My homemade black powder

[Vettepilot]

PLEASE---> continue to try to contact Fly and buy from him FIRST!

But if you truly can't get ahold of him:
https://www.woodysrocks.com/store/p2..._Press_.html#/

Vettepilot

[LAGS]

These pressing dies look good.
But I like to limit the amount of exposed Steel around any BP that I am working on.
So far Fly's puck dies have served me well.
But I did crack one of the base rings on one of them by not making sure everything was lined up before I started pressing some powder.
But by far , it was not the Dies fault.
That one was all me.
But just for overall Safety , I prefer the dies made all out of Aluminum or maybe Brass.

[trjones]

Thank You

[Vettepilot]

These pressing dies look good.
But I like to limit the amount of exposed Steel around any BP that I am working on.
So far Fly's puck dies have served me well.
But I did crack one of the base rings on one of them by not making sure everything was lined up before I started pressing some powder.
But by far , it was not the Dies fault.
That one was all me.
But just for overall Safety , I prefer the dies made all out of Aluminum or maybe Brass.

I definitely agree.

Vettepilot

[maillemaker]

Pressed out another 200 grams of pucks tonight, so I have 600 grams of pucks done so far. This weekend I'm going to go over to Wally World and see if they have a dehydrator. It's a shame - we had one that my wife played with a few years ago but she threw it out as we never used it again! Oh well.

Also, I made a plastic spacer and now I produce 2 pucks for every press. This halves production time.

On one hand I want to keep making pucks until I run out of charcoal, but on the other hand I'm afraid I'll get this stuff ground up and find out it sucks and will have wasted all the time and ingredients! I have another 200 grams of green meal ready for pressing. I think I'm going to stop here until I make some actual powder to test. I've got a ceramic coffee grinder and appropriate screens. As soon as these pucks dry out I'll be grinding and screening and see how it works!

First thing I'm going to do is measure some volume for a density comparison against Goex. Then I'll make a burn track and video a track of Goex vs. a track of home made. Finally, I'll do some loads with Goex and some loads with home made and fire them through a chronograph.

Also though, I have kind of broken my rule and I'm doing my puck pressing in my garage. In spite of my efforts at cleanliness, you can see powder dust is settling on the piece of white board I work over. When you push the puck piston in place, as the air escapes little puffs of powder dust escape also.

On reading historical pieces black powder dust was a serious safety concern. So, I'm going to move powder pressing operations out to the back porch.

This is fun! The green meal production is the kind of thing that I can basically do non-stop. I am using 5-hour mill rotations so if I put on a canister at 7am I can get 2 canisters done a day. That's 200 grams of green meal a day - almost half a pound. So in a month, I could have 10 pounds of green meal and pucks. Once you have the equipment, the process is pretty quick.

Steve

[brewer12345]

This is fun! The green meal production is the kind of thing that I can basically do non-stop. I am using 5-hour mill rotations so if I put on a canister at 7am I can get 2 canisters done a day. That's 200 grams of green meal a day - almost half a pound. So in a month, I could have 10 pounds of green meal and pucks. Once you have the equipment, the process is pretty quick.

Steve

I burn several pounds of powder a year, butthis does make me wonder: how much are you trying to produce?

[maillemaker]

I shoot in competition so I go through probably 10-15 pounds a year. It would be nice to manufacture it instead of buy it - if I can make something as good as Goex and consistent.

[Vettepilot]

From the sound of how your meal burnt, I think you will like the results. If the density ends up not quite being the same as Goex, you could just load by weight.

From what I've been told, our homemade burns cleaner than commercial, and one member reported an ES of 10 with his powder!

Glad my passing along tips of a shorter mill time and doing multiple pucks at once helped. If your powder works to your satisfaction, it sounds like your next investment should be a larger ball mill...

Edit/add: At your projected rate of use, if you can't build youself a ball mill and have to buy one, it will pay for itself pretty quick. Thumblers Tumbler comes to mind, though others here might have other recommendations.

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

Can a person post short videos here, or do they have to be uploaded elsewhere and linked?? If you can't post a vid here, where can you without using YouTube nor buying into a service I would very rarely use?

Note: Just a personal preference, but I don't believe in nor use social media other than forums.

