My homemade black powder

[KenH]

Are most of you folks air floating each of the ingredients before ball milling, or just going straight to ball milling?

The sulfur and charcoal are both airfloated (ground very fine, like talc). The KNO3 is in small pellets about the size of #6 shot. That I run thru the grinder set on as fine as I can get. Perhaps not quite talc, but close. I dump them all together in the ball mill for mixing. Since I'm mixing only 100 grams total I don't think there is much danger. Even it did blow up all I'd lose is the $50 HF tumbler.

I'll check the mixture a couple or 3 times during the 17 to 18 hrs of milling to be sure it's all still loose with no clumping. I've got a mix of .50 cal lead balls, 50 cal cast bullets, and 30 cal cast for the ball medium.

[FrankJD]

I Air Float all of my materials and store them that way.
But before I mix my next batch , I tumble each by themselves just to make sure there is no clumping from humidity. Even though I live in a no humidity state.
The three chemicals are then milled together.
Often I do the charcoal and sulfur first.
Then add the Kno3.
I don't know if it makes any difference.
But I do it mostly for just a safety factor.
The meal is way less flammable untill you mix in the Kno3.
Plus having the mix of two chemicals first should tend to make a more even mix with the third chemical.

For the air float, you're just ball milling each chemical for a few hours, checking to look for "smoke"?

I like your ball milling the charcoal and sulfur first, makes sense. How long do you mill those two ingredients before adding in the KNO3?

[HWooldridge]

I use an electric coffee grinder to pulverize each ingredient separately, but I do so just before combining the three ingredients. Like LAGS, I do charcoal and sulfur together, then add the nitrate. I don't store air float of any chemical - but for no particular reason. It's just personal preference.

[LAGS]

Once I have the three ingredients Air floated and stored for a while.
I re mill the three ingredients separately for at least one hour each.
When I mill the Charcoal with the Sulfur together, I do that for about two to three hours.
Than the final mixing with the Nitrate is at least 6 hours or more.

[Vettepilot]

Speaking of ingredients, their prep, etc., I use a smallish coffee grinder to mill my KNO3 and charcoal to airfloat before using. I've been using cedar shavings pet bedding to make charcoal, and that works fine due to the fine nature of that charcoal. When doing other, more conventional wood/charcoal, I have a "yard sale" meat grinder that I run the charcoal through first. (I'm going to convert that puppy to "motorized" one of these days, just because...)

Side note: I've seen/heard of people busting up their charcoal by putting it into Zip Lock bags and pummeling it with a hammer on the floor/concrete. This is really not recommended due to the fact that the bags will surely puncture, and bits of sand or concrete can get mixed in which might cause sparks during milling. (Boom!)

I was having some major PITA clumping during milling it all at one point. The problem just kind of suddenly popped up, and irritated me to no end. I cured it by drying each component first, PLUS adding my binder, (rice starch) only for the last hour of milling.

Just some tips...

Vettepilot

[Pioneer]

I mill all 3 together at one time for 24 hours. Seems to be working out so far. I've about 7lb ready to shoot and I think 7lb pucked and drying. 1lb in the mill right now and 6lb measured out in separate 8oz containers ready for the mill. Oughta do me for the year.

[HamGunner]

I was having some major PITA clumping during milling it all at one point. The problem just kind of suddenly popped up, and irritated me to no end. I cured it by drying each component first
Vettepilot

I also was getting a good bit of clumping during the milling process. In my last two batches, after everything was reduced to as close to air float as I could get them, I dried the sulfur and the nitrate in the oven on large commercial sized sided cookie pans. No clumping noted at all during milling after drying first.

My sulfur is very fine flour, but I do screen it to <40 mesh before drying in the oven.

My Potassium Nitrate comes in just under BB sized prill form and I use an electric coffee grinder to reduce it to <40 mesh before drying in the oven.

For reducing my charcoal, I first grind in a hand crank meat grinder and screen to <40 mesh. I think at least 70% is totally air float, but I do mill the weighed out amount of charcoal in the mill by itself while waiting on the sulfur and nitrate, which I am drying in the oven at low heat for a couple of hours.

