My homemade black powder

[indian joe]

indian joe;
I hear ya on the experimenter part. haha. That's pretty much all I do. For me, seeing what I can do and can't do, and where I can gain an inch, is almost as fun as shooting. One day, I'll find a pound of Swiss locally and let you know those results versus my powder.
I've always figured my densities on dry pucks, but wanted to give this damp puck processing a try. Weighing the moisture and meal is the most simple way to do it. I liked the results on the whole process, but especially the much lower amount of dust and fines. And, the polishing, which I've only done one time before, was much more efficient, as well as taking half the time. Drying also went from 24 hours plus, to three hours.

lower fines and dust gets my attention!!!
Part of the push for consistency I have never just re pucked that stuff but kept aside and reprocessed it when I grind the next lot of meal - carefully apportioned . Maybe a bit pedantic but ......................the process is working

I had assumed that breaking up damp pucks would end in a disaster of soft grains and more fines not less - for sure I will try this on tjhe next lot

[HWooldridge]

Guys, I'm sorry to make so many posts, but I have an idea for a couple of years, that I have to share. It could be very easily adapted to our use, which would cut process times by half, or more. Maybe a lot more.
Some of you are surely familiar with extruders? I have watched them work two times, and they are amazing machines. While doing contract maintenance, I watched an aluminum extruder make thousands of linear feet of commercial building window frames, like you see on large buildings which look like nearly solid glass. The other was watching Purina Feeds Mill, in Kansas City, make thousands of pounds of cattle cubes, every hour. For those not familiar with cattle cubes, they are not cubes, but about one inch diameter, two inch long round cylinders.
A giant feed hopper under a mixer loads the mixed feed into an extruder, which (in this case) augers the feed to an extruder head, which puts enormous pressure on it and forces it through say 1" diameter holes in the head, with auto cutters designed to cut every two inches, the string of plasticized feed which is coming out at tons per hour, and very warm, from the pressure.
Actually, a good press could be converted to hold the die and extruder head in our case; that head to have the number and diameter of holes to make which ever size grains you want. If you want 2ff powder; according to Skylighter, 2ff powder has grain sizes of .59 mm to 1.19 mm, or .023" to .047". If you know what percentage of each grain size you want, hole size according; by percentage. We are already using two thirds of an extruder. Our dies are two parts and all that is required is the extrusion head. They would have to be HARD stainless, or some other hard metal. Aluminum might work, but it also would surely wear quickly, if used heavily.
As a rough example; if you want 50% of each, and you have five holes of each size, on a 2" diameter extruder, and it takes 3,000 pounds per square inch of pressure to make 1.5 Grams per CC of density, set the hydraulic ram regulator or press, to press that amount. If it takes 3,600 pounds to make 1.7 G/CC density, set your press or ram regulator to 3.600 pounds and run a pound of freshly milled green meal through it in five minutes. The pressure sets the density; the extruder makes the grain size and all it has to have done is tumbled, or ground to break up the strings of pre sized powder worms. Our milling would be perfect for this setup and it would cut out a load of time. Plus, extruders work with near zero moisture. In feed extruders, the moisture is higher, but the extruder heats it and it dries completely, very quickly.
Commercial powder manufacturers have missed the nail, by not extruding powder, in my opinion. It would cut out at least two major steps, them being screening to size and pressing to density. Straight from extrusion to tumbling/polishing, to drying.
I could sell this idea to GOEX or their competitor for millions of dollars, but I chose to share it with everyone who reads this. Mark my words, SOMEONE will be extruding powder, in the very near future. You heard it first, right here.

DB,

The extruder idea is interesting. I think the extruder die would need A LOT of holes across the entire surface, and would conceptually look like the plates used on meat grinders. Rotary extruder screws have lots of flights to move the material and I don’t know whether a straight plunger would work but it’s easy enough to test.

HW

[LAGS]

DB
I too think that the extruded idea is interesting.
The only thing is that this thread is about Homemade Powder .
Some things are getting into Factory Powder.
Matching the quality of factory powder is one of the goals .
But turning your shop into a commercial grade manufacturing shop is way beyond how many members want to do things at home.
We have gone far along the lines of how to do things at home for the Average guys like starting with mixing stuff in a bowl , to now using tumblers and presses to make what you need.
But you showing other options is a good thing as it will direct guys to some areas on how to improve what they make.
But common Household tools is a better option for most members, like buying a Hand Grinder over just using a screen to grain your powder.
I am not saying that you are wrong with what you share.
But some things are just way beyond a Homemade option.

