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The 1958 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica mentions that in former times urine was used to dampen powder during milling, with the urine of wine drinkers being preferred. They did not suggest...

If you own a drill press it's fairly simple to fabricate a two stage die that will punch out four-leaf clover blanks from sheet copper and then push them through a second die which extrudes them into...

Good to see my favorite thread is alive and kicking, Merry Christmas gentlemen!

Maybe I tend to visit the wrong threads or something, but I see these "you'll shoot your eye out" croakers everywhere I go. Never been quite sure if they're simply full of **** and trying to...

There are about 350 million guns in the country, and who knows how many rounds of ammunition considering all the hoarding that's been going on. It's hard to imagine a scenario where folks are going...

I feel kinda bad for the "you'll shoot your eye out" types, seems like they must live out their lives trapped in a little box constructed from their own fears. In fairness though, there are folks who...

I dried my latest batch of pucks in a plastic container of silica gel cat litter. Next batch I'll weigh and time though, to get some idea of how fast the gel works.

I don't stack my screens, just use them one at a time over a clean sheet of paper, dusting the powder through with a cheap brush from Harbor freight. I use carbide tile nippers to nibble my pucks...

Dunno whether toy caps are any more corrosive than FH42. I tried them a couple of times and found them weak, filled with inert grit, and annoying to work with, that's my objection to them. It is kind...

Works for me. Corrosive as hell, but but easy to make and very reliable.

Idz,

If you set get your cap hulls flush in the paint stick holder, you can make a sliding cover that matches the holes in your holder. When offset from the holes that hold the caps, the slide...

I generally enjoy the work that goes along with blackpowder shooting, though puck crunching isn't my favorite task. I can watch lead melt all day though, and am currently scrounging around in the odd...

I fired more charcoal than i needed, gave it a good preliminary bashing in a plastic barrel, then took anything that passed through a window screen for making powder. I mill the three ingredients...

I'm down to a couple pounds of willow charcoal, so i'm not gonna be too picky about how ailanthus smells if it means i can maintain my ammo independence.

That's good news Bob. Tree of heaven is a weed around here and i wasn't happy seeing it sprout up along my property line until i read this thread. Seemed almost too good to be true that it made...

My local source for willow is gone, but i've got ailanthus invading my yard and plenty of white cedar available at Home Depot, so my question is which of the two is the best second choice for...

Dunno bannor, i have a dual function press-operated die, am upgrading to a 24 cap loading tray, and don't have to drive 45 minutes each way to maybe get a tin of CCI # 11's. What kind of equipment...

Same experience here Marshall, but with FH 42, i diaper the mixture then load and press dry for percussion caps. It's interesting that word is starting to get around about employing the composition...

I wouldn't make Armstrong's mixture or nitrogen triiodide in the first place but would select a somewhat more stable compound made from more readily obtained ingredients, and would prepare it in...

I think the question is more how to set the stuff off than how to make it, and to put a finer point on it, what sort of dies are useful in making the caps that hold the primer that ignites the powder...

Sounds like it was ground for fireworks without regard to its abrasive qualities, i haven't had any problems with the tin sulfide and the ingredients are easy to find.

Interesting question regarding grit vs binder. Chamot sure seems to have an issue with shellac, but it's not clear to me why. Poking around in his book, the cut-away photographs of 19th century caps...

Well done Ofitg, thanks for posting the link. Doesn't appear to be a problem with fine particle size even if no grit is included in the mixture. Chamot's remarks on shellac penetration from sealing...

Sorry Marcika, i lack the technology to make a video. The die set is very simple; it's mounted on a cheap arbor press from Harbor Freight which makes it look more complicated than it is. There are...

Like they say, experience is a good teacher Andy. But since priming compositions are a bit unforgiving as teachers (imagine a teacher who chops off your fingers instead of rapping your knuckles when...