I have been weighing out my ingredients before oven drying, but now that I have thought about it, I will now be weighing the sulfur and nitrate out after oven drying for a more accurate formula. The Charcoal is already bone dry, so it's weight has been correct. But I suspect that moisture weight might have reduced my nitrate percentage a tiny amount. Maybe not by much, but hey, why not shoot for the best precision that I can attain. I doubt the small amount of sulfur moisture changed things much, but that will get weighed after drying as well in the future.

I had been weighing out for a slight bit heavier nitrate in the formula, so with a small amount of moisture in the nitrate, I have likely only been making about the normal 75-15-10 powder. Which has done well, actually. Maybe with weighing the dry ingredients for my mixture, I can improve a wee bit as I would really like to have a 76-14-10 ratio.

I have been very coarse grinding my pucks one at a time, in a grain grinder that I found in a flea market that is almost identical to https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BK58NZ5Z? prior to grinding finer in my hand crank ceramic coffee grinder. This has made lots less work and my fines have reduced by at least half what they had been before. Screen, screen, and screen seems to be the key before grinding down finer.

Edit: I have started using the 1:10 ratio of Duco Cement : Acetone, recommended by others on another thread, for sealing my tamped in primer compound in my home made percussion caps and it looks like it is a winner. I had been tamping the compound down and then adding a 1:5 ration of Shellac : Alcohol and just before that dried I was tamping a paper punched out disc from toy cap gun roll caps for an inside sealer. I think the Duco cement will handle it well all by itself, which will eliminate a bit of extra work on my part with messing with the cut out roll caps. Duco Cement contains a good bit of nitrocellulose, so it will surely help as much as the toy cap gun caps as far as extra flame.

[mmb617]

I'm probably just lazy but it seems like I'm doing less work on my ingredients than most of you.

I break up my charcoal by hand into chunks that will fit in my HF ball mill and run 4-6 hrs or so by which time it is pretty much airfloat. I look it over as there is occasionally a very small piece of wood that didn't char completely to pick out. I don't screen it as I'm sure that would make a big dust cloud.

Both my KNO3 that I get from Seed Ranch and my sulfur I buy from Amazon are very fine when I get them so I don't mill them at all prior to mixing.

I weigh out all three ingredients and dump into the mill together then run for 8 hrs.

So far I've been happy with the results and haven't run into any clumping issues yet. I hope I haven't jinxed myself by saying that.

I didn't make any powder over this winter as I still have a good supply from last year and don't shoot as much in the winter, so I'll soon see if having the ingredients stored since last year makes a difference as I intend to resume manufacturing shortly.

[LAGS]

If your materials have been kept dry , they should be good to go for this year.
I agree with you that you don't have to do all the super detailed things to make powder that Works , and works pretty good.
But a lot of us get caught up in trying to Exactly Duplicate factory powders.
But making the powder in the methods that they did 200 years ago will get you by.
It is just the starting level that people had the only option of doing.
And it got us to where we are today.

[HamGunner]

I'm probably just lazy but it seems like I'm doing less work on my ingredients than most of you.

I break up my charcoal by hand into chunks that will fit in my HF ball mill and run 4-6 hrs or so by which time it is pretty much airfloat. I don't screen it as I'm sure that would make a big dust cloud.

I am sure that I do plenty of unnecessary extra labor in order to get my Black powder finished. I think if it shoots good, it does not matter so much the exact procedure one uses.

The stuff is dusty, and especially the charcoal. Absolutely should not be screened indoors unless under a very capable ventilation hood, etc.
I made the mistake of screening indoors, once. It was raining outside one evening and I was anxious to get my meal ready for milling the next day, which was going to be sunny and nice out.

Well, although I could not tell it at the time, I was coating my whole reloading/casting room with a fine, nasty, black dust. I am still finding a bit here and there. What a mess to clean up.

Charcoal is bad enough, but I would hate to think how bad it would be to end up with a coating of fine black powder dust all over everything inside if one managed to get a collection of that deposited everywhere. We definitely need to only screen or do any type of dusty procedure outdoors.

I only mill my charcoal an hour or two after screening just before adding the other two ingredients. Certainly, as long as it is fine enough, the method that saves the most work and mess would be a positive thing.