[LAGS]

I went out and finished grinding that powder. I would just turn the adjustment nut closed 1/4 turn at a time on each grind and screen the powder each time to each size to see where I am at.
That 5.2 oz of grains that wouldn’t pass thru the #20 screen is all I was grinding.
Now that all that stuff passes thru a #20 screen I now save whatever size that stays on the #30 or 40 screens.
My totals for each size are,
What won’t pass thru a #30 is 3.4 oz
What won’t pass thru a#40 weighs 1.9 oz
And the left over Dust that is smaller than a #50 screen weighs 2.7 oz
Now I will take that dust and wet it again and press it back into pucks to be reground and rescreened .
Now I will take each of the sized powders and put them in my mill Without any tumbling media and dry tumble them for about an hour.
I will then re screen each size of the powders to remove any minor dust that comes off in rounding out each size of the powders.
I use what sits on a #30 screen as 2f
And what sits on a #40 as a 3f
I can sift that dust and save what won’t pass thru a #60 screen for 4f priming powder.
BTW
I also have the option of running the 2f powder thru the grinder some more to turn it into 3f if I want more of that for my smaller caliber rifles or my pistols.

[2TM101]

Now I will take each of the sized powders and put them in my mill Without any tumbling media and dry tumble them for about an hour.

I almost do this. I realized sorting the powder by size before polishing was a waste of time if I was going to sort it by size later. So I sift out all the fines (using a 110 screen), then polish, THEN sort it to get sizes. I also break up my pucks immediately after making them. Less dust and the they polish better.

If the dust from the two sifts is more than will fit in a small used plastic medicine bottle (which I unfortunately have a lot of) I repeat the entire process until what I have left is down to that amount. I have 10,20,30,40, 60 & 110 screens. #10=2FA, #20=1F, #30=2F, #40=3F, #60=4F and #110=5F. So I am grading to the same values as you.

Interesting is that when I make the alternate powders mentioned in the other thread, literally nothing passes through the 60 screen. With Black Powder I get dust that even goes through the 110 screen, both before and after polishing. So with Crimson Powder or Pyrolucite - no 5F

[LAGS]

I too sometimes grind up all the powder until it all passes thru a #20 screen.
Then polish all of it together.
The only feel that polishing the whole bunch of powder together with the fines , works as a cushion and doesn’t round out the corners of the larger grains as well.
That is why I wait until I sift out each powder to grain size , then do the polishing.
All polishing is doing is knocking off the fine sharp corners of the grains.
If you look closely at the grains before polishing.
You will see that the 3f grain sizes are almost polished off.
But the 2f and 1f will have more sharp corners on them before polishing is done.

[DoubleBuck]

LAGS;
I hear you about this site being about home made powder. The thing is, we already have the press, the die and piston, and only lack the extruder head, to use what we already are using.
When I saw the plasticized powder squirting out of my die, when it blew the spacer; I knew an extruder would work and be more safe and cut a couple of steps out of what we normally do. I'm not telling anyone to do it, it is merely an idea; which to my knowledge, has never been tried. A person would not have to go commercial to use an extruder. A 2" version would work as good as our puck dies, but it would be about three times faster than pressing, drying, breaking up, screening and all the things we do now, to get to the same end result. Much cheaper, actually, in the long run. Just my opinion.

[LAGS]

Similar to an extruder that I tried to use was a Ricer that you use to smush potatoes.
Yes
It doesn’t have enough pressure to make the dry green or moist green powder dense enough.
It ends up like screened powder , but just in stringy forms that then have to be dried and ground up.
The thing I can’t see is using an extruder with a standard style press that you have to hand pump.
It will take tons of rapid pumping to get it all pressed.
And how will the hand operated press retain the needed pressure.
That is why I have a picture that you need some type of Commercial press that most of us don’t have.

[HWooldridge]

A fly or screw press might work, because you could load the piston and follow it down pretty easily.

[ulav8r]

Sierra uses extruders to make lead wire for the cores in their bullets. Load an 8" diameter slug about a foot long into the chamber, then use hydraulic pressure to to extrude a single wire, size determined by the caliber to be formed.

[DoubleBuck]

