[Jeff Higgins]

Heh heh... funny, some of the bigger matches allow black powder substitutes, like Pyrodex, Triple Seven, and others (but never smokeless). I have, however, shot in local level black powder cartridge rifle matches that allow the use of smokeless in the hopes of attracting more shooters.

I have never seen any of the substitutes, nor any smokeless loads, demonstrate that they are even remotely competitive with original black powder insofar as long range accuracy in these kinds of rifles (modern high velocity bottlenecked cartridges are another matter entirely). Black powder is an amazingly accurate propellent. Being a very low yield propellent, it requires a great deal of it (compared to smokeless) to achieve any kind of velocity and, even then, velocity is very limited.

What this translates into is that small variations in charge weight or volume have little affect on velocities. My acceptance standard for my long range black powder cartridge loads was an extreme spread of ten feet per second or less over a ten shot string. There is no way on Earth that any smokeless load could ever achieve that. These low extreme spreads help in two ways, less vertical dispersion and more consistent wind drift at long range. If you want to win matches with these rifles, it is pretty much imperative that you use the real thing, original black powder.