My homemade black powder

[SeaMonkey]

Excellent report DoubleBuck!

You've given us more evidence that the Charcoal can be cooked just right to give us the kind of performance that commercial powders often lack.

Well done!

[mmb617]

mmb617, good work!
Do you have a guess at the force you pressed, and how much time under pressure?

I have a 12 ton press and used all of it I could. I pulled the handle till I couldn't pull anymore then waited a few minutes and was able to get a little more pull on it. I then let it sit under pressure for 5 or 10 minutes. It's my first batch ever so I'll be doing a lot of experimenting as I try to figure out what works best. My puck press is 3 inch so I don't get as many lbs per square inch as those using 2 1/2 inch presses.

Working with a 200 gram batch I made 4 of the three inch pucks which varied too much in thickness for my taste as I just eyeballed how much green meal I put in each one. I pressed my second batch this morning but this time I weighed out 50 grams of meal for each puck which gave me much more consistent thickness of right around 6.5 mm each.

MMB617;
My dehydrator usually will dry them within 8 hours, but I would think 24 would surely be enough. If you weigh your pucks and measure your water before pressing them, you can just dry them until they weigh their original weight. I've found my dry powder to normally take 1/2 gram/cc/ml of water per ounce to get really close to correct pressing moisture, at <50% Relative Humidity. In higher humidity, I start my first puck there, and if it's too much, I cut it back even more. I've ever only lost moisture one time keeping it at the above ratio. That night it was raining and 100% R.H.
If you get the water droplets pressing out, one thing you can do is back off your press and let the pucks set a couple of minutes and they will sponge most all the moisture back up. At least you can recover nearly all the KNO3 that it leached that way. It's still not a good thing but less of a bad thing.
Good luck with your first batch of powder! Let us know how it turns out and your observations!

I weighed my water spray bottle before and after a spritz. After a couple of those trials I found that 0.7 grams of water is in each spritz. When I made the first batch I used 12 spritzes for the 200 gram batch and while it seemed pretty dry I did squeeze out a little water when I pressed it. When I did the second batch I cut back to 8 spritzes and no water leaked out and the pucks seem solid so maybe that's the number I need, at least with the humidity I had at the time which was around 65-70% according to my little hygrometer.

I put the first batch in the dehydrator yesterday around noon and weighed the pucks a couple times during the day. I figure when they stop losing weight they are dry. As of this morning the thin pucks seem to have reached that point but not the thicker ones. I'm about ready to go and break up, grind and screen the thin pucks from the first batch now.

If all goes according to plan I'll be at the range tomorrow trying out my new powder.

[LAGS]

I went out quail hunting with my flintlock Blunderbuss using home made BP.
The gun shot well except for issues I had with the Flint.
I like using the Homemade stuff.
I was shooting 1.25 oz of #6 shot over 60 grains of my 2f and used the 4f stuff in the flash pan.
I had several miss fires , but it had nothing to do with the powder.

[Vettepilot]

Ok, so your home made powder faired well. That's great!!

But what about the QUAIL??

;~)

Vettepilot
P.S. Not that it matters, but when I load black powder shotshells, I use 80 to 85 grains of powder under 1-1/8 or 1-1/4 oz. of shot. But admittedly I've never patterned the load.

[LAGS]

Didn't get any today with the Blunderbuss.
But I had 7 last night for dinner from Fridays opening day shoot.
But that was with a regular 12 ga.
In fact.
I shot 5 quail with only three shots.
Dang Lucky
My Beretta is a Semi Auto.
So I can't load the shells with BP

[ChrisPer]

Drying my pucks, total 6 hours in the drying box which is powered by a fan heater on low heat. That's probably very costly in electricity.

I had added 6% moisture by weight to puck them, and each pressing would sweat three drops or so of water.

The dehydrating pulled 3.5 % of weight off. Maybe another 0.5% for those drops.

I will give them another drying run, and run them through the puck breaker first. Time to build a better dryer, I think.

[HamGunner]

I may be wrong, and please correct me if I am, but I can not see any need for drying the pucks prior to busting up and grinding and screening, etc. Perhaps if one wants to check the weight before and after they dry for density, but that would only need to be perhaps one puck. I re-read the way that the Waltham Abbey conducted their procedures and they busted up their pressed product into "fist sized chunks" and moved it on to the grinders. They reserved the drying for the last step prior to filling the barrels and then it was out the door and done. Except for the sporting powders of course, which received one more screening for dust prior to having a finished product.

I tried drying the pucks first, but it seemed like it might have been harder to grind so I now go straight from pressing the pucks to busting up and grinding and screening. I then remix my screened granules, minus the dust, and toss all sizes back in the mill, without the media, again for several hours of glazing before re-screening. I have been glazing for only 3 hours, but i might want to increase that a bit to get an even more uniform granule. Then I dry the granules. So far I have just used the sun to dry by placing the granules on large cookie sheets, but now that the cooler days are coming, I suppose I might have to figure out a way to dry indoors and likely will just use my dehydrator.