[HWooldridge]

I had a “happy accident” this past weekend while reprocessing dust - thought I’d share…

I made a large batch of red cedar BP and it’s been stored in pucks for a few weeks; I decided to grind and grade it middle of last week. All went well and the fines amounted to about a pound so I pucked everything again using a small amount of distilled water. After those pucks were dry, I did another grind, which left about 7 oz of dust. I was worried about losing nitrate with two pressings, so this time I dissolved a teaspoon of KNO3 in 4 oz of hot water and spritzed the dust with the solution, followed by another press and grind. After grading, I had about a dry cup full of 4F left over, so I did a burn test in my 12” angle iron tray with about a half tablespoon of powder, spread equally in the tray.

The flash was instantaneous and I could not see the burn progress on the video - it was just one big bolt of lightning - by far the fastest I’ve ever seen since I started rolling my own.

I’m assuming each grind and press cycle continued the distribution of the ingredients that was begun during milling, and the extra nitrate is at least maintaining the original ratios - if not also adding a bit to the reaction.

Does anyone know how to post a video to this site - I’d like to put it up for posterity’s sake.

[Trapper-Jack]

I have found that when reprocessing powder, the density of the powder is always higher. I was doing an experiment of the amount of measured water added to the meal prior to pressing. I pressed a puck, added water and pressed another puck and so on. Long story short, the density for that batch of powder was way short of what I wanted when dried, 1.5 g/cc. I broke up the pucks and re-milled them and pressed them with 4.5% water and the density of the same powder went up to 1.8 g/cc.

[mpkunz607]

Very cool. FWIW, there are some references in historical literature to the French mixing cannon powder on site for transport safety reasons. I was curious to see if in a SHTF scenario if it would work in my in-line. I doubt very much that you would want anything other than nicely corned powder in a flint ignition rifle. So I went to Lowes and got a bottle of powdered stump remover, which is just KNO3, some sulfur from Tractor Supply, and some powdered activated charcoal (PAC) for water treatment from scAmazon. I weighed out the 75:15:10 proportions sufficient to make 200 grains, mixed it thoroughly, and split it in half for two charges. I fired hollow base Minie bullets with it. I could not detect any delay, nor could I feel any difference in recoil. I didn't chronograph it, but suffice it to say, for SHTF purposes, or just shooting at 50 yards in my back yard, it is a very inexpensive alternative to the commercially made powders. For the muzzleloader seasons I will stick with commercially made powder, but its good to know one can improvise readily and put meat on the table.

[mmb617]

Does anyone know how to post a video to this site - I’d like to put it up for posterity’s sake.

When I want to post a video to a forum I first upload it to YouTube and then link from there. For example my son shooting his new gun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tV_...channel=mmb617

As for reprocessing fines I keep them till I make a fresh batch of powder and mix them in with that meal before pressing.

[HWooldridge]

When I want to post a video to a forum I first upload it to YouTube and then link from there. For example my son shooting his new gun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tV_...channel=mmb617

As for reprocessing fines I keep them till I make a fresh batch of powder and mix them in with that meal before pressing.

Thanks for the tip - I'll put the video up and link it.

[DoubleBuck]

Friends and fellow followers of the Holy Black;
I have been reading the Mad Monk Complete Files off and on for a month. Some of it doesn't pertain to my uses, but I endeavored to read them all, as there is lots of useful information, pertinent or not. I took several notes relative to our use and decided to post them, that they might help someone at some point, and hopefully; answer some questions for those new and old, to the quest.
Thank you again to Brimstone, who posted the link to the Mad Monk Complete Files, in his post #6820, on page 341. There is a trove of info there. Bill Knight has black powder credentials, for sure.
I'll start with Charcoal, then Nitrate, then Sulfur and a couple on procedures.

