My homemade black powder

[StevenDJ]

Thanks henryinpanama! I appreciate the idea and the link. I agree that it should not be able to damage the gun with black powder. It would be a nice bonus to develop an accurate round ball load out to around 50m.

[jmh54738]

Observations.....The soft .45" lead balls used as tumbling media are out & gone. I was ending up with 5% more product out of the ball mill than I had put in !! A weight check of 50 unused balls compared to 50 that had been tumbled, show that the gain in powder weight came from the lead. The lead balls have been replaced with 400 45 cal FMJ.

I was gifted a large box of Balsa wood pieces. A one gallon paint can stuffed full yields less than 3 oz of charcoal, cooked to 600 deg as recommended in the Swiss Powder Booklet. Balsa wood begins its exothermic action right at 600 degrees, and the temperature will want to rise rapidly from that point, if not controlled. All other woods began their exothermic reaction at least 100 degrees lower. The charcoal is extremely soft, grinding as if it was puffed rice cereal. The 32 oz ball mill container was half full when placed on the ball mill. An inspection after four hours of tumbling showed that the volume had increased to 90% of container capacity. The large volume required repeated application of pressure in the pucking press as a lot of air was being bled off. No shooting until all 8 batches are completed. This Balsa was the last.
John

[HWooldridge]

Balsa is supposed to be very energetic - will be interesting to see how it works out for you.

[LAGS]

I have made charcoal out of Balsa that I bought to try out.
The charcoal looks very good and performed very well.it is a type of wood I would like to use very often.
But the cost and availability is very restrictive.
It brings the price of making your own homemade powder up to the cost of factory powder.
The balsa I used was 2x2 x12" piece of wood from a hobby shop.
It cost like $20.
But if you know people who make model airplanes.
Talk them out of the left over scrap they have.
The only thing is.
Those pieces will be very thin and harder to char them into charcoal more consistently.

[FrankJD]

Anybody using a Woody's puck press and pressure gauge with their powder press?

[jmh54738]

SHOOTING RESULTS ! The Cedar chips came from bagged landscape chips. Who knows when the Balsa was harvested, all other woods were harvested locally this spring, when the sap was up, debarked and dried. All charring was done in a one gallon paint can with a gentle heat source. The internal can temperature was held at 600 deg F, with a max temp of 640 deg F. The resulting charcoal was ground in a hand crank burr mill. The KNO3 was dried before weighing. All BP batches were 1/2 pound, 75-15-10, ball milled, moistened with 50/50 alcohol/water, and pucked under a gauged hydraulic press at 7 ton. Dried, crushed, and screened, the 2f-3f blend was ready to shoot.
The rifle is a 45 cal T/C Seneca, 26 1/2" from muzzle to breech plug, shooting a 240 grain T/C Maxi-Ball over a weighed 70 grains of BP, over a PACT model XP Chronograph. Velocity is a 5 shot average, with very low extreme spread. Of no surprise, the Balsa was the fastest.
Balsa 1572 fps
White Pine 1555
Box Elder 1512
Cedar 1501
Buck thorn 1501
Sumac 1498
Willow 1468
Cottonwood 1465
GOEX 3fg 1461
Red Elderberry 1450
GOEX 2fg 1387

All of these are acceptable, no bad ones, and I will be happy to forever use White Pine, as I have tens of thousands of such trees. After all of the shooting, I have a recoil headache.
John

[LAGS]

I am glad to see that Balsa was the fastest.
I no longer have a Chronograph.
So I can't test mine for FPS.
But it too seems to burn the cleanest.
But the cost of Balsa also cleans out your wallet.
But powder made with it still seems cheaper than buying Factory Powder.
I have made powder with White Pine.
It was a little dirtier than some of the other charcoals.
But the White Pine that I use was kiln dried Lumber.
Making it from dried tree branches might make it better.

[jmh54738]

You are absolutely correct, Lags, the Balsa was very clean. I dry patched the bore between shots, and could not feel any fouling near the breech. The White Pine is fast, but I got my dry patch and jag stuck near the breech. I had to use a wet patch followed by a dry one. Now that I have some standards to go by, I will make a batch of "Swiss" sporting powder recipe, which is 78-12-10. That may be a cleaner burn with White Pine. The Swiss call 75-15-10 "Blasting Powder". I would like to barter for few loads of Swiss powder to rate its performance in my chart.