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

Just an off the wall thought. It's amazing the power of the charcoal!! Just think; it is only 15% of the powder, yet it is where the power comes from! The KNO3 (75%) is the oxidizer; the oxygen for the burn. The sulphur (10%) helps with ignition. The energy comes from that little 15% ration of simple charcoal. Amazing isn't it??

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

Speaking of tumblers, this offer just came in my e-mail. Nice looking, compact, really good price. Holds 3.3 qts. I believe, so over 3 times the size of a Harbor Freight single??

https://www.classicfirearms.com/fran...ntent=Tertiary

It's pretty neat I think, especially at that price. If I were not so well set for tumblers now, I'd buy it in a heartbeat! I've bought from Classic before with no problems/complaints...

Vettepilot

[maillemaker]

If your powder works to your satisfaction, it sounds like your next investment should be a larger ball mill...

I'm actually content doing 100 gram mill charges. I live in a subdivision. Last thing I need to do is launch my fence through the neighbor's wall.

I wish I lived in the country as I would love to sacrifice a mill canister and detonate it to see how big a bang we are talking about if one accidentally blew.

I also actually have a MASSIVE tumbler - probably holds 5 gallons of liquid. Used to use it to polish chainmail armor back when I did medieval stuff. No way in hell am I loading that thing up with powder though.

To post videos, you are going to have to have a web host of some kind. YouTube is the big one, I'm sure there are others.

Steve

[Vettepilot]

Well, here's an interesting explosion. Be sure to read the description. I really like it not only because it is cool, and epic, but also for how it clearly shows the shockwave propagation through the structure.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbvNIaC3gKM

Then, an epic burn of homemade BP a guy did just for fun:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=de7xDMjAxZI

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

Just a safety note here... people do really crazy things just to get a few "likes" on YouTube. These stunts are crazy and very dangerous. When people get hurt, which inevitably happens sooner or later, that's when politicians do "knee jerk" reactions to try to protect us from ourselves. DON'T BE THAT GUY, that causes painful rules, regulations, laws, and restrictions to be imposed upon us.

Vettepilot

[maillemaker]

That second video is so crinchworthy. So. Much. Dust! That guy is asking for an explosion. It was interesting to see his green meal cup-molds burn unconstrained though.

Steve

[maillemaker]

Got a food dehydrator today - my pucks are drying now!

[Vettepilot]

Got my media all dressed up today. I ladle poured the lead into the half inch copper tubes, and there was some dribbles, splash, etc. on about 10% of them from when these old hands spazzed a little. So I went through the whole 44 lb. batch today and dressed the ones that needed it on my belt sander.

I cut my tubes with a pipe/tubing cutter, and beared down hard on the cutter so as to curl the copper inward and trap the lead in. I'm glad I did, because while I was handling them today, a noticeable number of them had the lead slightly loose inside. I wonder how the guys with this type of media are fairing that just chopped their tubes with a saw?? It would be a bummer to open your mill jar and find all the tubing and lead separated!

Anyway, it took a bit to cut all mine with a tubing cutter, but I'm glad I did. It was one of those chores nice to do in the evening while watching TV. I no longer have an old lady to have a heart attack over working in the living room! ;~)

Vettepilot

[swamp]

I have a question on the copper pipe media. Way not cut the tubing to 1 or two foot. Whatever works out for the end length, pour in the lead and cut after the lead cools? I get the impression that the pieces are cut to final length and them poured.
swamp

[Vettepilot]

Well, as I said, I cut mine the way I did to ensure that the lead stayed trapped inside the tubes. I believe "Maillemaker" domed the edges of his over for the same purpose. On mine, some of the ones that didn't get the little tube poured clear full, the lead is loose inside, and if not for the curled ends, could fall right out.

I suppose if you wanted to clean and flux each tube section so that the lead literally soldered itself to the copper and bonded, what you suggest would be ok. Either that or put a nice deep dimple in each piece to keep the lead in. My way seemed the most expedient of the choices for me.

Edit/add: mine was new, clean copper tubing. When and where the lead had dribbled over the side of the tube, in most cases I could just pull that "dribble" off by hand; it had not soldered/bonded to the copper tubing. When I DO solder copper tubing, I sand the copper bright and clean right before soldering, and use flux.

Vettepilot

[swamp]

I was thinking that when cut with a tube or pipe cutter the ends would turn in and act like a crimp.
swamp