Bill lists the preferred Sporting charcoal woods in order, as Glossy Buckthorn Alder; Black Alder; and White Willow. I believe GOEX is (was) made with Maple, Some of us may not have any one of the three available; but his parameters are light density, low ash content (at or below 2.5%) and high creosote content. Alder wood tested 6-8%; Willow 4- 5% and Maple 2-3% Creosote content.
I'll leave the creosote to Linstrum or others who have expressed a desire to formulate a simple and viable test of creosote. Although Bill's method is not all that complicated. But seemingly tedious. Meanwhile, I think we have several woods tried, tested and true that have been posted. I'll leave that for another discussion.
Charcoal should be cooked, without bark, at or below 320°C or 608°F.. This retains the most creosote and has a good number on fixed carbon content.
I believe a few others in this forum such as Almar have determined 580°F is a good number to strive for. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Length of char time is not fixed and please correct me if I am wrong there, as well.
Creosote is directly related to softer, wet fouling, which is easily swabbed, and less corrosive.
Care should be taken to assure against moisture weight gain on new charcoal. I believe he quoted a 10% weight gain is possible, in high (92%) humidity.
The charcoal of one company was ground to pass a #40 mesh sieve, before milling. He also says that charcoal in certain of his grain size tests indicated 2 micron to 10 micron sizes in finished milled powder. I don't know if 'airfloat' is fine enough. But, it appears Charcoal can't be ground too small. And again, properly ground charcoal is really prone to moisture attraction. And, low temperature processed charcoal is slightly less prone.

Bill makes a few Nitrate points in his writings.
The main ones I came off with are purity of 99.5+ which he lists as Technical Grade. He says the .5% impurity is not as important as the makeup of that impurity. We want no Sodium Chloride to be in that .5%. It turns to Sodium Nitrate in the burn process. And that promotes moisture corrosion.
He states more than once that the best KNO3 comes from Haifa, in Israel. Not only is the impurity content more inert; it is also overstated; in that 99.5% is the lower limit of Haifa's stated purity. It actually runs at more in the 99.7-99.9% purity.

Also on the purity subject; Bill gives very strong arguments for the use of only distilled water. No treated city water with chlorine in it. No well water with iron. No well water with sulfur. Pretty much, nothing but distilled is acceptable.
I'm pretty sure we can make a hundred pounds of finished powder with a gallon of distilled water. And you can buy it anywhere they sell water.
The purity of water in the process directly relates to finished powder quality and storage longevity. And, grain structure longevity. It can definitely be a make or break in powder quality.

Sulfur is a subject Bill covers in several ways, in it's relation to quality and burn characteristics, but the main points I took were, once again purity of 99.5%+, with, hopefully, the .5% not being acid. I think it goes with the other ingredients that purity and mixture percentage are the important points.
The other main point I got was not to heat your sulfur at any time above 180°F. It starts to gas off and lose it's properties. I, myself have decided I can keep all my heat at or below 150°F and be good to go.

Because his testing that I read, was primarily all on commercially produced powders; our process is not even considered. Bill only states that Chinese fireworks powder was made in ball mills and that a ball mill wasn't capable of making Sporting quality powder.
I think that conclusion has been seriously questioned, from test results of posters on this forum; comparing finished powder results with direct comparisons of commercially produced powder; up to and including Swiss. Everybody wants a 8 ton wheel mill in their shop, right? Given that probably ain't happening; we seem to be doing amazingly well, with a process that ain't supposed to work. We just have to work out the specific loads for accuracy versus velocity. That's the fun part, as far as I'm concerned.
Polishing powder is a subject Bill covers extensively, and reading his results has inspired me to at least give it a good try.
His recommendations are polishing for 4-6 hours utilizing cotton muslin cloth and frequent dust removal. He also states that a basic grain size (2ff) will generally reduce a half size (2.5ff) with proper polishing. So, unless we are doing large batches in volume, it would be good to bear the grain size loss in mind, during initial screening.
Bill says polishing to a 1.02 G/CC to 1.08 G/CC LOADING Density is generally accepted on Sporting Powder. IndianJoe my mind rang a bell, when I realized this was what you were speaking of, a couple months back, that you didn't care as much for puck density as loading density? Now I understand what you were saying.
And final screening for dust removal yielded further positive results.
The addition of Graphite seems to add more of a pouring and grain isolating advantage, in storage. It will not give much additional protection to moisture and actually will hide an underlying moisture problem below the polished outer layer of grain structure from long term storage.
It 'moderates' ignition throughout the burn process, which can help stabilize accuracy. A potential negative of Graphite is added fixed carbon content, which will add a certain amount to dryer fouling characteristics.

There's pretty much the extent of my notes. As VettePilot says, "your mileage may vary".

