Black Powder Compressing

[Carlsen Highway]

I have been told in the past that you can compress black powder in a .44-40 case using the case expander die, which is necessary when loading cartridges with soft lead bullets. I believed that I understood this, but continued on with doing my own cobbled together way - which was to use unsized brass, expand the case mouth, and then after pouring the powder in, to compress it to the proper depth by then seating a jacketed bullet. (I then just pull the jacketed bullet out, because its really just a tight slip-fit because the cases have not been sized at all.)
This seems to work just fine despite the agricultural nature of my solution, because I have at least one good BP load (with a smokeless primer) that is quite accurate. But then I thought I would try to compress powder with the expander die, and I looked at it and realised I had no clue of how to do that. To be honest, I probably don't need to, because I am already making accurate ammo (at least some of the time ) But maybe its easier or quicker or simpler or better.

How do you do that? Do you stick something in the die and then run a case up into that, thereby compressing the powder? How is this done?

I am dumber than I thought I was, which is always a surprise to me, considering how dumb I was last time I discovered it.

[Ray]

Deleted.

[Chuck 100 yd]

I made a powder compression die with a brass rod that will just slip inside the case mouth of a neck sized case.
You could make up a brass rod to use with your regular seating die that would slip inside the resized case and use the same method you use now. I only compress about 1/8" in the 40-65 and 45-70 so there is not that much pressure placed on my 30:1
Bullets to deform them. I

[crs]

Does the Buffalo Arms 24 inch drop tube compress the powder properly?
https://www.buffaloarms.com/brass-oak-d ... -droptube2

I have used it with smokeless powder in ammo for my .405 wcf and .45-90 for years .

[Chuck 100 yd]

Does the Buffalo Arms 24 inch drop tube compress the powder properly?
https://www.buffaloarms.com/brass-oak-d ... -droptube2

I have used it with smokeless powder in ammo for my .405 wcf and .45-90 for years .

I use a drop tube and compress about 1/8". My tests indicate you can get almost 12% more Goex
2f in the same space using a drop tube 30" long when loading the .40-65 . That and light compression makes it shoot like a
Dream.

[Griff]

Since you only want a 1/16"-1/8" of compression, simply using the projectile to compress the powder never gave sufficient resistance to deform even my pure pb bullets. I now don't use ANY compression on my .40-90SBN rounds, as I never gained any accuracy when doing so. And I don't use any in my .45Colt rounds either. I do use a waxed card wad however, but mostly as a gas-check to keep the gases off the base of the bullet.

[M. M. Wright]

I'm with Griff on this. I only compress about 1/8th inch and use a card wad in the 44-40 reserving the drop tube for 45-70 and 45-90. In the big boys I notice a difference in fouling and sound. I never use the drop tube on shot shells either.