My homemade black powder

[indian joe]

Hey Indian Joe,

Thanks for the report on your weights. How does your powder compare to Goex in performance? (Weight Goex to weight "Indian Joe")

Thanks,
Vettepilot

VP
havent got much proper side by side info. once I figured I was in the ballpark I quit doing that - have five kg of that 5FA stashed - bear in mind it is considerably finer than FFFg used to be, and that old Goex was darn good powder, we always got the UG stuff and my mate that sourced it tested about 10% increased velocity in a ML compared to the FFFG rifle powder .

so from my lil chrono book (these entries are not in sequence)
august 2015
5FA Goex and a 225grain pill in a 44/40 rifle got 1168FPS
Wano PPP got 1060FPS
Mine got 1145FPS
Problem is I dont have accurate weight of charge! at that stage I would just line the primed cases up, eyeball fill em with a powder horn to the required level, insert boolit and go ---guessing 33 to 35 grains of the commercial stuff ? the homebrew likely a grain or two lighter

next page 2016
33 grain FFFg (mine) + Lee 205 grain boolit = 1216FPS

next page 2016 (new batch)
new brass 40 grain FFFg (mine) + Lee 205 gr = 1355FPS

36.5 gr FFg (mine) + Lee 205 gr = 1288

5FA Goex + 225 gr = 1168

next page
39 grain FFFg (mine) + 205 grain Lee = 1339FPS


45/70 (sharps)I am more serious about the process here these are carefully weighed charges
Goex 5FA 60 grain + LEE 5003R = 1145
Fg (mine) 60 grain + LEE 5003R = 1102
FFg (mine) 60 grain + LEE 5003R = 1115
I would say given the difference in granulation at least equal to Goex here

45/70 Chiappa 1886 duplex load
6 grains 4227 + 63 grains FFFG + 45 thou HDPE wad + 335 grain LEE boolit = 1548 FPS with a 6FPS ES over ten shots - gotta be excited about that one

45/75 Uberti 1876
70 grains FFg (mine) + 45 thou HDPE wad + 335 grain LEE = 1505 FPS with 9 FPS ES over 10 shots

I have never shot Swiss - If I was to make a claim I reckon velocity is somewhere between modern day Goex and Swiss - way ahead of Wano (ala Schuetzen).
I reckon the product is about as good as I can get it - tho my gear is cobbled together off the scrap heap I am pernickity and methodical with important parts of the process so paying attention here for little things that might improve the process

[almar]

Vette Pilot, or AlMar;
If you guys both have paper copies of the book, I'm wondering if you can read the density charts at the end of chapter 7? And, if you can read them, can you take a picture of them and post it? On line, the charts aren't clear and blowing them up only makes it worse. I would really like to be able to see them. I was going to buy a paper copy of the book, but wanted to read it while I had time, so just bought the online version.
If you can do it, thanks, and if not, I'll live.

[almar]

Jeeez Almar! You don't "Let any grass grow under ya" do you!!?? Do you ever sleep??

I barely mentioned that book to you, and I blinked twice, and you had already gotten the book, read the book, and already purified some potassium nitrate!! Wow!! You're amazing! And here I was waiting to see if you wanted me to send you a copy of the book!

When I read that part in the book about KNO3, I knew right away it was info you would want to have. He has some comments about density you might have found interesting too.

Add: He says something though, about most home made powder, that doesn't follow his methods, being terribly under-powered. I don't agree with that...

Vettepilot

I don't know what difference it would make, I still make powder when i'm sleeping these days.

Seriously though, I remember the first powder I made back in 2010 I think, I thought it was, superior to anything out there. I had not fired it through the chrony, I had not even compared it to commercially made powders but I thought it was great because I made it like others who claimed that theirs was. It made a heck of a blast and tons of smoke so I was convinced it was gold. It was not. It was complete garbage but hey what did I know. My great plains hunter in 50 cal made a huge blast so I was happy. I think the author was talking about those kind of people, not you or anybody here that have the results to prove otherwise. In fact, from what he testifies, i'm pretty sure my powder beats his by a good margin today, but I enjoy the data collection he did and compilation. Like me, he studied the Waltham Abbey (WA) book intensely but he also compiled the relevant information in that little book and tied it into his own experiments. The one thing I think he could improve upon though is to not be as rigid in his desire to replicate the methods and recipe from WA. I think he could improve a lot by doing his own thing and adapting it to what he has available. He doesn't use the same wood to make his charcoal so why is he using the same recipe as WA? try different ratios...why is he sticking with a 1.72 density? try different densities. Why is he only limiting his charcoal cooking temperature to what he heard was the norm? The way he makes charcoal is pretty imprecise as well. Its a good book and gave me the desire to try improving the KNO3 and I would have loved reading this months ago when I joined this forum. I unfortunately learned most of what he said in there the hard way.