My first thoughts for using what we have, is something I already have and don't use. An air hose off my air compressor to attach to my 20 ton hydraulic jack, with a regulator built in. Mine didn't come from Harbor Freight, but they have them. Dial the regulator to the pressure you want the press to be and push a button. If the stroke of the jack is 8 inches, your die could be six inches long, two inches in diameter easily. The POWDER pressure has to be determined by the amount of density you require. If for example, it requires 3,500# / sq. in. pressure, to get 1.7 density powder; just regulate the press jack to maintain 3,500 pounds on a 2" diameter die. The actual pressure needed, I don't know the math on top of my head. It may be 8,000 pounds. But, I know if we can press a 1.7 density puck, with a 12 ton jack, a twenty ton air over hydraulic jack will do it. And, it probably can be done with the 12 ton jack.
One of the main questions I see that has to be addressed is, how to get the minute hole size needed, in the extruder head. I don't know if anyone makes a .023" drill bit. I have access to a multi thousand dollar water jet machine, and an operator. I don't know if a jet will drill that small of a hole, but I think they will drill one smaller than that. I can find out, with a phone call.
Then, as I said before; by experiment or math, one needs to know the percentage of each size powder grains you need. There are a lot of if's here. If 2ff powder has grains of .023" -.047"; and if you could use 50% of each, then you might have five holes of the large and ten of the small, in the extruder head. The number of holes would be determined by the jack's ability to maintain that required pressure and powder density; and the percentage of each size needed.
This is merely a guess, but I could easily see this setup extrude powder faster than you can press and unload a puck.
Attachment of the head would have to be addressed. I could see making the 'die' and piston of stainless, most likely; then tig a stainless head on it, which is already prepared. A flat cap could be threaded on, if that were feasible. That would make powder size changes (2ff to 3fff, etc.) much easier, without having to have two complete extruders for two different grain sizes. It could be made of Aluminum, if it had good wear tolerance, on the holes. I don't know how abrasive plasticized powder would be, nor how tolerant Aluminum would be. There's a lot of if's.
I hope nobody took serious my post and my spouting of greatness, nor ability to change anything. That was all a joke. All this is just kicking tires. I do have the ability to make it happen, if I get the wild hair required. Anyone have any wild hairs they would like to get rid of?

[LAGS]

You are correct about the .023 drill size be hard to find
Of all the drill sets that I have had over the years.
A #60 size is the smallest.
It is only .40” diameter.
I still have one on my bench in a big set that I got from HF.
HF does sell micro drill bits that have 1/8” shanks.
But they don’t list the bit sizes.
An old girlfriend had some she used for doing jewlrey.

[HWooldridge]

An .023 drill won’t be found at Lowes but they can be bought at machine tool dealers. You’ll also need about 6,000 rpm on the spindle.

A 2” faceplate will need to be covered in holes because the material won’t want to make a 90 degree turn and move toward a select few. Quick math indicates somewhere around 120-150 evenly spaced over a 2” area.

[DoubleBuck]

Thanks for the input guys.
HW; you may have said something which would keep this idea in the could have been. I never thought about all the powder trying to change direction, to get out. You may be exactly right. It flows like liquid, under pressure. I've witnessed that, but if it didn't pretty much all press out, I don't know if you could load fresh meal on top of it, and bring it all back plastic again, or not. Reloading it might do it, or it might not. If the extruder had to be cleaned after each load, that would be a definite downside. Making it continuous feed would be the killer of the idea, for our use, pretty much. The idea may not be as valuable as as I thought. haha

[Nobade]

Smokeless powder is made by extrusion. Since the powder factories don't make black powder like that, I suspect there is a reason for not doing so.

Has anyone figured out how they make the Swiss Caviar? Not that is works all that great but it looks like ball powder.

[LAGS]

DB
I was wondering if rather than Extruding the powder into grains, you might try to Extrude it into larger Pucks.
Or even into smaller Pucks.
Sort of like what you said about the Cow Food.
It could speed up your process a little bit, but also make the Pucks more consistant.

[Sandro_ventania]

Smokeless powder is made by extrusion. Since the powder factories don't make black powder like that, I suspect there is a reason for not doing so.

Has anyone figured out how they make the Swiss Caviar? Not that is works all that great but it looks like ball powder.

I suspect it's because BP becomes hard as ceramic when pressed. I believe that after a certain pressure, it would stop flowing and solidify. It can work with very wet BP, but it would not be very compressed.

[LAGS]

One thing I am going to try this week is to take some of the batches of powder that I made before.
The ones that have a lower density even the ones that were corned before.
I will re mill the batch.
Then try to Re Puck them now that I have more practice getting higher densities.
Then re grind them and see if the density improves.
It is a little more work that I really don’t have to do.
But if it is a way to improve something that you already have , it is worth your time rather than just letting it sit and not be used.
I want to try re milling some of the powder.
Some of the other I will just re wet the granular powder and re Puck it.
That way I will be able to see if the re milling the powder is really needed.

So far I took the fine powder that was left over off grinding some pucks made from TP charcoal
That powder had a density of about 73 gr to 100 gr volume.
But, The re Pucked material ground out to 85gr to 100gr volume.
So it does look like I wasn’t pressing the first round of pucks as best I could.

[PianoManA440]

My goal is to make a powder that when poured from my flask into my measure
The volume is same as weight. I.e. 100grains weight is 100 grains volume give or
take a grain. I dont think its neccesary but half the fun for me is making blackpowder.
Other half is smoking out my little field where i shoot.

[HamGunner]

My goal is to make a powder that when poured from my flask into my measure
The volume is same as weight. I.e. 100grains weight is 100 grains volume give or
take a grain.

If you should succeed getting anything much higher than around 92-94%, I think we would all be very interested in your procedure. I know I would love to be able to jump over that hurtle.