My homemade Golden powder!

[HWooldridge]

Looks like more of a residue instead of corrosion. Would be interesting to see whether you can soak or boil the cases and remove it.

[Sandro_ventania]

Looking at the image, it looks like it is peeling, which indicates that it is just residue coming off and not corrosion. Try removing some when dry and removing others by washing.

[2TM101]

My Gray 61% Potassium Nitrate,31% Ascorbic Acid, 5% Manganese Dioxide, and 3% charcoal was faster yet with less velocity spread. It was clean burning and also gave just Good accuracy.

Never heard of this one - seems to be the best. My observations so far:

My "Golden" powder was slate grey. Other than appearance, it performed same as yours.
My "Crimson" powder looks almost indistinguishable from used coffee grounds. Have not used it yet but figure it will also perform the same as yours.

I have some plastic test tubes I bought on Amazon because they cost about 10% what official charge tubes cost. They hold about 5 grams of powder. I have determined a a rough equivalency formula of

40gr BP = 50gr CP = 80 gr GP when used in a single shot 45 cal caplock pistol, but in mine with a 10" barrel the GP took up about a third of it. However I got better groups than the people on either side of me at the range today, both of which were cops. And my gun does not have sights on it.

Crimson powder is fast to make, takes little equipment and is no mess compared to Black. There is no dust. In fact when grading my Crimson powder out that I made to day NOTHING went through the 60 mesh screen.

#10 screen 5%
#20 screen 20%
#40 screen 5%
#60 screen 70% and its granules, not dust. Pours fine.

I WILL try that grey powder.

[dondiego]

There was some question over the life of this thread as to the potential of the Golden Powder to attack the brass when used in Centerfire Ammunition; or ..... I test fired my last batch about two weeks ago (Post #233 and #237) and because I was off on other Winter Reloading efforts I let the cases sit for the last two weeks - unclaimed and untouched.

The cases I use for "Initial Experimenting" tend to be mixtures of case head stamps. I tend to sort head stamps into lots of 20 so they can be aggregated, boxed up, and used for "Same Case" load development or reloaded and boxed for long tern storage. The odd-ball cases get relegated to the rough experimenting role where consistency to foster accuracy is not the immediate goal.

This morning I retrieved them and looked at the inside of the necks:

Attachment 324083
click on picture to enlarge

The case necks and insides are coated with what I initially thought was corrosion of the brass; but is actually a layer of crud from the Powder Ignition. This extends to the internal case walls - not just the necks. If one enlarges the picture and looks closely; a the lifting and curling of the crud coating edges can be seen on a couple of the inside necks in the picture.

Not sure what if anything this means (Other than cleaning of the Brass cases is required inside and out); but thought it might be of interest to some.

As with Black Powder, you want to immerse the casings in water shortly after firing. Leave a brass case sit after firing BP in it and it will do same or worse. We are dealing with corrosive acids and salts.

[Hellgate]

If you let those fired cases sit long enough with some humidity or moisture you will start seeing the blue/green verdigris(?) formin that indicates corrosion. Just toss them in some water when you get home, rinse and repeat a couple times till the water runs clean and not slippery. Dry & reuse. If you use nickeled brass the corrosion is pretty minimal and cleanup is even easier.

[HamGunner]

I WILL try that grey powder.

Note: I milled, pucked, and screened (corned) this powder rather than cooking on the stove. Would be interesting to see if it works as well by cooking.

[2TM101]

Note: I milled, pucked, and screened (corned) this powder rather than cooking on the stove. Would be interesting to see if it works as well by cooking.

I have never seen this "Grey" formula before and as I am unfamiliar with what manganese Dioxide does when heated I would probably make it the same way. I was ball milling and pressing Black Powder years before all these Fireworks formulas just spontaneously appeared.

I made a bunch of powder consisting of mostly GP fines with some BP fines mixed in and pucked that, I put pictures here. I since figured out you can take your GP fines and dissolve them in more water just like a new mix. But after THAT, I learned just today that Crimson Powder makes no dust OR fines. Nothing went through a 60 mesh screen, not even a little.

