700 or 800 shots from a pound of pyrodex?
A pound is 7000 grains. If you get 700 shots from a pound, you are using 10 grains per shot.
Ten grains in a 44? Yes, I know, pyrodex takes less, by weight, than black. 30% less. That means a 10-grain pyrodex load is the same as a 14.3 grain black load. Still way way way undercharge for a 44.
I looked into the "economy" of black powder, some time ago.
Unique, at the time, cost 15 dollars a pound. Goex FF cost 7. Half the price - should be cheaper to shoot. Right?
45 Colt uses 8.0 of Unique. 32 grains of FF. So it takes four times as much powder. The powder costs, per grain, half as much, but takes four times as many grains, so the loads cost you twice as much.
Hmmm. Not too damn economical.
The only economy in black powder is the cost of the gun.
My hunting load in a 50 caliber was 100 grains, which means 70 to the pound, which meant ten cents a shot. My huning load in a 30/30, with 748, was 30 grains. That's 233 shots to the pound, at 15 a pound, was 6.4 cents.
Hmmm. Ten cents for black versus 6 1/2 cents for smokeless.
Those prices were when black was half the price of smokeless.
Just checking Grafs, and I find black at 17 bucks a pound, while 748 is 23. Now, instead of being half the price of smokeless, it's two-thirds the price. The hundred-grain black load would now cost 24 cents a shot, while the 748 load would cost a dime. Instead of costing 65% as much to shoot smokelss instead of black powder, now it costs 41%.
Wanna get real picky, 50 caliber round ball (490) is 13 bucks a hundred. 13 cents. Caps are 47 dollars a thousand, 4.7 cents. And the powder is 24 cents. Ignoring the patch, that's 41 1/2 cents a shot.
Large rifle primers are 31 dollars a thousand. 3.1 cents. And Berry's sells a nice 150 grain 30/30 bullet for 40 bucks for 250. 16 cents. The powder is a dime. 29.1 cents.
Yeah. If you are buying factory ammo for your metallic cartridges, then using black is gonna be cheaper.
But if you want to compare money to money, you must compare reloading metallic cartridges to using loose powder and ball. Apples to apples, as it were. 20 shots at 41 cents each is 8.20, versus 18 dollars for a box of 20 30/30s. But 20 reloads is 5.82, versus 8.20 for the black.