What Type of Powder is used in Artillery - Does it ever show up on Surplus Market?

[13Echo]

Agree with Skipper. Artillery propellants are smokeless. The last guns to use black (or Brown powder) were used in the Spanish American War. Bag guns do have a pad of black on the base charge to help ignition of the propellent. The max range of a 175 gun was about 32,000 meters the 105 only about 10 to 12,000meters. No where near 20 miles. The latest long range projo for the 155 gets over 20 miles and is terminally guided.

Jerry Liles

[schutzen]

Several comments have been made about 105's, 175's, and 8" artillery pieces in the current inventory. I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that the Army had standardized on 155's both towed and self-propelled units. It made sense to me, only caliber of shell to keep in the supply chain. That has got to be cheaper.

[SpotHound]

Australian M252 81mm mortars use AR2205 in the charge bags. Its a fast powder for small calibre's like the 22 hornet.

Yes, we burn leftovers in the field.

[texaswoodworker]

To my understanding, the 105 round is the largest that uses a cartridge case. All artillary above that uses the bag system.

The powder shown in the photo below is designated RAD xxx. That designation stands for Radford Ammunition Depot, just 15 miles up the road from me.

Check out the 210 OUNCE charge, over 13 pounds!

Attachment 55045

Hmm, I wonder what would happen if you necked one of those down to .22 cal and made a bullet that could withstand the speed and RPMs.

[EDG]

I read about 40 years ago that the raw material used to manufacture ball propellants at St. Marks was military surplus cannon powder.....


In 1929 Western Cartridge Company hired Dr. Fredrich Olsen, who had been working with Picatinny Arsenal. Dr. Olsen had filed applications for two patents for methods to purify nitrocellulose for gunpowder. These were in relation to work Dr. Olsen was doing to prolong the life of gunpowder. Continued work in this process lead to the 1932 filing of a patent application to manufacture smokeless powder. In 1933 U.S. Patent #2,027,114 was issued to Western Cartridge titled “Manufacture of Smokeless Powders”. That same year Western Cartridge Company commercially introduced BALL POWDER® smokeless propellant. Note that this was the first of numerous patents relating to the BALL POWDER propellant manufacturing process. The innovative BALL POWDER process provides a number of technological advantages over common extruded type powders that were quickly taken advantage of by ammunition factories and the U.S. military. The key advantages of BALL POWDER propellant include:

• Stable long life – far exceeding the capability of extruded powders
• High density – ideal for rifle calibers. Yet the BALL POWDER process is capable of density adjustment to also create high performance pistol and shotshell powders
• Adjustable chemistry – allows the powder to be tailored to specific cartridge applications through chemistry as well as geometry.
• Lower flame temperature – allows longer barrel life

The first BALL POWDER manufacturing plant was established across the Wood River creek from the Winchester ammunition plant located in East Alton, site of the original Equitable Powder Company. The BALL POWDER process is unique in that its manufacture is done mostly under water. This made the process the safest for gunpowder manufacturing in the world. However, this also made the process susceptible to freezing – not ideal for cold winters in central Illinois.
Between encroachment from the growing East Alton community and cold mid-western winters it was determined to move the BALL POWDER manufacturing facility to a warmer climate and a remote location. A large tract of undeveloped swamp land was secured south of Tallahassee, Florida between the St. Marks river and the Gulf Coast. The East Alton plant facilities were moved and BALL POWDER propellant manufacture in St. Marks was initiated in 1969. This facility has developed into one of the largest, most modern high tech gunpowder plants in the world. Winchester Smokeless Propellants continue to be made in this facility today.

[9w1911]

Can you please list the source, I have a great interest in the history of smokeless powder .thanks

[Surculus]

If it is not small enough, what would it take to grind it up? Ball mill?

Dissolve it in some acetone & ether, add some Vaseline, & run it thru the pasta machine. Chop it off in short lengths & sell it as cordite... [Yeah, I know, technically you need to add some Nitroglycerine to it for it to be real cordite, but who has that just sitting around on the spice rack?]

[biffj]

Almost all the artillery pieces out there today still use a small charge of black powder as an initiator in the primer assembly. It is not used as a propellent as that is all smokeless regardless of what color it is. Many types of charges use a black colored "powder" but that is just a graphite coating which is there to reduce the chance of static charge buildup and to make the grains flow better in loading. On the other hand the primer is or can be a pretty elaborate affair with a flash tube filled with black powder to ignite the main charge. Ball powders are pretty tough to light up and the larger grains of the bigger artillery powders are even tougher. By using the black powder you insure the ignition of the smokeless due to the huge flame produced by the black. I use 10-15 gr of 3 F black powder when loading my 20 or 24mm anti-tank gun ammo. Without the black powder the round may hang fire and that is bad news. The primer has enough power to pop the projo into the rifling where it stops until the powder burns enough to build sufficient pressure to move it again. The pressure required goes up a lot when the bullet has stopped and this can cause blow ups. So in reality artillery uses both black and smokeless powder.

As for post 47 the answer is a lot of the ball powders and others are double based and already have nitroglycerine in them so you could probably make cordite out of any of them. On the other hand the original posters question about grinding or ball milling powder would best be answered by Don't do it! While smokeless powder is less sensitive to shock than some things it will still go off if you hit it hard enough. A few powder grains on an anvil with a hammer will show you this. Grinding it is even worse since you're adding more heat to the mix. With most smokeless powders you'll find them very durable in any case so dissolving in a solvent is a much better idea and without proper testing facilities and knowledge of what you're doing its a bad idea anyway. Burn rates and energy content are something the powder companies have troubles with at times so how will an average joe know how to deal with surplus powder extruded into ????? Who knows what?

Frank