P.S. N6RVT but I'm only on VHF and that rarely these days. And yes, that's a vanity call as I happen to be an RVT

[2TM101]

Have you ever heard of white powder? It's stronger than the GP, it's just not as clean... I've seen it used in 9mm. The recipe is also simple. 65% potassium nitrate (perchlorate is even better) and 35% starch. Put the nitrate to melt in boiling water, just like GP, after the nitrate is completely dissolved, remove from the heat and add the starch, mixing vigorously. then spread it on plastic and let it dry. Once dry, just grind and use. SP is stronger because of its formula, C6H10O6 having 2 more hydrogen molecules (fuel) than ascorbic acid C6H8O6. If your starch isn't very fine, running it through a ball mill should help.

Back when all of this was starting I did get a bottle of Starch to try this, just have not done it yet. I'll probably make what I got and use it in top loaded duplex rounds to try and offset it not burning cleanly.

Jake recently discovered that when loading a duplex round, putting the black powder (or whatever we are using) in first and the smokeless on top works significantly better than putting the powder in the other way around. We aren't sure why just yet, but it does. It also burns way cleaner than straight BP.

In other news, I went to the range yesterday and fired about two dozen Golden Powder shots from my .45 caplock. At the end of the process it looked like I had fired *one* black powder shot. All the cleaning was around the nipple as I am using my own caps.

[Sandro_ventania]

I continue to search for a better catalyst than iron oxide. I'm trying a new oxide, if there's any progress I'll share it with you. The objective is to reach a powder equal to or superior to BP... to please the people who complain that they don't use CP because it is weaker than BP.

[RJTyler]

Hi Folks,

I had a little time yesterday and favorable weather (no rain and overcast skies work best for the Chrony) so I decided to load and shoot a few rounds with each of the powder iterations that have been accumulating in the storage containers. The test "launcher" is a Ruger GP100 .357, 4", stainless steel which is nice from a clean-up perspective.

All loads, unless noted otherwise, used 14 grains weight of powder topped with a cast lead 160 grain SWC lubricated with LBT Blue. Cases are random 38 Special. The 14 grain weight pretty much filled the case full to the mouth so all loads were compressed.

Chronograph is a Shooting Chrony at a distance of about 8 feet. I did not attempt to shoot any groups as these are only 3 shots with each type of powder.

Golden Powder (GP) PN/Ascorbic acid 63/37
358 fps
344 fps
320 fps
These shots all felt normal although with very light recoil.

A little off topic but the following are several iterations incorporating nitrocellulose as an additional propellent. in the below tests I wanted to incorporate NC to see what effect it would have in a modern cartridge and firearm. The nitrocellulose was added to the dry GP, or BP and then a small volume of acetone was added to make it a plastic mixture. This was screened and then dried. This actually makes very nice grains that are quite hard when dry. It should be noted that while I am comfortable with these combinations, with my experience, in my firearms I am in no way recommending these combinations or loads to anyone else.

GP 63/37 + 12% additional by weight of nitrocellulose (IMR 4064).
474 fps
503 fps
511 fps
These shots all felt normal with a little more recoil.

4064/BP 25/75
1001 fps
951 fps
945 fps
This is bumping into low end 357 magnum territory.

WC872/BP 75/25 WC872 is a very slow burning ball type propellent.
739 fps
728 fps
731 fps

As a control I also fired the following two normal loadings. These two loads were assembled in magnum length cases.

2.9 grains of Accurate #2 topped with a 148 grain lead wadcutter seated near flush with case mouth.
714 fps
711 fps
666 fps

5.9 grains of Herco topped with a cast lead 160 grain round nose flat point crimped in the crimp groove.
863 fps
875 fps
873 fps

Please take these results for no more than what they are. My batch sizes are very small (400 grains total per batch). Batch consistency will improve with time, size, and experimentation. I have a fairly extensive reloading, and black powder history so I am comfortable with those aspects.