[indian joe]

Friends and fellow followers of the Holy Black;

Bill says polishing to a 1.02 G/CC to 1.08 G/CC LOADING Density is generally accepted on Sporting Powder. IndianJoe my mind rang a bell, when I realized this was what you were speaking of, a couple months back, that you didn't care as much for puck density as loading density? Now I understand what you were saying.
Thanks ! I just didnt communicate that well enough

And final screening for dust removal yielded further positive results.
Yes! I am a screen freak - believe the industrial/commercial process leaves room for improvement on that score

The addition of Graphite seems to add more of a pouring and grain isolating advantage, in storage.
I have been shooting ungraphited powder since the late 1990's so have got used to the down side - but on the positive we have one less source of inert material in the powder. Graphite slows ignition, adds to fouling - only a little bit but little bits add up as we go along.

It will not give much additional protection to moisture
That was one of the touted reasons for it in early days and I never found it to be true.

and actually will hide an underlying moisture problem below the polished outer layer of grain structure from long term storage.
It 'moderates' ignition throughout the burn process, which can help stabilize accuracy. A potential negative of Graphite is added fixed carbon content, which will add a certain amount to dryer fouling characteristics.
I had already been through the graphite vs ungraphite with bulk Goex so was never tempted to add it to homebrew
Do use it on all my lead ball for muzzleloaders - stops the crud from developing in storage.
Good job I think we are doin better with our own stuff than we realise.

There's pretty much the extent of my notes. As VettePilot says, "your mileage may vary".

..,....

[HWooldridge]

DB,

I also read all of the MM files and found some of the same nuggets - Bill Knight was certainly an authority on the subject.

I don't have ready access to any of the "magic woods" for charcoal but have been doing pretty well with red cedar fence pickets. Cedar seems to have some creosote and has that greasy feel if the temperature is maintained properly during the charring process.

I started using distilled water but also add a bit of nitrate to the water so it's more like the nitrate "liquor" that Bill Knight mentioned in the old commercial mills. I haven't shot enough of that batch over a chronograph to know whether it makes a difference. Bill wrote that anything over 76 parts starts to be detrimental so it's a fine line of what works the best.

With regard to the wheel method, I've mentioned a couple times in this thread that I believe a sand muller design as intended for foundry work would work to make BP but the effort to produce one may be difficult to justify when ball milling seems to work quite well. Drying the components does make a difference in clumping so maybe ball milling is simply the best method for an individual. I've been threatening to build a muller for about ten years but have never moved forward with actual construction.

HW

[mmb617]

I don't have ready access to any of the "magic woods" for charcoal but have been doing pretty well with red cedar fence pickets. Cedar seems to have some creosote and has that greasy feel if the temperature is maintained properly during the charring process.

I started out using cedar fence pickets I bought at Home Depot, but then a friend who is the manager of a building supplies warehouse told me he gets lots of cedar cutoffs that are normally scrapped. So he started bringing me some to try. Both those and the fence pickets were satisfactory to me so he brought me what is probably a lifetime supply of 1x6x2 ft pieces.

The fouling in my barrel is fairly soft as I often shoot 20-30 shots without any swabbing between shots. And I don't blow down the barrel to keep it soft the way some people do.

[HamGunner]

Thanks for the info Buck.

The other main point I got was not to heat your sulfur at any time above 180°F. It starts to gas off and lose it's properties. I, myself have decided I can keep all my heat at or below 150°F and be good to go.

I am glad to read this since I will be drying my ingredients prior to milling from now on as I have proven to myself, in my last two batches, that even the small amount of moisture was the culprit that was causing the clumping as I no longer had clumping in those batches.

I will just make certain not to over-cook anything and I guess I should even heat up my charcoal a bit if it is so sensitive to weight gain. I had been immediately sealing my charcoal and thinking it to be very dry, but perhaps it would be best to just go ahead and dry it in my oven a bit before weighing it to put into the batch.

For myself, since I do not think I have access to any of the stated "best" woods, for now, I am going to just stick to Sassafras. After I used up my last bit of seasoned Black Willow in my last batch, I have found that the Sassafras exceeded it in both burn speed and cleanliness on a paper burn test and also on my chronograph for speed as well.

It is almost time to go gather up a good supply of the Sassafras. Things are starting to bud out here in S. Missouri, but it is still a few weeks away from likely the prime time for cutting any wood. Plenty of fence rows down on the family farm that need some attention.