Sandro;
It's the one HamGunner posted. They both appear to be similar but the one he posted is what is here at my place.
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Sandro;
It's the one HamGunner posted. They both appear to be similar but the one he posted is what is here at my place.
After making and shooting two 100 gram batches of golden powder, I have some conclusions.
It is a usable propellant. 100% surefire ignition, no delay.
It is pretty weak. Shooting it in my 50 cal TC Hawken, it takes 155 grains, which is a BP measure set on 200, to equal the velocity of 60 grains of black powder.
It is not very accurate. I couldn't reliably hit my 6 inch gong at 25 yards. Maybe half the shots connected.
It is extremely clean burning. I fired at least 25 shots using dry, unlubricated patches and the loading effort never changed.
Easy to clean up. One damp patch, both sides, and one dry patch, both sides, and the rifle was clean.
Baking it in the oven made it get a darker color but didn't make it burn any faster.
Using more water and cooking it longer didn't change how it behaved.
The smoke smells terrible. I would ALMOST prefer Pyrodex smoke to this.
So, the conclusion is that it is an easy thing to make, should be quite safe, and if you don't have any access to real gunpowder it could be used. But as long as I can make or buy black powder, I'll stick to that even though it takes a lot more effort for fouling control. I think I'll see if I can make rockets out of it.
I’m speculating but suspect the golden powder may not provide the same bump up you get with BP, so obturation might be minimal. It could be burning and not exploding…
Also curious why you used unlubed patches - seems to me that variable could potentially result in a big difference for the test - wonder if lube would have improved accuracy.
Something isn't right there...155 grains to be equivalent to 60 grains is far outside what is expected. I started to suspect when you said that the burning is much slower than BP... because I think it is as fast or even faster... if you use iron oxide, it becomes even faster. Be wary of the purity of this ascorbic acid.
so mixed up my bog roll batch today..currently drying in the hot sunshine..getting rebroken up every half hour so it stays as a fine granule sand/sugar not lumps...took fair bit to get charcoal to absorb in the liquid....any tips on getting the sulphur to disolve easier into the small quantity of water???
and yes use boiled water as boiled truck driver pee just smells too funky for me LOL.
Sulfur does not dissolve in water.
That is why we put sulfur into water to get any stuff out of it to make it pure if it isn't when you bought it.
Like garden sulfur.
Other than being brown the patches looked perfect. I could wash them and use them again. I didn't use any lube because none is needed, there is no fouling buildup to control.
I did surmise that it is not hitting the ball hard enough to bump it up, but with no evidence of blowby that may not be an issue. I am going to try another batch with distilled water to see if that makes a difference but otherwise I don't see what I can do to improve anything. The Ascorbic acid says 100% pure as does the nitrate.
Nobade, watch this video where a fellow countryman of mine makes golden powder and compare it with yours. Tell us if yours is the same.
https://youtu.be/nfGSVG3bhBY?feature=shared
he also shows crimson powder in the video. He also makes black powder and comments that gold and crimson are faster.
Sandro, thank you for sharing the link to that video. His powder certainly works better than mine! I see two differences. I have been using my well water and he uses bottled water. Possibly the minerals in my water are causing troubles. The other is, he cooks it at much higher temperature. I was careful to not get it so hot to boil violently like he did. His turned yellow, mine just barely did. I will try again and see if I can get better results. I also want to find some Iron III oxide powder to try the crimson powder. That was really fast.
Portuguese is such an interesting language to listen to! I can understand Spanish fairly well, Italian a bit, and Portuguese kind of sounds like a mix of the two but I couldn't understand much of what he says except when the words sound like Spanish. So much fun to hear.
During school I hated Portuguese. But what makes it difficult also makes it magnificent. The number of words is huge... it is called the language of poets, because we give names to everything and meaning to everything, when we learn another language we feel limited, because we have words that have no translation into other languages. Another interesting fact is that those who speak Portuguese can understand 80% of Spanish naturally, but those who speak Spanish cannot understand any of Portuguese. Returning to the golden powder...iron oxide is easily found in building materials stores as a red dye for cement and lime.
I made a new batch of golden powder today. The video helped immensely! I used distilled water, and cooked it at a much higher temperature. It responded just like in the video, foamed up and then turned yellow then dark brown. I tried a test burn, and it is practically as fast as black powder now. I shot some through that same Hawken rifle, and at 110 grains by volume, which is 81 grains weight, it performed quite well. I managed a quarter size group at 25 yards offhand, and it smacked my spinner gong with authority. There is too much snow on the ground now to want to set up the chronograph but when the weather improves I'm going to try that and see what it is really doing. Before, I never got it to be supersonic but now it's definitely cracking so going considerably faster.
I also ordered a pound of iron III oxide from Amazon, so I'll try the crimson powder when that comes in. This is getting interesting now!
Nobade;
Does it still stink as bad as you said the first batch did? One of the reasons I make Black Powder is the smell.
Nobade;
What did you conclude about the new treadmill tumbler? Is it a keeper?
HW;
Did you ever have a chance to try out the TP powder in your 44-40? You may be in this deep freeze someone opened up. I have put near everything but gathering the next batch of wood for the heater, on hold. It has been brutally cold here. As the guy when I was young said, "Everthin's all frez up."
aheeee!!! Now yes, you are in the game!! So glad you made it...congratulations! After this cold improves, do better tests and pass the recipe on to others. I leave that to you, because trying to do this using Google translate is a pain...ha ha ha! I don't even know how much I can make myself understood... I don't think even half of what I say...