[Super Sneaky Steve]

I tried some screened powder with 1% red gum. I couldn't quite get enough in solution but the result wasn't good. I was hoping for hard grains and they still turn to dust with slight finger pressure. Next test will be SGRS.

[indian joe]

I tried some screened powder with 1% red gum. I couldn't quite get enough in solution but the result wasn't good. I was hoping for hard grains and they still turn to dust with slight finger pressure. Next test will be SGRS.

sgrs is ..? ..............................?

[DoubleBuck]

Soluble Gluttonous Rice Starch, Joe.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

So, do you need to make pucks and corn for decent results?

[Super Sneaky Steve]

So, do you need to make pucks and corn for decent results?

Doing so creates the best most powerful and durable powder, but it's a pain in the butt and lots of the powder will come out as too fine. For metallic cartridges this makes sense. I'm looking for a quicker way that will be almost as durable. The density won't be there but that's OK.

My screened powder right now is too sensitive to packing. I can easily over do it or under do it. It's hard to get it just right every time. I've got 1/2lb in the mill right now. I'll be adding 3% rice starch and mixing with water. What I've learned from the dextrin is that when using water soluble binders you need to add your water very carefully or else you'll be left with slimy goo. I've got a misting spay bottle. Usually I go for the consistency of wet sand and not the shiny ball.

Rice starch is going in for the last 15 minutes of mill time.

[Eddie2002]

Cosmic Charlie, I'm a screened powder shooter just because I don't shoot enough to warrant getting all the equipment needed for corned powder and I've produced decent powder. My last batch was with Carolina Willow charcoal which was probably over cooked with the standard 75/15/10 recipe along with 2% dextrin as a binder. Milling time was 8 hours with a mix of round balls and fishing weights. One thing I've found by following this thread is that screened powder that uses dextrin as a binder needs to be wetter than corned powder before it's pressed. The extra moisture for screened dissolves the dextrin and allows it to bind to the rest of the ingredients. I wet the green powder to the point it is almost sloppy and clumps easily. My screening is simple, press the wet meal through a #8 screen onto newspaper and as it drys it gets stirred with any big clumps getting broken up. Once dry it goes through the #8 screen again and a kitchen strainer which is about a #16 mesh with a final screening through window screen to remove any fines. Any big grains get crunched up till they go through the #16 screen. I'm not sure why but the powder passed by the #16 screen shoots best even though it is larger than a 1F. Density is about 60% of commercial so I shoot 100 grains by volume to achieve 60 grain commercial results. For the best results I have found that packing the load down hard in the barrel is necessary. I shoot .50 caliber Hawken or Mountain caplock rifles with .014 pillow ticking soaked with bore butter and a .495 round ball. I know I could refine my procedure a lot more and produce even better powder but I'm not shooting enough to use up the 4 pounds I have already made. I also have a fairly large amount of commercial stored up. Making my own BP was on my to do list just as a survival technique in case BP became scarce. Hope this helps.

[Vettepilot]

VP
havent got much proper side by side info. once I figured I was in the ballpark I quit doing that - have five kg of that 5FA stashed - bear in mind it is considerably finer than FFFg used to be, and that old Goex was darn good powder, we always got the UG stuff and my mate that sourced it tested about 10% increased velocity in a ML compared to the FFFG rifle powder .

so from my lil chrono book (these entries are not in sequence)
august 2015
5FA Goex and a 225grain pill in a 44/40 rifle got 1168FPS
Wano PPP got 1060FPS
Mine got 1145FPS
Problem is I dont have accurate weight of charge! at that stage I would just line the primed cases up, eyeball fill em with a powder horn to the required level, insert boolit and go ---guessing 33 to 35 grains of the commercial stuff ? the homebrew likely a grain or two lighter

next page 2016
33 grain FFFg (mine) + Lee 205 grain boolit = 1216FPS

next page 2016 (new batch)
new brass 40 grain FFFg (mine) + Lee 205 gr = 1355FPS

36.5 gr FFg (mine) + Lee 205 gr = 1288

5FA Goex + 225 gr = 1168

next page
39 grain FFFg (mine) + 205 grain Lee = 1339FPS


45/70 (sharps)I am more serious about the process here these are carefully weighed charges
Goex 5FA 60 grain + LEE 5003R = 1145
Fg (mine) 60 grain + LEE 5003R = 1102
FFg (mine) 60 grain + LEE 5003R = 1115
I would say given the difference in granulation at least equal to Goex here

