My homemade Golden powder!

[Sandro_ventania]

Pyrotechnic Yellow powder's true formula is a 3:2:1 ratio of Potassium Nitrate, Potassium Carbonate, and Sulfur. But to make it good you have to melt it together which is an extremely dangerous thing to attempt. It will also blow up if you attempt to grind it. I have to assume you mean something else.

The reason "Golden Powder" was called what it is. This formula existed first.

I'll have to find another name then...lol! What name would you give to a yellow powder, without being able to call it yellow powder?

[Sandro_ventania]

Posted this in the wheelgun revolver section, thought it might get more discussion here. Would the golden powder do ok loaded in 45LC brass/over powder wad/walnut tumbling media/over shot card glued in with finger nail polish? This is for shooting the carpenter bees. Compressed powder with over powder wad would take up about half of the cartridge with the rest being filled with walnut media. Probably less than 10' shots. Any thoughts, opions. Haven't made any of the golden powder yet but have the necessary ingredents.

What is walnut media? For insects I would use salt or corn grits. To close it, I would use paraffin or beeswax.

[owejia]

Walnut media is the shells ground up, used in brass cleaning, sandblasting, reptile bedding. The reason I use it bought a large supply for use in cleaning/polishing brass in a vibratory tumbler years age. Media can be compressed slightly in the brass cases, and they have sharp edges which seems to penetrate/cut the body of the insects. Thought about using bp but this is like a massive fire fight when the bees are active. Point and shoot at moving targets as fast as you can, reload and continue shooting usually for 15-20 minutes at a time. Bp is rather dirty and tends to build up carbon causing problems in the revolvers. Thought golden powder would burn cleaner, keeping me shooting longer instead of jam ups caused by dirty bp. Made a set of dies for 38/357 brass and also 45 acp/45Lc brass, have been doing this for several years and on a really warm mid April- May day can shoot 300+ rounds in a very short time. Usually shoot 1 to 2 thousand bee loads each spring.

[dverna]

Walnut media is the shells ground up, used in brass cleaning, sandblasting, reptile bedding. The reason I use it bought a large supply for use in cleaning/polishing brass in a vibratory tumbler years age. Media can be compressed slightly in the brass cases, and they have sharp edges which seems to penetrate/cut the body of the insects. Thought about using bp but this is like a massive fire fight when the bees are active. Point and shoot at moving targets as fast as you can, reload and continue shooting usually for 15-20 minutes at a time. Bp is rather dirty and tends to build up carbon causing problems in the revolvers. Thought golden powder would burn cleaner, keeping me shooting longer instead of jam ups caused by dirty bp. Made a set of dies for 38/357 brass and also 45 acp/45Lc brass, have been doing this for several years and on a really warm mid April- May day can shoot 300+ rounds in a very short time. Usually shoot 1 to 2 thousand bee loads each spring.

Will be cheaper and cleaner to use 1.5 gr of Bullseye or similar. At $60/lb, cost for powder comes to $.013/shot.

[2TM101]

I'll have to find another name then...lol! What name would you give to a yellow powder, without being able to call it yellow powder?

It doesn't need to be named after a color. My 'Golden Powder" was never anything close to what I would call Golden. My "Crimson Powder" is in fact a very dull red and not that color either.

The given formula for "Gray Powder" contains Manganese, the mineral form of which is Pyrolusite, so I call that Pyrolusite powder. "Grey" didn't seem to be distinctive enough as a lot of powders are grey, and "Pyrolusite" sounds like Pyrodex, so it a good name for this stuff.

My Starch "White" powder was actually white, so I got some cheap food coloring. Now I can make it in 16 different colors.

[Sandro_ventania]

Walnut media is the shells ground up, used in brass cleaning, sandblasting, reptile bedding. The reason I use it bought a large supply for use in cleaning/polishing brass in a vibratory tumbler years age. Media can be compressed slightly in the brass cases, and they have sharp edges which seems to penetrate/cut the body of the insects. Thought about using bp but this is like a massive fire fight when the bees are active. Point and shoot at moving targets as fast as you can, reload and continue shooting usually for 15-20 minutes at a time. Bp is rather dirty and tends to build up carbon causing problems in the revolvers. Thought golden powder would burn cleaner, keeping me shooting longer instead of jam ups caused by dirty bp. Made a set of dies for 38/357 brass and also 45 acp/45Lc brass, have been doing this for several years and on a really warm mid April- May day can shoot 300+ rounds in a very short time. Usually shoot 1 to 2 thousand bee loads each spring.

ahh, I get it! 300 shots in one afternoon? There must be a lot of bees there! Is it a bee (apis mellifera?) or another insect? I think you'll do very well with Golden powder, it will certainly give you 300 shots without having to clean! A video of this would be fun to watch.

[2TM101]

What is walnut media?

Something I have a lot of and don't use, now that I wet tumble everything. Both of my dry tumblers have been repurposed, one does powder coating and the other does tumble lubing. Neither are functions I would have bought a dry tumbler for, but I already had them.

I would have offered all of my dry media to someone here for cost of shipping but I actually thought the world had moved on and nobody used it anymore.