[LAGS]

That is one thing I have noticed when doing batches with different charcoal powders.
All the different woods have different weights.
IE.
The Balsa seems lightest.
But when you do the batch mix.
The Volume of charcoal using balsa is so much more even though it is the same Weight as another wood.
I often wonder what the higher Volume effects the mix of powder.
For example.
When using a super light weight charcoal with higher Volume.
Would it be better to reduce the charcoal from 15% down to 12%
Does anyone else have thoughts , experience or related information.

[Trapper-Jack]

This is all good information. I find it interesting that your results between Goex 2F and your Willow mirror my earlier results. The willow has become my preferred charcoal as I have a back yard full of it. Well done and looking foreword to the results of the 78-12 blend.

[jmh54738]

Lags, after Balsa, the next most soft charcoal, by a wide margin, was from Staghorn Sumac. The widely spaced growth indicate rapid growth, and the BP performed rather well. I did not note that I had any problem with a dry patch. More investigation required. It is interesting that the Buckthorn charcoal was very crisp and crunchy, but still made good BP.
Trapper, I don't have any Willow on my place. The donated willow that I used is White willow, aka Golden weeping willow, Royal willow, Water willow, Silver willow, Cricket-bat willow, Sallow tree, Huntingdon willow, and Swallow Tail willow.
John

[LAGS]

The only Sumac trees that I know about or have been near was in California.
It was down by the coast.
The fire department that I did jobs for said it was Explosive when there was brush fires and it was toxic so we had to be careful when we were doing land clearing for fire prevention.
But I may have to look into the Staghorn type trees.
I don't know if they are common here in Az. except maybe in someone's garden.

[Trapper-Jack]

When I bought my place here 20 years ago, there were a lot of an ornamental sumac. It was almost invasive as it would send up new plants all through the yard. It took me a lot of time to get it killed out. Now I'm thinking "If only I'd have known". With that said, I do have a lot of hybrid willow that was planted for wind brake that has done well for powder. I have a lifetime supply.

[LAGS]

Sudac is very invasive.
We would clear out a field for the fire department.
The next year they would call us up and have us clear out the same property that was overgrown and about 8' tall

[DoubleBuck]

jmh54738;
Thank you for posting your results. You've been busy!
Those look like some great results, from every charcoal you used. You definitely are doing something right! Congratulations!
Buck

[DoubleBuck]

LAGS;
My thoughts on the volume increase of the light density charcoal are in line with yours. I'm wondering if you couldn't measure the difference, by weight over volume and then use the difference, in percentage; to adjust the recipe, in percentage. 78-12-10 is a recipe difference of 6% in total. I've played with 76-14-10 but only in Black Willow. But that is only a difference of 2% on the recipe total. It would be interesting to see the percentage that Balsa is greater volume, than say Black Willow. If it is 3%, it would somewhat support that theory. If it's 10%, then I'm still scratching my head. I wouldn't be surprised if Balsa is 10% greater volume charcoal. If it is, that would call for a recipe of 80-10-10, and that sounds like my theory may be bunk. Buck

[LAGS]

It has been too hot for me to be making charcoal or batches of powder.
But when it cools down a bit.
I will get some more balsa wood and make more charcoal.
Then also compare it to the charcoal I still have.
That will tell me if the fine light charcoal will collect weight from moisture from just sitting.
Then I will have enough balsa charcoal to play with new mixing ratios like 78, 12, 10

[shaman]

OK. I've got my Ailanthus ready for reduction. I've got a 1 GAL paint can for a retort. I'm going to set it in a 5 gallon metal can and surround it with charcoal. I've got one last burning question:

I see some guys poking a hole in the top of the paint can. Others poke it in the bottom. What say y'all? Top or bottom?

[jmh54738]

One needs to be able to plug the hole when the distillation is complete. Also the observation of the smoke being omitted, or the lack of smoke is an indicator of the progress of the process. The burning gasses from a bottom hole will add to the overall heat of the process and may over cook the charcoal. At a certain temperature point in the destructive distillation process, an exothermic reaction will take place and the temperature inside your gallon can will surge rapidly, over which you will have no control, regardless of whether the hole is in the top or bottom.

[HWooldridge]

I drill a hole in the lid then drop a nail with a large diameter head in the hole (like a roofing nail). It acts like a pressure cooker and bleeds off the buildup - then the nail drops back to cover the hole when the output slows.