45/70 Chiappa 1886 duplex load
6 grains 4227 + 63 grains FFFG + 45 thou HDPE wad + 335 grain LEE boolit = 1548 FPS with a 6FPS ES over ten shots - gotta be excited about that one

45/75 Uberti 1876
70 grains FFg (mine) + 45 thou HDPE wad + 335 grain LEE = 1505 FPS with 9 FPS ES over 10 shots

I have never shot Swiss - If I was to make a claim I reckon velocity is somewhere between modern day Goex and Swiss - way ahead of Wano (ala Schuetzen).
I reckon the product is about as good as I can get it - tho my gear is cobbled together off the scrap heap I am pernickity and methodical with important parts of the process so paying attention here for little things that might improve the process

Very nice results, and thanks for the answer Indian Joe!

@Almar,

Yeah, finished the book last night and agree with pretty much all you said. It's a worthwhile read, but I can't really say I learned a lot, having picked up most of that here and from other study sources. A lot of what he talks about solely pertains to that rifle of his, and shooting at 900 yards. Actually, I think he probably could have gotten the results he was looking for with careful load development using the very commercial powder he kind of "bashed"! He likely never thought of trying 1fg commercial, or maybe mixing commercial 1fg and 2fg to modify the burn rate for his very special application. I believe a good bit of load data for the 45-70 for example, does specify 1fg instead of the 2fg one might expect.

Anyway, it was worth reading. I recognize his powder pressing die setup. He has been a poster here in this very thread a good while back I believe...

You are experimenting with densities. Have you seen evidence of what he states about density being closely related to fouling??

Vettepilot

[almar]

vettepilot: I think that fouling is closely related to efficiency and my less dense powder is more efficient than my denser powder.

[almar]

I just finished burning a bunch of old powder that I had in the workshop/barn. its was about 3 lbs made with poor charcoal this summer, fun. I don't like clutter.

The stuff made with good charcoal I keep, I can increase the milling and turn it into my latest highest performance stuff.

I just finished another batch today to see if I could replicate the great performance from the last batch and I did and slightly surpassed it. It was made almost the same way except that I purified the KNO3 and milled with a higher RPM for as long as I could in one day. I started in the morning at about 9 and finished at night at about 9:30. This was with the much higher RPM Mill. I did a lot of burn tests to verify if it was good during the process. In the end it was quite good with only 4 or 5 specs of white in the residue. This is a 76/14/10 mix. This is with the same accurate 46-247C bullet I had made with larger dimensions, that weighs 250gr. In the SAA, 7.5 inch barrel. 30 grains weight. This powder has 1.6 g/cc pucks and weighs 27 grains for a powder measure set at 30 grains.

Now I hate to boast, but swiss needed 35 grains to reach this velocity with a 35 "grain" volume mine did it with 30 grains and a 33 grain mark on the volumetric scale...just saying.



Im not sure purifying the KNO3 was worth it with the duda diesel stuff. But it did make very fine crystals. I think that milling the powder efficiently and at an optimal RPM is key. I use big .570 high antimony lead balls now and clumping is no longer a problem as it was before but every 2 hours or so I still stop the milling and tap the jar, shake it and start it again. Some small amount still find its way into the corners. I have yet to try it in the rifle, but I think it should be quite good. I also seem to be getting the same or better velocity with a lee 452-255-RF. So more weight and higher velocity, could be that the powder has a maximum velocity or burn rate and it dosen't slow down for larger projectiles. I could even increase efficiency due to higher pressures...someone please chime in on this if you can.

[Vettepilot]

Virtually everything I've, seen, studied and learned about BP, which encompasses a virtual ton of literary info, universally stresses the absolute importance of the "incorporation" step. This is true in all powder works/making, especially homemade, since we don't have multi-ton mill wheels to use. (And don't think I haven't thought of, and day-dreamed about that!)

That's why it always puts a concerned frown upon my face when people start talking about reducing milling times...

Proper/thorough incorporation is second only to wood choice. If you don't want to mill for so long, maybe try the "CIA Method", but done properly, even that requires some milling for really good powder, or so I understand.

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

I just finished burning a bunch of old powder that I had in the workshop/barn. its was about 3 lbs made with poor charcoal this summer, fun. I don't like clutter.

The stuff made with good charcoal I keep, I can increase the milling and turn it into my latest highest performance stuff.