[barrabruce]

I would have offered all of my dry media to someone here for cost of shipping but I actually thought the world had moved on and nobody used it anymore.

I never clean my brass looks like I missed out on using dry media or any other.
I’ve had to learn to use a little dishwashing soap in a container and shaking it around a few times using this golden powder ,then drying in the oven. It’s the mostest I have ever done.

I made a batch of golden powder about a month ago.
I left it as big rocks.
I ground some up then added a little water to make tiny clumps like screened powder.
When drying in the pan there were bits than didn’t want to loose it’s moisture.
It finally went a dark colour and I quit cooking it.
When it cooled down it dried and all seemed to go hard.
Anyone experienced the same thing?
We had a power outage and I used a low flame on a spirit burner as a heat source.

[2TM101]

I made a batch of golden powder about a month ago. I left it as big rocks. I ground some up then added a little water to make tiny clumps like screened powder.
When drying in the pan there were bits than didn’t want to loose it’s moisture. It finally went a dark colour and I quit cooking it.

When it cooled down it dried and all seemed to go hard. Anyone experienced the same thing?

At this point I have concluded that Golden Powder is like making BP without the Sulfur. Its missing ingredients, and I don't make either of those anymore.

When I make any of the other combinations, white, Crimson or "Grey" (especially the first one) I now put the "dough" into a cupcake tray with actual cheap paper cupcake liners. It basically gives me pucks. If the paper sticks and won't peel off its not a big deal. These pucks then fit in my food dehydrator if need be. Then they get broken up and ground just like BP.

Side note with the Manganese "grey" powder at the range today I had several failures to ignite. It IS possible the powder was not completely dry as it was clumping, so I have it all in a tray to dry for another week, since I can't put it in the dehydrator once its ground. Its also possible that like other black powder substitutes this just has a high ignition temperature. Current plans are when the Manganese runs out to go back to Crimson as Iron Oxide is a lot cheaper and my Crimson has been totally reliable.

[owejia]

ahh, I get it! 300 shots in one afternoon? There must be a lot of bees there! Is it a bee (apis mellifera?) or another insect? I think you'll do very well with Golden powder, it will certainly give you 300 shots without having to clean! A video of this would be fun to watch.

Actually the bees congregate where they have hatched from the larva stage to bee stage, usually where they have access to exposed wood to drill [eat a almost perfect round hole ] to crawl into to lay their eggs for next years hatch. I live in a log house with porches on three sides and a balcony on the 4th wall that is used for a car port. Over the years the aggressive killing of the bees has the population down around my log house. Any pole barns, wooden structures abandoned houses with exposed wood, especially soft fir or pine are really prone to attracting the wood bees. The intense congregating of the bees is due to their mating season and the males become quite aggressive to anything that gets in their space or area. They fly from one structure to another looking for different mates to breed. They make 90 degree turns in the wood boards and can drill as far a foot or longer in them. Lay their eggs and deposit pollen to feed the larva, until they hatch the next year. The worst part is when the wood peckers come along trying to get the bee larva by ripping holes in the boards . Can really make a eyesore of your house or other wood structure. Years ago they made a chemical[diazine, not sure of the spelling] to control them but was outlawed because it was so toxic. We have hordes of wild mustard plants that voluntarily come up in the fallow corn, soybean and wheat fields in early April into May with a yellow pollen that the bees gather to feed the larva. The holes weaken the strength of the rafters, ceiling joist, the wall boards and studs with all the holes drilled in them. This is why I try to control the wood bee population around my property. Sorry about the thread drift but if you have ever seen the damage they do to exposed soft wood you will understand why.

[2TM101]

Yes, I did. I mixed everything in together from the start. I think that by the time it starts to turn yellow it may be too late to add the other ingredients since it's already started the polymerization.

I'm going to shoot some more today, but that has to be the cause, too wet. Funny that it burned so well unconfined.

One shot was particularly interesting. It stuck the bullet in the bore and melted the mouth of the cartridge case. I could hear it burning in the chamber, it must generate some pretty high temperatures for a moment.

I had that happen to me on Friday. Its the only time it has so far - but it did happen to someone else,

[2TM101]

What is the advantage of this powder over the tried and true KNO3 and table sugar? Cost is about $3 a pound.

This post was awhile ago - has anybody actually made sugar gunpowder?

[Nobade]

I had that happen to me on Friday. Its the only time it has so far - but it did happen to someone else,

Well at least I'm not the only one to manage to do that. Was your powder freshly made like mine was or had it aged a bit?

[Sandro_ventania]

This post was awhile ago - has anybody actually made sugar gunpowder?

with sugar, it's only good if you use chlorate or perchlorate... they say it's a strong powder like triple seven. To be economical, it can be half perchlorate, half potassium nitrate. It would be 30-30-40... then it should be like BP.

[2TM101]

Well at least I'm not the only one to manage to do that. Was your powder freshly made like mine was or had it aged a bit?

Relatively fresh.

I'm seeing a recurring theme here that these alternate powders are not actually ready when they look like they are. Some reaction is still taking place and they need to "cure" for some amount of time before being used. I had all of my Manganese "grey" powder in charging tubes already - but at the range this past weekend I got multiple hangfires and one load took four primers before it finally went off. This was in an inline using CCI 209 primers.