I just finished with a 2 lb. batch using Carolina Buckthorn charcoal. After I dry it a bit tomorrow if the sun cooperates, I plan on testing it in my .36 revolver soon. With a low ash of around 2 1/2% it sounds good so far, but I really won't know what I have until I give it a test to see how it compares to my other tested powders.

[ChrisPer]

Hamgunner, drying the pucks before break, grind and sieve seems right to me... but I agree that if the crushing process doesn't care it should come after polishing and final sieving.
I want to as far as possible reduce the fines in crushing, to increase yield of 2F and 3F and reduce 4F and fines. Moist pucks sound less brittle, and I speculate might better be knifed rather than broken to minimise fines. ?? Must test.

I also want to reduce labor input hours. Reducing drying time would be very desirable too.

Well screened grains should dry much faster. And if its dried by blowing dry air through the grains, it might help remove dust also.

[DoubleBuck]

I loaded 20 charges of the Black Willow 'Brown' powder and spent me a couple of hours testing and playing this afternoon.
Results came out mixed:
It was not as fast as I was hoping.
I don't think it produces as much smoke.
The smoke is more acrid.
Corrosion remained completely damp and I was able to use one swab for all 20 shots, with no misfires or tight places.
Every ball loaded smooth and even. I believe that is a first time ever.
The top ten fastest balls averaged 1286 fps and had a spread of 32.
The 20 shot average was 1266 fps.
I was hoping for a record breaking day, but have shown myself that there is a lot of room, to get more speed out of this brown powder. I gave it an even shake, against six other powders I've tested and have good numbers on. It came out #5 on the speed scale but I think in a near tie at #2 for consistency, and very near stand alone in the clean department. It was not so clean as it was easy to manage the grunge. Very easy.
Now that I have the baseline, I'm going to experiment with different grain sizes and some different charge sizes, with a likely recipe ratio change, as well. If what is rumored is correct then a bit more KNO3 and slight reduction in Charcoal may be called for to start dialing it in.
The point of aim was pretty decent. It shot 15 bullseyes (4 inch) at 50 yards, out of 20 shots.
To anyone interested, my top five tested powders for bullet speed are as follows:
1) Sassafras screened, with 2% Dextrin for a binder as an experiment. 60 grain charge, 30 shot test. PRB 278 Grain Average 1364 FPS.
2) Sassafras pucked. Dampened with 50% Water and 50% 96% pure Isopropyl. 60 grain charge 21 shot test. 1352 FPS.
3) Balsa Pucked. Used water and alcohol again, with the new wait times and cycling the press. 60 grain. 20 shot test. 1325 FPS.
4) Paulownia Pucked. Water not alcohol. New pressing regimen. 50 shot test 60 grain. 1268 FPS
5) Black Willow 'Brown' Pucked Water only. New regimen. 20 shot test 60 grain 1266 FPS.

Another batch of Black Willow, a batch of Weeping Willow, and a batch of PU**Y Willow all came in behind those, but very closely.
I'm looking forward to more experimenting with this brown powder and putting what I find out into some Sassafras and the last block of Balsa I have.

[DoubleBuck]

Congratulations to everyone with the new batches and tools, etc.!
LAGS; the quail hunting with a blunderbuss sounds like great time!

[almar]

Thanks for reporting that DoubleBuck. If you are using 75-10-15 increasing the potassium might be a direction.

Do you or anybody test your milled powder to determine if its ready? If so, what are you looking for?

From what I read, this was done after the milling on a flash plate but they didn't go into detail, only that it was a formality because it always came out right, but what is "right" exactly? I do it too and get varying reactions. This last batch I made that was in the mill for 9 hours, the milled powder burned like a fast match head and left little pearls of potassium. I would think that this is inadequate. One powder I made reacted very differently with a puff and leaving no residue. Sometimes, its flashes quickly and leaves very tiny dots of potassium (not big enough to call pearls). I don't think it should leave any but then again, the combustion under pressure is certainly not the same.

Now if you add too much potassium for the amount of fuel (charcoal) the unreacted potassium will just melt and form little "pearls" so to speak but if it isn't well incorporated into the charcoal could this happen as well I wonder...Maybe milling isn't such a plug and play operation that you can take for granted with a fixed amount of time? Unless you cover it with a serious overkill factor like milling for 24 hours or so.

Edit, the velocity of this powder was complete garbage as well, its basically fertilizer. Its funny though because I did everything the same as before. I may just crush up the pucks in the grain mill and try ball milling again until I get a better test burn.

[maillemaker]

I'm sure you all have heard that Goex has ceased operations. Maybe the remnants of the factory will be bought out and rebuilt, maybe not.

Anyway expect this thread to get more popular.

Steve

[almar]

I'm sure you all have heard that Goex has ceased operations. Maybe the remnants of the factory will be bought out and rebuilt, maybe not.