I just finished another batch today to see if I could replicate the great performance from the last batch and I did and slightly surpassed it. It was made almost the same way except that I purified the KNO3 and milled with a higher RPM for as long as I could in one day. I started in the morning at about 9 and finished at night at about 9:30. This was with the much higher RPM Mill. I did a lot of burn tests to verify if it was good during the process. In the end it was quite good with only 4 or 5 specs of white in the residue. This is a 76/14/10 mix. This is with the same accurate 46-247C bullet I had made with larger dimensions, that weighs 250gr. In the SAA, 7.5 inch barrel. 30 grains weight. This powder has 1.6 g/cc pucks and weighs 27 grains for a powder measure set at 30 grains.

Now I hate to boast, but swiss needed 35 grains to reach this velocity with a 35 "grain" volume mine did it with 30 grains and a 33 grain mark on the volumetric scale...just saying.



Im not sure purifying the KNO3 was worth it with the duda diesel stuff. But it did make very fine crystals. I think that milling the powder efficiently and at an optimal RPM is key. I use big .570 high antimony lead balls now and clumping is no longer a problem as it was before but every 2 hours or so I still stop the milling and tap the jar, shake it and start it again. Some small amount still find its way into the corners. I have yet to try it in the rifle, but I think it should be quite good. I also seem to be getting the same or better velocity with a lee 452-255-RF. So more weight and higher velocity, could be that the powder has a maximum velocity or burn rate and it dosen't slow down for larger projectiles. I could even increase efficiency due to higher pressures...someone please chime in on this if you can.

My reading/understanding of the internal ballistics with BP is that it is all burnt before the projectile moves two inches due to the fast burning nature of black powder. I don't think I really believe this stated "fact". One, the flame and burning particles coming out of the muzzle would seem to negate this idea. Secondly, I would think the very fact that projectiles are faster coming out of longer barrels such as rifles would also make it seem that not all the powder had burned up so quickly after ignition. Dunno!

But surely, only extensive shoooting and recording data would determine trends indicating optimum formulations in each and every isolated case, as you well know...

Vettepilot

[LAGS]

BP does not all ignite before the ball starts to move down the barrel.
In Proof Testing a barrel today.
After each shot , I would look in the barrel with a bore light.
The part of the barrel down towards the breech was fairly clean.
Then halfway up the barrel , there was lots of what looked like unburned powder.
Plus , the heavier the load , the muzzle flash got bigger and the flame lasted longer.
When I maxed out testing at 220 gr , the muzzle flash looked like it was raining sparks of unburned powder.
The powder I used for the test is Homemade 2f that was corned.

[DoubleBuck]

VettePilot;
I could see the flame spread being complete, before the bullet moves two inches, but I'm with you and Lags on the powder not completely burning.

[almar]

Yeah there is no doubt that the powder burns beyond just the first few inches.

Vettepilot, did you see on page 91 of that book that the guy used a roller grain mill too? Man its like he was reading this thread and wrote a book. I don't know if you connected the dots yet but he is the one in the video seamonkey linked for us some time ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yjepTZ-lH4

[DoubleBuck]

Almar;
Didn't you say that pistol is a .45? If so, are your speeds not comparable to a smokless .45 Long Colt? I saw a couple of them and they quoted 860 and 850 fps.
You're 170 fps above that! Was that still the same willow, 'brown' and 1.6 density?

[Super Sneaky Steve]

I made my first batch with the soluble rice starch. I put a little more water in it than I normally would. The ball was hard to push through, but I got it done. Once dried not much would fit through the original screen so I had to go bigger to break it all up. The results were really good as far as durability goes. I really can't pulverize this stuff with my fingers. It's very hard and still burns good.

I was so happy and eager to test it out I braved a winter ice storm to get to the range. Lots of cars were in the ditch but I wasn't going to wait. Maybe I should have waited because when I got there I realized I forgot my tacklebox with all the BP dood dads. All I had was a rifle and powder. Because I didn't feel like shooting rocks I had to go home defeated. Tomorrow I'll try again.

[LAGS]

I would think ,that if you set your barrel up on a testing cradle, and fired it thru a Crony.
You would be able to keep upping the load until you get a Max velocity at some point no mater how much more powder you put in the barrel.
Now this would not be a universital load for all rifles of the same caliber.
Different bore twists , bore conditions , and length of the barrel will all effect the max load capability.
IE.
If you load a barrel with 100 gr of powder , then try a load of say 120 gr and the velocity stays the same.
Then you are just blowing powder out the end of the barrel.
But the same loads in a longer barrel may show more velocity