I have seen a few posts from others saying their older powder worked better. So now its all spread out in a baking tray for more drying and "cure" time.

[2TM101]

with sugar, it's only good if you use chlorate or perchlorate... they say it's a strong powder like triple seven. To be economical, it can be half perchlorate, half potassium nitrate. It would be 30-30-40... then it should be like BP.

I have perchlorate now, but it costs considerably more than nitrate so this may not actually be an economical choice. When this stuff gets more expensive than the real thing, I'll just make the real thing. I can also only imagine how much residue there would be from burning sugar.

Speaking of Perchlorate - is there any formula for swapping it out with Nitrate? I know it has 4 oxygen atoms per molecule as opposed to the 3 that are in Nitrate, but it apparently oxidizes a lot faster in addition.

[a.squibload]

Thanks for this GP thread, got me to do stuff instead of just thinkin about it.

GP complaints & suggestions...

I was convinced by a video to purify the KNo3, and to try
making charcoal.

Nobody told me not to use aluminum to cool the solution.
I used foil to protect the aluminum baking pan. The nitrate salt
destroyed the foil and kinda wrecked the pan. I hope the bits of foil
won't make much difference in the mix.

I tried the "starch" powder, it was hard to do, took forever to dry,
set up hard as rock, failed to ignite in a 38 cartridge sticking the
bullet in the barrel (primer did that I guess). Won't make any more of
that stuff.

The Crimson powder worked well in a 38, point of aim at 25 yards.
I want to add some charcoal but the can I used to make charcoal
had no exhaust hole. I figured the smoke would get out through the
loose fit between the lid and can. It did but seems to need a hole
for more flow. There was a liquid residue that dried hard, also the wood
didn't all charcoalize. First time, I'll try again. As well as the CP works
I still want to try making BP.

(I didn't try CP in the frontstuffer, it was getting cold and I got hungry.)

Residue / rings in barrel with BP can be avoided with natural lubes
(non-petroleum), try a lube wad under the payload, works wonders.
Don't clean or lube with petroleum either, use natural stuff (Crisco base, etc.),
plenty of info here in other threads.

Bee trap: there are YT videos showing a simple wasp trap made from a 2-liter soda
bottle (cut the top off & invert it, wire it together making a bale to hang it
with, add colored sugar water, bits of fruit in for bait). Not sure if it would work on
carpenter bees, works great on wasps. 'Course "bee shot" is more fun.

PS: KNo3 smells like pee! :>(

[Nobade]

Welcome a.squibload, you are going through many of the same things the rest of us have been through. Enjoy the fun, be safe, and let us know what you find!

[2TM101]

Thanks for this GP thread, got me to do stuff instead of just thinkin about it.

GP complaints & suggestions...

I was convinced by a video to purify the KNo3, and to try making charcoal.

Purifying the KNO3 Is a lot of work for miniscule gain

I hope the bits of foil won't make much difference in the mix.

It will

I tried the "starch" powder, it was hard to do, took forever to dry, set up hard as rock, failed to ignite in a 38 cartridge sticking the bullet in the barrel (primer did that I guess). Won't make any more of that stuff.

Even after "Forever" it failed because it was not dry. I have to put mine in a cupcake tray with paper liners to make pucks, put those in a food dehydrator on max setting for two DAYS, then I can grind them up and make powder. Yes the paper sticks and bits of paper wind up in the powder. Bits of paper is safe. Bits of Aluminum - you actually have made a different composition.

The Crimson powder worked well in a 38, point of aim at 25 yards. I want to add some charcoal but the can I used to make charcoal had no exhaust hole. I figured the smoke would get out through the loose fit between the lid and can. It did but seems to need a hole for more flow.

Crimson powder HAS Charcoal in it. Its less than 2% but there is some. As far as your Kiln goes, I did have a paint can with a hole in the lid but it started coming apart after a few runs. I finally bought an Amazon dutch oven, and yes, it does need the hole. Gas needs to escape freely, leaking around the lid is not enough.

Residue / rings in barrel with BP can be avoided with natural lubes (non-petroleum), try a lube wad under the payload, works wonders. Don't clean or lube with petroleum either, use natural stuff (Crisco base, etc.),

You can use Petroleum lube with these alternate powders just like with Smokeless, its fine. You cannot use it with Black powder or even Pyrodex as both contain Sulfur, which combines with the petroleum to make tar.

PS: KNo3 smells like pee! :>

Look up how it was originally made. It was from Pee.
(

I'm doing that thing where my part is in Blue

[Sandro_ventania]

I have perchlorate now, but it costs considerably more than nitrate so this may not actually be an economical choice. When this stuff gets more expensive than the real thing, I'll just make the real thing. I can also only imagine how much residue there would be from burning sugar.

Speaking of Perchlorate - is there any formula for swapping it out with Nitrate? I know it has 4 oxygen atoms per molecule as opposed to the 3 that are in Nitrate, but it apparently oxidizes a lot faster in addition.

It is for economic reasons that I prefer to use perchlorate only as an additive. that 10% that we already talked about.