by CLEVE CHENEY WE ARE FORTUNATE in South Africa to have a variety of locally-made propellants to meet our smokeless powder requirements. Whether you shoot modern rifle, shotgun or handgun, Somchem has a powder suitable for most cart ridges. Those who shoot black powder firearms have been somewhat neg- lected. Black powder man ufactured in other coun- tries has become so expensive and dificult to import that local shooters have been limited to just one black powder ~ SA-made Obatex. Well the good news is that local gunsmith Johan Greyling is now making anew black povider named ZAR, 1 was fortunate, together with a team of colleagues, to put ZAR 2Fg black powder through some prelim- inary tests on the range. One of the team, Dr Wal- lace Vosloo, had the ZAR 2Fg tested in comparison with the German-made black powder Wano, in a laboratory at the local Rheinmetall Denel factory. The closed-vessel pres- sure tests produced very similar curves; ZAR showed a slightly lower peak pressure at 70MPa compared to 74MPa for Wano. The next step was to conduct prace tical shooting tests to compare their actual performance in terms of velocity and accuracy. Johan van Wyk, accom= plished Protea team black powder marksman, used a Pedersoli Jaeger 54 calibre BP rifle with open (‘iron’) sights. He fired from a benchrest at a 50m tar- get. A Pro Chrono Digital chronograph with ambient light screens Sm from the eee nara Paice eer eneestser erat eet Seen eet SA-Made ZAR eee Black Powder eee muzzle measured projectile velocity. ‘Shooting conditions were ideal - 2 cool, cloudless day with no wind. Spherical lead bullets welghing 225gr, each with wad and patch, and CCI magnum No 11 percussion caps were used for all shots, Prior to the tests, all lead balls were weighed to ensure they were consistent within + 1 grain. Seven shots were fired using 55gr of Wano 2Fg, and 13 shots using 50gr of ZAR 2Fg. Johan fired two ‘foul- ing shots’ with each powder before commencing with the test. The bore was run through with a clean patch after each shot and identical loading Le eee Test Report procedures were carried out. Highest and lowest, recorded velocities were excluded from each string. With Wano, the mean velocity was 1 060fps with standard deviation (SD) of +20fps. The ZAR powder (using 5 grains less than the Wano) gave a mean velocity of 1 090fps with SD of #1 1fps. Whereas, statistically speaking, the number of shots fired was small, these preliminary tests showed the new ZAR 2Fg to be very promising, comparing more than favourably with the Wano. The accuracy of the ZAR was consistent and not- able: 10 out of 13 shots went into one ragged hole with a maximum spread of only 1.84 inches (46.9mm). For a black powder firearm this is superb. The velocity spread was also more con sistent than the Wano's, and even taking into ‘account the 19% error built into the chronograph, was impressive at +11fps. Johan van Wyk's shooting ability is renowned, which helped reduce the variable of shooter error, In all fairness to Wano, which is an excellent black powder, the batch used was old; had a fresh lot been used, this may have resulted in smaller groups with less velocity variation. However, this in no way detracts from the perfor~ ‘mance of the new ZAR powder. Local black powder enthusiasts will be jumping for joy when they get their hands ‘on this new product ~ we're likely to see a revival in black powder shooting and hunting in SA. Interested parties should contact Johan Greyling on 082-701-0652 for email sgunsmithing@gmall.com January 2019 | Man MAGNUM [51