I am experimenting with substituting citric acid for ascorbic acid and hope to report on that effort soon. Thus far a direct substitution of CA for AA is resulting in a plastic mixture that is difficult to harden to a "crunchable" state but I am making progress in that regard. I am beginning to incorporate the red iron oxide (Fe2O3) and intend to try the black iron oxide (Fe3O4) as well.

I am very impressed with the results that other members are achieving. I always looking forward to the next post.

Best regards, RT

[2TM101]

I continue to search for a better catalyst than iron oxide. I'm trying a new oxide, if there's any progress I'll share it with you. The objective is to reach a powder equal to or superior to BP... to please the people who complain that they don't use CP because it is weaker than BP.

Have you tried this:
My Gray 61% Potassium Nitrate,31% Ascorbic Acid, 5% Manganese Dioxide, and 3% charcoal was faster yet with less velocity spread. It was clean burning and also gave just Good accuracy.

I tried making White Powder yesterday. Never again. With Crimson powder the frying pan was completely clean and the "dough" poured into a paper bowl hardened into a puck in a matter of hours. With White Powder I got a messy frying pan and jelly that a day later is still a jelly. It will eventually dry but that takes the speed advantage away. With Golden It also took a few days to set and dry. With Crimson though, not only is the powder a hard puck in a couple of hours, but it also grinds better with no dust and is also the most powerful powder of the three, meaning there is now no reason to try anything else again.

Except for this "Gray". When Amazon delivers my Manganese Dioxide I will be giving it a go.

Its on Amazon because apparently its used in making Pottery

[Sandro_ventania]

Have you tried this:
My Gray 61% Potassium Nitrate,31% Ascorbic Acid, 5% Manganese Dioxide, and 3% charcoal was faster yet with less velocity spread. It was clean burning and also gave just Good accuracy.

I tried making White Powder yesterday. Never again. With Crimson powder the frying pan was completely clean and the "dough" poured into a paper bowl hardened into a puck in a matter of hours. With White Powder I got a messy frying pan and jelly that a day later is still a jelly. It will eventually dry but that takes the speed advantage away. With Golden It also took a few days to set and dry. With Crimson though, not only is the powder a hard puck in a couple of hours, but it also grinds better with no dust and is also the most powerful powder of the three, meaning there is now no reason to try anything else again.

Except for this "Gray". When Amazon delivers my Manganese Dioxide I will be giving it a go.

Its on Amazon because apparently its used in making Pottery

The powder with starch really takes a long time to dry, as it needs to evaporate the water... I spread a thin layer on a plastic sheet and place it in the sun or in the oven to dry. As for the golden powder, you said it takes hours to dry? I don't understand...because mine turns to stone as soon as it cools. Still in the pan, just turn off the stove and it starts to harden and while still hot it is already stone.

[Sandro_ventania]

Hi Folks,

I had a little time yesterday and favorable weather (no rain and overcast skies work best for the Chrony) so I decided to load and shoot a few rounds with each of the powder iterations that have been accumulating in the storage containers. The test "launcher" is a Ruger GP100 .357, 4", stainless steel which is nice from a clean-up perspective.

All loads, unless noted otherwise, used 14 grains weight of powder topped with a cast lead 160 grain SWC lubricated with LBT Blue. Cases are random 38 Special. The 14 grain weight pretty much filled the case full to the mouth so all loads were compressed.

Chronograph is a Shooting Chrony at a distance of about 8 feet. I did not attempt to shoot any groups as these are only 3 shots with each type of powder.

Golden Powder (GP) PN/Ascorbic acid 63/37
358 fps
344 fps
320 fps
These shots all felt normal although with very light recoil.

A little off topic but the following are several iterations incorporating nitrocellulose as an additional propellent. in the below tests I wanted to incorporate NC to see what effect it would have in a modern cartridge and firearm. The nitrocellulose was added to the dry GP, or BP and then a small volume of acetone was added to make it a plastic mixture. This was screened and then dried. This actually makes very nice grains that are quite hard when dry. It should be noted that while I am comfortable with these combinations, with my experience, in my firearms I am in no way recommending these combinations or loads to anyone else.

