Homemade Black Powder Experiment

[Desertbuck]

Do you guys think this will work or am I going to blow myself up?

In case you don't know, the pictures show that I've turned my meal powder into a puck inside the case. With a hole drilled in the center after it's dried for better primer ignition.

Let me know what you guys think. Thanks. DB

[beefie]

not in any gun that i am going to shoot. I'd surely fire a bunch of the them with the "tie it to a tree and pull the trigger with a string" method!. u r going to try run black powder in an autoloader? I doubt that it will have enough "poop" to work the slide.

[waksupi]

It will be an interesting experiment. Keep us updated. Nothing bad will happen to a firearm trying this with the black powder, I am fairly certain.

[Nobade]

Very low velocity, burning chunks of powder, possible brush fire if it is dry where you are shooting. Make sure boolits clear the barrel each and every time. At least that's what happened when I tried that in a 9mm.

-Nobade

[enfield]

Are you putting a primer in it after its full of BP ? theres a chance for a flare up. I've only ever popped one primer when seeting it with the hand primer but it's possible.

[bigted]

is that the cartridge your going to try it in? what cartridge and what caliber and what firearm?

no I also don't think anything bad is going to happen if the substance is BLACK POWDER.

sounds like and looks like a fun project.

[Desertbuck]

My first gut feeling what would happen is exactly what Nobads said would happen.
infield yes I would place a primer in after the powder has been dried and drilled but Im in the process of trying to figure out how to pull the puck out before I primed the case itself out of concern for the safety issue you mentioned. So far all I've done is make a couple of unprimed test cases to show and ask you guys of your opinions.
The case I used is a .45 ACP intended to be used in my Rock Island 1911a1. But using black powder of any kind turns any unmodified semi-automatic pistol into a straight pull pistol. But my ultimate goal was to try and make good usable black powder without going through all the work of the Corning process wishful thinking I guess.

[Skipper]

I'm betting on the mother of all hangfires. The hole doesn't look big enough.

[Dan Cash]

Should work fine. The Brits loaded the .303 with a solid pellet of black with a hole down the middle. You can experiment with hole size. A wax paper under powder wad should eliminate the wet primer or a dab of nail polish to close the flash hole, then prime before charging with powder.

As far as black having enough powder to function a standard .45 ACP, no sweat. A .45 ACP case will hold about 25 grains of 2FG comperssed for a 230 grain bullet. That is not magnum force but no slouch either.

[John Allen]

Try putting a little air pressure on the primer pocket it might pop the powder out.

[cal50]

BP need air and surface area for good combustion. If you do not have adequate air and space you will get poor performance. What you have there is similar to a core burning rocket motor. The core give more burn surface area than the face of the propellant column. It will burn but likely far from optimal. Looks like a homemade Pyrodex pellet.

Its similar to having a sold hockey puck of compressed BP powder. Its flammable and will burn but is much more efficient once corned or grained.

[Desertbuck]

On my way to the shooting range to try it out right now. Homemade primer, homemade gunpowder, homemade bullet lube, and a light round ball just to be safe. Wish me luck!
I'll report back in a few hours.

[Desertbuck]

Well that was fun! They sort of worked lol. As you can see from the pictures all the cases look like this so they sealed but 6 of the rounds.were rocket-propelled boolits. From what I could see was the black powder puck actually got stuck to the bottom of the round balls from my homemade bullet lube. And here's the real cool part they both actually stabilized and stayed together till the black powder puck burnt out leaving the boolit to continue its way reasonably accurate but very slooooow to its target. I was giggling my butt off. There were two other gentleman there wanted to know what I was shooting and I explain to them that I made some worst case scenario ammo and what it was and how I made them. Very curious they decided to stand back and watch. Their heads quickly cocked to the side like confused border collies and they proceeded to giggle right along with me.But 2 rounds actually gave me a decent bang ,no puck exiting the barrel and some good velocity. But I'm pretty sure the 6 rocket propelled rounds was due to the weak repack primers I made when I first dove into the idea of repacking used primers. Stronger primers and a little bit bigger of a center hole might be the key to getting this to work reliably. fun fun fun lol

[Dan Cash]

I don't know the secret to the solid block of BP but if you will try granulated BP, as much as you can compress under a 200-230 grain bullet, you will find it works quite well until foul out.

[bigted]

good on ya! keep plugin along with your experiments. im bettin you will figure it out as this is the way new stuff is figured out mostly ... somebody or a group keeps exchanging ideas till they or he gets the rite handle on what is expected.

im bettin the hole enlargement will net a huge difference myself. a very hot primer may be needed to help with the initial ignition.

are you making the "puck" in the .45 case? how much pressure are you using to make the puck? this is of interest to me ... keep the info coming as you experiment. thanks

[HDS]

I think this method has more merit as a kind of rocket propelled bullet, I don't think it will burn well in a way that will make it propel a bullet, since it's all one big lump with a hole in the middle it will burn slowly. It reminds me of a solid rocket booster. I think that could be a fun avenue to explore actually. I imagine a sort of one piece cartidge like what you got there, but it has no primer, it's instead inserted into a larger cartridge that does have one. So the larger case ignites the "rocket" inside and it flies away out of the barrel like a black powder gyrojet :mrgreen:

[Nobade]

When I was a kid we used to do that. I had a small model cannon and it was fun to load it with spent 9mm cases with black powder tightly compressed into them. 6 or so of those over a few hundred grains of loose powder made an interesting load, with "tracers" flying all over the place. The heat from the shot would ignite them.

-Nobade

[Springfield]

The Colt Government works fine with BP if you use a heavier bullet(260 grains) and standard springs.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c262/mwhyte123/BPWB.jpg