Anyway expect this thread to get more popular.

Steve

maybe, maybe not...depends on expectations.

On another note, I keep samples of previous powders I made to retest.


That one on the top, the 78-12-10 still spits out 850 fps for a 25 grain by weight charge as measured today on the chrony just now in a fouled bore with a 220 gr conical. 30 grains under a 250 grain pill gave me 961 fps which is a surprising 513 ft lbs. Which is 17 ftlbs/gr...strangely, the Dragoon with 10 more grains gave no better.

The one I just made and is back in the ball mill gave me 700 max. I did everything the same ( or so I thought) yet something was different. This can be very finnicky.

[Vettepilot]

Those numbers are amazing Almar. Really amazing. But yeah; it's worrying what happened with the last batch. Consistency is paramount. Absolutely critical. Hopefully it was just lack of mill time. My thoughts are-->excessive mill time can't hurt. I would rather mill longer than required, than even a tiny bit insufficient. I'm not in commercial production, so what's the hurry? And I believe the 1/2" copper tubing/with lead is very efficient media. Someday I'll make it again, but with zinc.

Just a couple of FYI:

When glazing, for those that do: supposedly putting scraps of denim material in the batch really helps.

If anyone makes a "Treadmill Ball Mill" like mine, know that getting the roller a dead 90 degrees to the tread is critical. If it's not, the jar will want to wander off to the side when in use. It's best to make the roller mounting with slots so that it's adjustable. Then you can fine tune it if your milling jar doesn't want to stay in place. If done this way, jar supports on the sides are unnecessary.

I managed to dig that HF media out of storage; pics to come.

Alder smoke chips BP is ready to granulate; burn test soon.

Just some things I wanted to mention...

Vettepilot

[almar]

Do you test burn your milled powder Vette? If so what is a go or no go to you?

[Vettepilot]

QUOTE=almar;5281728]maybe, maybe not...depends on expectations.

On another note, I keep samples of previous powders I made to retest.


That one on the top, the 78-12-10 still spits out 850 fps for a 25 grain by weight charge as measured today on the chrony just now in a fouled bore with a 220 gr conical. 30 grains under a 250 grain pill gave me 961 fps which is a surprising 513 ft lbs. Which is 17 ftlbs/gr...strangely, the Dragoon with 10 more grains gave no better.

The one I just made and is back in the ball mill gave me 700 max. I did everything the same ( or so I thought) yet something was different. This can be very finnicky.[/QUOTE]

With smokeless, matching the burn rate to the caliber is important. Also, to the weight and type of the bullet, and one more thing not everyone thinks about; barrel length. That's why the extensive list of powder burn rates to choose from, shown in the chart below.

That might be where you're at with your questions with your BP Almar?? (Or at least it might account for seemingly puzzling results sometimes...)

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

@DoubleBuck:

Nice testing!! Not everyone has the time, or the patience for such great testing, and testing is the only thing that tells us what's truly going on, what really works and how well, etc. Great work!

Vettepilot

[DoubleBuck]

Almar;
To your mill test question. No, I don't. When I first started milling it, I experimented with the same charcoal, on several small batches of powder, and the only testing I did was burn rate on it. My conclusions were, from 24 hour milling time (only done once) to 12 hour milling time gave very similar results. 12 hour to 8 hour gave very similar results, and so I made a few more tests with 8 hour and 4 hour milling and saw virtually no difference. I do mortar and pestle all three ingredients, one at a time, before putting them in the mill. The charcoal I mill by itself, until it is as close to air float as I can get it. I usually mill the charcoal for 4 hours, because I feel like it is probably the most important ingredient to get milled the most.
I have been giving it thought since yesterday and think that I may try milling 8 hours again, and see if this powder likes it better.
The little pearls of potassium you mentioned, I've seen on a couple of green meal tests. The Paulownia powder I made in my last batch did that and I was concerned about it, but when I pucked it and screened it, those pearls went away. It also tested (as almost every powder has) much faster, after being finished powder, over green meal.
One other thing I am going to try to increase the speed of this powder, is to see if I can eliminate some more of the air float type dust that I'm getting, when I weigh charges and when I pour it in the barrel. I have a good 16 and a good 24 screen and am thinking of trying one test using only those. The amount of fines in my charges could be slowing the burn rate.
I wish I could give more solid information, but I'm wandering around lost, on pretty much all of it. Maybe between all of us, we can come up with some answers.

[Hossfly]

I’ve been following this thread for a few years and just never got around to it. I had a sassafras tree on my place that I was getting the leaves from to make fele’ for cooking,and gumbo. Well low and behold that particular tree or large sapling is gone now searched for it yesterday nada.

Have plenty sweet gum saplings, doesn’t seem to be on any list for making good charcoal tho. Do have red Maple in the yard may be a better choice.

[almar]

Doublebuck, I see you got great results with sasfarass, why not try that with a lower temperature charcoal and maybe adding a bit more potassium? I got to find out where they grow around here.