GP 63/37 + 12% additional by weight of nitrocellulose (IMR 4064).
474 fps
503 fps
511 fps
These shots all felt normal with a little more recoil.

4064/BP 25/75
1001 fps
951 fps
945 fps
This is bumping into low end 357 magnum territory.

WC872/BP 75/25 WC872 is a very slow burning ball type propellent.
739 fps
728 fps
731 fps

As a control I also fired the following two normal loadings. These two loads were assembled in magnum length cases.

2.9 grains of Accurate #2 topped with a 148 grain lead wadcutter seated near flush with case mouth.
714 fps
711 fps
666 fps

5.9 grains of Herco topped with a cast lead 160 grain round nose flat point crimped in the crimp groove.
863 fps
875 fps
873 fps

Please take these results for no more than what they are. My batch sizes are very small (400 grains total per batch). Batch consistency will improve with time, size, and experimentation. I have a fairly extensive reloading, and black powder history so I am comfortable with those aspects.

I am experimenting with substituting citric acid for ascorbic acid and hope to report on that effort soon. Thus far a direct substitution of CA for AA is resulting in a plastic mixture that is difficult to harden to a "crunchable" state but I am making progress in that regard. I am beginning to incorporate the red iron oxide (Fe2O3) and intend to try the black iron oxide (Fe3O4) as well.

I am very impressed with the results that other members are achieving. I always looking forward to the next post.

Best regards, RT

RJ... very good test! You missed doing 25/75 with the GP too, didn't you! So we can compare it to the 25/75 BP you used. Curious about the results with citric acid.

[RJTyler]

Sandro, I will make up a batch of GP and try the 25/75 mixture. It will be interesting to compare results.

I made up a batch of crimson powder using the 63/37 + 2% iron oxide mixture and loaded up three rounds of 38 Special using 14 grains under a 130 grain round nose flat point, powder coated bullet. The average velocity was 310 fps with an extreme spread of 92. That velocity is lower that I was expecting so I may have missed something. I am going to make another batch and try this again. The batch hardened well and crushed into grains well and flashed very well. We'll see what the repeat results look like.

I also made a crimson batch with a mixture of 63% potassium nitrate, 19% ascorbic acid, 18% citric acid, plus an additional 2% red iron oxide. After cooling the mixture was stiff but too pliable to fracture so I baked it in the oven at 170 degrees for about 8 hours to hardened it up enough to crush and screen. Using the same components and charge weight as listed above the average velocity was 461 fps with an ES of 89. The velocity seems low however with a charge weight of only 14 grains pushing a 130 grain bullet perhaps this is about right. As a control I loaded up three rounds using 14 grains of Curtis & Harvey 3F black powder under the same bullet. The average velocity was 474 fps with an ES of 34. With that result I see that the crimson powder as batched above is definitely in the same ballpark.

This evening I cooked up a batch of "crimson" powder using the 63/19/18 + 2% formula but substituted black iron oxide for the red iron oxide. The end result is black in color so I am not sure what to call it but will use "crimson" for now. The cooled mixture was still too plastic to crush so it is in the oven now and I will see how it does in the morning.

My intuition tells me that the citric acid will provide a fuel source equivalent to the ascorbic acid if I can figure out how to harden the cooked mixture to a crushable state. Allot of enjoyable experimenting remains.

Best regards,

RT

[indian joe]

Back when all of this was starting I did get a bottle of Starch to try this, just have not done it yet. I'll probably make what I got and use it in top loaded duplex rounds to try and offset it not burning cleanly.

Jake recently discovered that when loading a duplex round, putting the black powder (or whatever we are using) in first and the smokeless on top works significantly better than putting the powder in the other way around. We aren't sure why just yet, but it does. It also burns way cleaner than straight BP.

