way overpriced. (I always shop price.) When I called GOEX to complain about the substandard Cartridge grade, their response was to have a fast talking "expert" call me and waste about an hour of my time telling me about how superior their products were. That was the last time I bought Cartridge, or even Goex for a while. I actually tried Elephant powder (we called it Elephant droppings) which was even more underpowered but extremely consistent velocity meaning great accuracy.
Then I became a skirmisher, about 12 years ago, and started buying Goex 3f in bulk. Being naturally inquisitive, the first thing I did was compare Swiss 1 1/2 & 3f and Goex 3f. I shot them over chronographs and off the bench to compare velocity, standard deviation and accuracy.
In a nutshell, there was no advantage to paying the higher price for Swiss. My musket (3 band Enfield) and carbine (Garrett Sharps) shot equally well with both powders. Because I still shot BPCRS, I kept the Swiss as it was clearly superior in accuracy and velocity at long range, even though it had hard fouling. We had discarded the blow tubes and were wiping between shots then, so fouling was not an issue. I also have a superior lube recipe I've used for about 15 years that works great in all of my BP guns. I'm sure it makes my powder choices easier to live with.
Then Goex introduced their alternative to Swiss, a powder they called "Express". They advertised it as hotter and cleaner burning with softer fouling. Again I trotted out the Chrony and compared Express to Swiss and Goex 3f. Turned out they were right about the softer fouling and better velocity. Being a cheap B*****d, I was thrilled that it was also about 25% cheaper than Swiss. I enthusiastically switched my BPCR guns to Express. I also discovered Express was a superior powder for my Civil War smoothbores. The cleaner burning and softer fouling led to long shot strings in my H&P and Macon conversion smoothbores.
Then, the unthinkable happened. Goex announced they were discontinuing Express and replacing it with Old Eynsford. I was so worried that the new product would be different than Express, I bought up all that Back Creek Gun Shop had. (To this day, I have a private stock of Express used exclusively for my smoothbores. I may have to eventually go to OE, but not now and for several years to come.) A powder dealer told me that OE is the same formula as Express, but I have nothing but hearsay to prove that.
As a side note, The Express, and in my limited experience, Old Eynsford, is so clean burning, I have stopped using lube in my smoothbores for two full seasons now. I can shoot 20 shots in a string and the last ball loads almost as easily as the second one. There are better scores being shot than I do, but I was #1 on the 1st Michigan hit times for smoothbore for a long time and just recently fell to a close #2. Some of that might be because I've been teaching my teammates my method of preparing smoothbore loads. I don't know if my mates are using my method exclusively, but as a team, we are winning in our region and placing well at the Nationals.
To sum up, I use Goex bulk 3f in my rifled CW guns and Goex Express in my smoothbore. Even if I had a bigger budget for powder, I see no advantage to be gained by using Swiss in any of the black powder guns I use. (I haven't shot BPCRS for at least 3 years now.)
Last edited by bobanderson; 12-04-2018 at 08:21 AM.
Reason: Grammar
Bob Anderson
Company C, 1st Michigan Volunteer Infantry
Small Arms Committee
"I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a hand on.
I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."
- John Wayne in "The Shootist", 1976
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