My homemade black powder

[Fly]

Flashman READ MY POST VERY IMPORTANT! I have shown many here this grinder for grinding your pucks.
The grinder is a CERAMIC burr coffee grinder. The reason we use CERAMIC burr hand grinder is they work,
but most important there SAFE. CERAMIC burrs do not make sparks. This is the one most here use.
https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Grinde...GS8MMCZ2VDGJ1Y

Please do not try & improvise on this. You now have a explosive & you have not listened to us in the past on some
of the advice you were given, only to come back admitting so. That's one reason this venture has taken you this long.
But my friend we want you safe. The above grinder will last for ever & is safe.

Hope I have helped, Fly

[FLASHMAN]

Sincere apologies Fly --
such items --may as well be sitting on the sea of tranquillity !

Hence my DIY methods --most pour scorn on ---just cannot afford a ceramic coffee grinder
---live in the bush ---rather tiny pension --
but I can try other simpler ideas --manual crushing -does work ---sort of

many thanks --for all your great help --
Flash

[Fly]

Well I under stand. Just how ever you do it be safe. Do not use metal on metal in grinding it unless it is brass.
We want you around for some time my friend.
Fly

[Avenger442]

Maybe you can get your hands on a mortar and pestal. You seem to be handy. Try hard ceramic or plastic bowl rounded on the sides down to the bottom and a hard piece of wood rounded on the end to grind it up. Then separate grains from dust with finest screen wire you can find.

Just an idea.

[Nobade]

Before I got my coffee grinder, I used a piece of aluminum pipe on a aluminum restaurant tray to grind the powder. It worked, but was a lot of work and wore out the tray. After grinding I ran the particles through a window screen to grade them. Oh, I break up the pucks in a coffee can with a wood baseball bat. You can do it low tech, just takes more work.

-Nobade

[FLASHMAN]

Now I see--- that you guys also struggled with corning pucks ---( learning curve can be hard work
I feel more at home ----read many replies from others that had huge problems crushing/screening
those pucks --many rebelled at sage advice --said it created a huge mess----just like I did !
but one has to try all avenues ----TILL u get it right ---great feeling when u send a lead slug clean thru a tree trunk !---

strongly advise them to listen to your advice ---can save serious limb /facial reconstruction costs--
Nobades white piece of paper control ---is genius ---my flash tests-- leave a clean sheet --only slight scorching
----no unburnt particles ----mushroom cloud ! wonderful--sight
must be correct ?

[Fly]

Buddy we all love helping each other. But in doing so we want you to be safe. These guys come up with very creative ideas.

Fly

[Hotfxr]

I know all about not being able to afford the tools you need and as a result I make most of my own tools that I have needed in this black powder adventure we have all been on. But that grinder thing is almost indispensable now. The last one I got off amazon was less than $10 US. If you continue to explore the black powder dark arts, you might want to invest in one. Of course I don't have any idea what would happen to the pricing going to your continent, but look into it. Oh, and congratulations and good luck.

[rheagunman]

Hello everyone, just thought i would step in & tell you'all my experience with home made powder. Black Powder that is.

[rheagunman]

I have read this whole thread from start to finish. You know it's like a good movie that you watch several times & you always see something you didn't see the first 7 times you watched it.
I will have to break this up into several post because of alot of info & experiments along the way. First i want to say thanks to everyone who have posted on this thread.

[rheagunman]

My 1st batch was with white pine limbs as charcoal,Spectracide stump remover & Hi-yield dusting sulfur. Mixed all that up by hand, wetted this up, then screened it, & let it dry overnight.
When it was all dry the next day i did a burn test & it worked good, burnt a little slow, but it worked. Boy was i happy that i had made black powder & it burned. Then i remembered what someone said about letting it dry longer so i put a line about 6 inches long next to what i had just burned & left it there for about 4 hours in the sun (90+ degrees). When i set fire to it it was allot faster than before. The smoke from it smelled like firecrackers but i knew i could make it better.

[rheagunman]

My quest for better BP continued, with all my fingers & toes intact, i trudged on.

[rheagunman]

Next was Maple from the front yard. Maples shed allot then when a wind storm comes along you see that maybe i should wear a hard hat when under these trees. I debarked a tin, old cookie can, full of it & charcoalized it. Then ran it through an old meat grinder, finner than a frogs hair it was.
This mix burned but it left allot of residue behind along with some white splotshes melted into the concrete. I was not doing something right, so back to the old drawing board i wen't.

[rheagunman]

I now know why a ball mill is important, heck i was not getting everything ground up good enuff. I charcoalized me some pine cones for my next batch then pondered the thought of using my brass tumbler as a ball mill. Got me one of those small instant lemonade plastic bottles, put my mix in along with some .311 cast round balls, put it in the tumbler on it's side by itself no media turned it on & it started to turn. It did not go around in the bowl just stayed in one spot & spun.
So i let it run for an hour then put in some dextrin & let it run for a good 30 minutes. When i tested it right out of the can it was within a nats butt of being as fast as Goex & burned supper clean. Happy camper i am. Now i got to step outside & see how it works in my .54 cal. smoke pole.
I'll be back to let you know what happens. Hopefully

[BlackPowderBen]

Great thread. I just compressed some pucks with flys tool in a vice, hopefully they dry good and hard.

[rheagunman]

I'm back, powder worked real good. I started with a 90 grain charge by volume figured it might give me a 60 grain Goex charge. Boy howdy i tell you what it was just like a 90 grain Goex. So i moved down till i found a 70 grain charge worked. Now it's on to the 50 cal. Hawkens for more testing.

[rheagunman]

I didn't mean to run everybody off.

[Whizzer]

Ha! You didn't! This thread does that, again and again. I'm glad your powder worked good, and I read over on the gulch that you've made some fuse that works! I've never done that yet, but it can be done.

[rheagunman]

Thanks Whizzer, yeah that homemade powder & sugar rocket fuel combo did pretty good. Now i need to get me a good camera woman, a woman with the same likes as me & easy on the eyes, if you know what i mean.

[okshooter]

I am one step closer to trying this in that I bought a one gallon paint can at one of the box stores today. I am going to make a TLUD. But, the can is lined. Will this ruin the first batch of charcoal? Should I just plan on sacrificing the first burn to get that liner out?
Thanks guys. This thread has been an education.