I load duplex with the smokeless on the primer and the blackpowder over - it burns way cleaner than straight blackpowder and I get single digit extreme spread without swabbing---you might do a little better - with it upside down - maybe - I doubt it - but "works significantly better" naah dont really think so ??? unless we have vastly different definition of significantly

In other news, I went to the range yesterday and fired about two dozen Golden Powder shots from my .45 caplock. At the end of the process it looked like I had fired *one* black powder shot. All the cleaning was around the nipple as I am using my own caps.

......

[2TM101]

The powder with starch really takes a long time to dry, as it needs to evaporate the water... I spread a thin layer on a plastic sheet and place it in the sun or in the oven to dry. As for the golden powder, you said it takes hours to dry? I don't understand...because mine turns to stone as soon as it cools. Still in the pan, just turn off the stove and it starts to harden and while still hot it is already stone.

Considering that my Crimson powder did just that - its entirely possible that my first batch of Golden just had too much water in it, and I panicked and stopped while it was still too wet. It WAS my first batch. But still the Crimson seriously outperforms it with there only being a 3.6% difference in the formula. I have determined that at least for me the consistency of the "Dough" is a much better indicator of when it is done than the color change. So considering the huge gain from just adding tiny amounts of two other things, I see no reason to make Golden again.

I wish I had known that "White Powder" takes longer to make than Black Powder. Though granted with it being Starch it is the cheapest formula so far. Maybe I'll try processing it like BP and see if it pucks, though being Starch I anticipate it sticking in the die.

[2TM101]

......

Well that was cryptic.

Apparently putting the smokeless on top produces better results.See for Yourself. 100+ FPS gain is significant.

I do duplex rounds because using 85% of a powder I can make with only 15% of powder I have to buy, ship and pay a hazmat fee on is appealing to me. And with it being so clean I'm doing it with everything except semiautos now.

If you go to a gun range in LA County I am very easy to spot.

[Sandro_ventania]

Sandro, I will make up a batch of GP and try the 25/75 mixture. It will be interesting to compare results.

I made up a batch of crimson powder using the 63/37 + 2% iron oxide mixture and loaded up three rounds of 38 Special using 14 grains under a 130 grain round nose flat point, powder coated bullet. The average velocity was 310 fps with an extreme spread of 92. That velocity is lower that I was expecting so I may have missed something. I am going to make another batch and try this again. The batch hardened well and crushed into grains well and flashed very well. We'll see what the repeat results look like.

I also made a crimson batch with a mixture of 63% potassium nitrate, 19% ascorbic acid, 18% citric acid, plus an additional 2% red iron oxide. After cooling the mixture was stiff but too pliable to fracture so I baked it in the oven at 170 degrees for about 8 hours to hardened it up enough to crush and screen. Using the same components and charge weight as listed above the average velocity was 461 fps with an ES of 89. The velocity seems low however with a charge weight of only 14 grains pushing a 130 grain bullet perhaps this is about right. As a control I loaded up three rounds using 14 grains of Curtis & Harvey 3F black powder under the same bullet. The average velocity was 474 fps with an ES of 34. With that result I see that the crimson powder as batched above is definitely in the same ballpark.

This evening I cooked up a batch of "crimson" powder using the 63/19/18 + 2% formula but substituted black iron oxide for the red iron oxide. The end result is black in color so I am not sure what to call it but will use "crimson" for now. The cooled mixture was still too plastic to crush so it is in the oven now and I will see how it does in the morning.

My intuition tells me that the citric acid will provide a fuel source equivalent to the ascorbic acid if I can figure out how to harden the cooked mixture to a crushable state. Allot of enjoyable experimenting remains.

Best regards,

RT

RJ, the formula I know for crimson powder is 60-40 for GP and add 5% iron oxide. In percentage I think it would be 57-38-5. You are only adding 2%, it may be too little to achieve the desired effect!

[Sandro_ventania]

Friends, I'm doing tests with copper oxide, the results are very promising! It remains to be compared with iron oxide to find out which is better. But I can already say that the result was very good! A ball launched at 400 fps with GP reached 500 fps using copper oxide.

[Nobade]

This gets more interesting every day!