My homemade black powder

[LAGS]

I may not be doing things right,
But I did a calculation of the density of my compressed pucks.
They came out around 92% compression.
But , when I broke up the pucks , ground them and screened them to each grain size. My grinders of powder came out to 85 to 88 % comparison to granular Goex.
I am not trying to get all my powder to perfectly match up to commercial powder.
I just need to know what the comparison is like so I have an idea on how much volume matches the weight of the factory powders that I have and still use.

[Sandro_ventania]

Did you buff your powder? I believe that if you polish as much as Goes does, the measurements should match

[LAGS]

I did polish some of it.
It didn’t increase the weight per volume.
But it makes it measure better and more consistant than the unpolished that has those tiny sharp corners.
Polishing that I have found.
Helps keep the powder from forming DUST as you shake or move the powder around in your container over time.

[DoubleBuck]

I tested the re-milled and reprocessed fines, that I had left over from several batches. I got mixed results, but a couple of good ones.
The most notable thing I found, was, they have great density. I got 1.7 puck density, and after processing, the 3fff powder in a 50 grain measure, for five drops averaged 54.1 grains. That is 108.2%.
I only shot my .50 TC Renegade, with patched round ball and .020 patch.
The 60 and 75 grain loads of 5 each performed very closely to my tests of Charmin TP powder.
The 90 and 120 grain loads annihilated every patch. Blew the middles out of them and shredded the edges. They were lubricated with pure lanolin and when I first saw what was happening, I started soaking them with spit. They all shredded and I got lousy readings on them.
The powder did perform well on clean and accurate, both. Even though the heavy loads blew patches, they were very accurate. And in all, I shot 17 loads without swabbing and the last went down as easy as the first.
This test was just to rid myself of a bunch of fines, and it did that. I wish I had not added some of my lesser powder fines by mixing them all together a few months ago. I'm satisfied the velocities would have been higher than they were. I was really impressed with the density gain, from reprocessing. And, how clean they burned. I know some of the fines were Wisteria and Black Locust charcoal. Both were dirty, on the first round as well as low energy. Which goes to show, not all fast growing, even light density woods, make good powder. Both of those powders were made before I learned how to do a simple test for Ash. That probably won't happen again. Thanks, Linstrum!
My plan is to try the powder in my pistols in the next few days, if we don't get rained out. They may like it, though I don't have high hopes. It will be fun, as it was today.
Carry on!

[LAGS]

Today I found a reason why my density was coming out lower using my 20 ton press.
What the problem was is,
I was setting my die on a piece of 1/4” thick very high impact plastic on the steel plate on the press.
It seemed that the plastic was acting like a sponge.
I would put full pressure on the powder.
But it didn’t come out dense all the way thru a 1/4” thick puck , and even less on a 3/8” thick puck.
So today,
Instead of using the plastic on the bottom steel plate , I started using a piece of thin Aluminum.
I made the aluminum plate out of the bottom of an empty cat food can.
So far the pucks look denser.
After they dry out I will see how much more dense they are after I grind them up.

[DoubleBuck]

LAGS;
I see no reason your aluminum won't work. I would think it should do very well.
Many moons ago, Linstrum posted about our plastic spacers. He said the milk jug spacers that I have been using are much softer plastic and will deform under pressure. That is what happened on my column, when 'cycling' the press. I ruined I think, four or five of them.
Anyway, Linstrum said that clear plastic like on two liter pop bottles, is a bunch harder and more pressure tolerant. If and when I make more, I'm going to try that.
The sponge effect you mentioned really comes into play when cycling a column. The powder and or the spacers are definitely affecting it.
For that reason, I'm thinking about trying a couple of columns of pucks, without spacers and put several, at the bottom of the die and try that. I can break up a 2" diameter puck 3" in length, about as easy as I can space them and go through the trouble. After trying the straight out of the press processing and doing the drying last, I think I'm going to try the large column, on my next batch. Being able to make one 3 ounce puck would speed things up a lot, I'm thinking. My first and only experience breaking pucks up with pressing moisture still in them made tumbling and drying a lot quicker and easier while doing a better job of polishing as well. And fines fell way off.
When you get the final results on the aluminum, let us know and good luck!

[LAGS]

When I first started Corning my powder.
I used that same type of plastic that was 1/8” thick for spacers.
Like you said like the milk bottle spacers. It would compress and spread out so much that it got stuck in the die.
I might try making some aluminum spacers to try.
But today I only made the puck out of three tablespoons of green dampened powder.
The water ratio was correct since there was no moisture coming out the bottom of the die.
I too may try making some Brass spacers to make more pucks on each pressing.
But that three tablespoon quantity works good.
The puck is fairly thin , and weighs about .7 to .9 ounces per puck.
Then it also dries out faster if left sitting in the sun.
( we have plenty of sun here in Arizona )
When dried for a day, I break the pucks up with a pair of wire sitters before putting them in my ceramic coffee grinder.