Golden Powder passes test
Revolutionary propellant efficient in bore, at target

Note: The following article appeared in 'The Houston Post Sunday, July 16, 1984'. It has been retyped verbatim from an old copy for your convenience.

Excerpt from Article:"But if it's non-corrosive and non-fouling - as it certainly seems to be - it's a major breakthrough.", Complete Article below:

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Having used Golden Powder to kill a big outlaw leopard, a cat that was getting fat off the dwindling herd of a Zimbabwean cattle rancher, Col. Mike Powasnick is excited about big-game muzzle loading with the revolutionary gunpowder.

If you ask me, the true test of the stuff came around the shrinking water holes, potting away at Ringneck doves and sand grouse with a Kodiak 10 gauge.

I shot birds everyday for 10 days, using black powder volume equivalent of 100 and 120 grains, depending upon the birds flying at the time. I used dry fiber wads, and I didn't clean the gun once. The last wad went down just as slick as the first. After the experiment was over, there wasn't a speck of rust in the bores. The only hint of corrosion, in fact, was around the nipples, from the percussion caps.

That doesn't mean anything to most of you, but those who have done much black powder shotguning will sit up and take notice. If there's anything that will revive the gentlemanly art of wild-fowling with a muzzleloader, this Golden Powder is it.

Of course, you riflemen who don't like to clean guns may want to have a look at it, too. Even the raw batch of stuff we took to Africa with us - which was rushed from Oro-Tech's Las Vegas lab, minus a few refinements, including waterproofing, just a week or so before we left - proved that whatever Golden Powder is, it will fling a bullet.

The leopard was shot at close range, as leopards usually are. With a black powder volume equivalent of 120 grains, the Kodiak's big 665 grain flat-nose bullet punched clean through the animal and buried itself in the dirt.

The powder we were using was milder than black powder. According to Tim Kurtz of Oro-Tech, that was because a final step in the manufacturing process had to be skipped to get the stuff to us in time. But with the hefty load he was using. Powasnick was getting around 1,200 feet per second out of the big .58 caliber bullet.

He also killed an impala at 55 yards, the bullet smashing both shoulders and coming to rest just inside the skin on the opposite side.

I'm going into too much gristly detail for many of you, but if a hunter's going to use Golden Powder in good conscience, he must know It's capable of cleanly dispatching an animal.

In the big 10 gauge, even the 120 grain load was comfortable. But it patterned well and killed cleanly. Ringneck doves are about the same size as a whitewing, maybe a little larger. The sand grouse is about the size of a prairie chicken. I used an ounce and a half of No. 7 1/2's on the doves, and the same charge of 6's on the grouse.

Having some renown as a lousy wingshot, I resorted - in the interest of science - to what is known locally as the "Rhodesian Shot" to test the effectiveness of the load. In Zimbabwe, everything eats everything else, so doves don't just come winging into a water hole. They light high in trees and sit there for excruciating periods of time, building up their nerve. The grouse are more foolhardy, but they fly exactly like deaf bats.

"Here in the bush, we shoot things to eat, so you don't find much of the 'jolly good shot' sort of thing," the rancher told me. Taking his cue, I shot doves out of trees and grouse on the ground.

Oro-Tech said the refinements they made on the lot of Golden Powder that included our African test batch produced hotter stuff than they were initially trying for. Using a .58 and 665-grain bullets identical to Powasnick's African armament, with 100 grains of powder, they were averaging 1,600-fps muzzle velocity, which is pushing the big bullet along. Kurtz said they plan to market the special blend as Kodiak Brown Express Powder, sort of a "magnum" load for muzzleloaders.

The lack of waterproofing - again due to the rush to get our powder out - was no problem in bone-dry Zimbabwe. The only misfires I had came late in the trip, after I had run out of CCI caps and switched to an Italian-made brand. The Italian caps formed a residue that partially blocked the ignition channel.

The fact that someone has come up with a totally different kind of gunpowder that will ignite and propel a bullet just like black powder is interesting enough by itself. It represents a departure from a centuries-old technologies rather than the evolution that led to modern smokeless powders.

But if it's non-corrosive and non-fouling - as it certainly seems to be - it's a major breakthrough.

Interest in muzzleloading peaked during the nation's bicentennial. It's been in a slight decline ever since. By comparison, through, interest in hunting is in a nose-dive.

Some people have seen muzzleloading as a means of breathing new challenge into hunting, and of opening shrunken hunting areas to more hunters. This Golden Powder may be the stuff that makes it happen.