My homemade black powder

[LAGS]

That is a good plan.
But you will find that this hobby is Addictive.
Once you get your procedures down pat, you will always want to make more.

[FrankJD]

Aye, I have no doubt I'll be hooked into making me own Holy Black, particularly from a reenactment perspective for smoothbores, smooth rifles, and rifles of the 18th century.

[HamGunner]

But you will find that this hobby is Addictive.
Once you get your procedures down pat, you will always want to make more.

I probably only burned up about 4-lbs. in the last year, since I only shoot a .36 cal. revolver and a .32 Cal. Squirrel carbine, but I think I made up another 10-lbs. or so anyway. Yes, it seems to be addictive even though at the time it seems like some tedious work. Learning shortcuts or better methods of production always helps reduce the work effort.

Some of my time saving and work reduction methods I figured out on my own, but many I learned from this forum thread. Everyone likes to strive for a better way of doing things and not all agree with my preferences, but many do and they certainly have helped me improve my BP.

I found some old Balloon Head .45 Colt brass years ago at a gun show and just a few days ago got around to loading them up with BP and firing them in my 1939 model, 5 1/2'' Colt New Service. My FFFG BP, with an Elmer Keith load of a slightly compressed charge of 35 gr. bucked a good bit and smacked the back stop with authority similar to my favorite load of 8.8gr. of Unique.

Elmer actually mentioned in his book "SIXGUNS", that he was using FFG, but I mostly save more of the FFFG size, plus my FFFG size will likely be a might bit larger granule than commercial. I keep anything that will not pass a #40 screen vs what looks more likely a #50 size for commercial.

I did not chronograph the results, but it likely produced around 900 fps. pushing my 255 gr. Lyman 454424 lubed with Lambs Tallow/Beeswax. Wow, so much more smoke than the .36 Cal. Colt Navy Pietta produces. Plus a few smoke rings. LOTS of FUN.

I already washed up and cleaned all that Balloon Head brass, so this evening I will be loading them all up again using some of my re-loaded center fire primers. All fun.


Edit: OH, and the Balloon Head brass holds about 2 1/2 more grains of powder than the new solid head brass. I might just reduce the load to 33 gr. for my modern brass.

From Wikipedia:
"45 Colt originally was a black-powder cartridge, but modern loadings use smokeless powder. The original black-powder loads called for 40 grains (2.6 g) of black powder behind an Ogival & flat nosed 255-grain (16.5 g) lead bullet. These loads developed muzzle velocities of 1,050 ft/s (320 m/s)."

I might have to play with this load a bit for best accuracy as there is room for more powder I suppose, but reportedly from a few collectors that I have read about, most old original pulled bullets from the time were not loaded that heavy, so I will just stick to Elmer's recommendation. He did fire a few and likely did know a thing or three about em.

[LAGS]

HamGunner
This is what I like about this thread.
You are keeping history alive.
Which helps us remember where all this shooting started.

[HamGunner]

I think this was addressed a good ways back on this long thread, about sensitivity of BP to ignition and what might cause it. But I just ran across this article that addresses a good bit of the question about BP safety.

http://www.texas-mac.com/Sensitivity...Discharge.html

[DoubleBuck]

Nice read, Ham.
My brother retired from the Air Force with 30 years, as a munitions and weapons specialist. He told me about using black powder several years ago and the certain handling rules they had for it. I had no idea they used as much as they did, and of all things; they used it to start Jets on the flight line. He said in Viet Nam and Germany, they used cartridge starters more than they used the electric compressor carts. Some jets wouldn't even start with a cart and only had the cartridge starters. The F-105 and B-57 Canberra were two of them. But, the F-4 Phantom was either or. But, for multiple quick launches, he said they always used the charges. I thought that was pretty interesting.

[Pioneer]

I've read this thread so much I'm starting to see noises! My question is, pucked dried and ground that passes thru a 20 mesh but not a 30 mesh,,is it considered 2ff? Tks

[LAGS]

That is what I use as 2f
What passes thru a 30 but not a 40 or 50, I consider 3f

[Pioneer]

Thanks much.

[FrankJD]

Once the ball milling has completed and the meal is of air float flour-like consistency, after watering is there any value to using a 1/4 ton press, along with mold, to better compress the mix and make it somewhat denser?

[LAGS]

I think any pressing will help.
But that low of compression is not going to make corned powder.
But compressing it at all , makes the water spread evenly for a little better density.
Now , that might help if you want to then Screen those low compression pucks.
But it might just be another low result step that you don't need to do on screened powder.
But it is worth a try

[FrankJD]

That was my thinking - some goodly compression - that would be more than hand compression - sounds like it might be of value in removing more H2O and making for a bit easier screen grating.

Now to find a puck press ... ?

[LAGS]

I made my first one out of PVC and a block of wood ground to fit as a piston.
Then sealed with plastic

[Trapper-Jack]

I'm happy with a brass 2" nipple. The inside is smooth and the cost was $12. As Lags said, a wooden piston ground to fit with that low of pressure would work. Old hammer or shovel handle????

[LAGS]

My wood piston was made out of 3/4" thick Oak.
I cut out three discs.
When I glued them together , I made sure that the grain in each was not matched up to the one next to it.
That strengthened it so it wouldn't split.
The shovel handle was too small for my die , and was end grain pressing against the powder.
It tended to split if too much pressure was applied.
I have a bench disc sander that let me sand my pistons so they fit the inside of the die fairly well.
I do like your suggestion on using that brass pipe.

[FrankJD]

I've got 2" schedule 40 PVC pipe and wood lathe to make the piston.

[LAGS]

That should work.
I would take the sch 40 pipe and glue a slip coupling on the outside of it to double the thickness of the pipe.
I use to use sch 80 PVC pipe that I brought home from the work scrap pile.
But I still used the coupling on the outside just to make it last longer.
They still hold up for a while on my 20 ton press.
I still have a couple , but bought two dies from Fly when he was around.

[FrankJD]

Yes, I was thinking of doubling the PVC with a collar.

[DoubleBuck]

FrankJD;
I just did a quick calculation, on your '1/4 ton press'. A one half inch die will get you at a little over 2,500 pounds of pressure on your powder, which requires about 3,000 pounds to achieve 1.7 grams per C.C. density. 500 pounds should get you into the 1.5 density range.
If you were to have a vice (8 inch) you could easily get that, or more. If not, 1/2" Schedule 80 PVC should stand up to 500 pounds. It wouldn't deliver a lot of weight per pressing, but if you are only doing small samples, or pucks, it would work. Just as an example, a 3 ton floor jack with a chain around it, would get your 2" die compressed, nicely. A car jack on a full sized pickup rear end will will get you close or over 1,000 pounds.
I only say this to point out a factory car jack will lift more than 500 pounds and you may be able to adapt to one.

[Vettepilot]

Ummm... it's pounds per square inch; "psi"

So to get 3000 psi on a two inch puck, you need 9,420 pounds of total force on the puck.

That's why we say that with the more common, larger 2.5" dies, you need a 12 ton jack. (Because a 2.5" die needs 14,719 pounds to reach 3000 psi, or 17,172 pounds to reach the more often stated spec of 3500 psi.) A 12 ton jack can do that reliably, with a safety margin. (24,000 pounds)

Sorry Buck...

Vettepilot