I just spent the last several weeks reading this whole thread and what a journey! I have read threads that go for a long time before and I like the journey through time. Do you realize that this thread is over 10 years old and still going!!!???!!! Since I have started reading, I have made black powder, loaded it in 38 special, and harvested meat with it. It was very satisfying.
I started this with the wild hair of "I wonder if I could put black powder in .45acp and shoot it when the zombies come?" One search lead to another and I saw that it was going to definitely be possible to make black powder. More searches lead me to the fireworks sites and, somehow, I ended up here. Reading this has saved me YEARS of what would have been failed experiments of trying to reinvent the wheel and I NEVER would have settled on a process that's so simple and works so well.
The first thing I tried was cooking some pine shavings in a cast iron pot on a turkey fryer. I have been buying my pine shavings from Wally World. They are cheap, consistent, and they work. After several hours, and a whole tank of propane, I had some charcoal that I thought was good. Then I found out about the TLUD method using a paint can. For a couple dollars worth of supplies, I thought I would give it a shot. Now I don't plan on doing anything different! For less time than what it takes to drink a can of b̶e̶e̶r̶ soda, I have good charcoal and it was it's own fuel. There may be higher-quality ways to do it, but none will give the bang for the buck of TLUD - especially if you are not doing it for competition. And the TLUD charcoal was WAY faster than the cooked.
I just use the Spectracide stump compound. There are cheaper sources out there, but I was able to drive to the Big Box Store to pick this up and one bottle has made more than enough powder to load 100 rounds of ammo. I did order the sulfur from eBay. It was cheap, easy, pure, and I have enough for probably a lifetime.
I have the Harbor Freight ball mill. I got the double one because it wasn't that much more and I'm glad I did. I hear stories about people not having enough power in the single version to turn a bunch of lead media. I am using a bunch of lead fishing weights from Wally World, of various sizes, and I also took some cutters and cut the ends off of some of my longer wheel weights to add to the mix. I had seen somewhere else that 100gm of powder is a good size batch to mix in one of these tumblers. The guy said he gets good greenmeal in about an hour with this setup and any more takes exponentially more time. It sounded good to me and that's the size batch I have been doing. I usually just put it in while I'm doing something else and I've never run it too short of a time. It always comes out perfect.
My original intentions were to granulate using a binder. That's one of the things that this thread has saved me from. After seeing what Fly was doing with the puck die, and me having the 12 ton press already, I decided to give that a go. I had a piece of 1" aluminum pipe and some aluminum stock, so I made myself a trial set. I just went by "that looks about right" for my first try and it worked out. The first thing I did was to turn the inside of the pipe so I would have a smooth, uniform surface. Then I turned some stock down to make a piston somewhere .003 - .005 smaller than my bore in the sleeves. I ended up with a 1" sleeve, an 1/4" sleeve, a 1" piston, and two 1/4" pistons. The first thing I do is put a 1/4" piston in the bottom of the 1" sleeve. That gives me a "container" that's 3/4" deep on the inside x 1" in diameter. I'll fill that near the top with greenmeal and put my 1" piston on top of that. Then I pick all three pieces up, brush off any excess powder, and slide the sleeve up about 1/8" over the big piston. Now I have a piston - sleeve - piston "assembly" that has my powder in the middle and I can carry it anywhere I want to. That setup goes in the press and gets squished into the first puck for a few seconds. I'll push that puck into the small sleeve (1/4" sleeve) and set everything up to make a second puck. This time, I put my first puck and sleeve under the second one and press both at the same time. My second sandwich is 1/4" piston - first puck inside of a 1/4" sleeve - 1/4" piston - second puck inside of the 1" sleeve - 1" piston. That setup will sit under pressure while I do something else for a few minutes. Then I'll press out the pucks and start over again. I use a Harbor Freight bearing puller to push out the pucks in the press. I press my pucks dry and have never used any water.
After I have a batch of pucks, I break them up with a tile nibbler. That was a GENIUS idea! They were nearly IMPOSSIBLE to bust up any other way. Those go into a grain mill for beer brewing. The first time through, I set the gap as large as I can get it. The second time through, I set it about 1/2 way, then the third time gets a pretty close gap. Each grinding gets poured into my sifting screens. I use a 20 mesh screen and a 30 mesh screen. At first, I couldn't get a 20 mesh screen to match my 30 mesh screen, then I noticed that the Walmart kitchen sieve is a 20 mesh screen. Everything that sits on the 20 mesh gets reground. Everything that sits on the 30 gets saved as 3F and everything that passes the 30 gets reused as fines. My fines go right back into the dies to get pressed again. I don't regrind in the ball mill because it got mixed the first time - pressing it didn't un-mix it! The once-pressed fines sure do pour into the dies a LOT easier, too. Each grinding session gives me about 50% 3F and 50% fines.
I've since made a 2" set of dies to match what I did with the 1" set. My powder comes out about 12% lighter than GOEX 3F which seems to match what most everyone else is getting. It shoots just fine in my 38 special with a 4" barrel. I chrono'd them at around 500 fps with an ES of about 50 - fast and accurate enough to put meat in the freezer. And the gun cleans RIGHT up with Murphy's oil soap and a toothbrush. In fact, if I weren't doing it myself, I would think someone was messing with me. It's that easy to clean.
Having been down this journey, I would say to just make some powder. It's going to work - even bad powder will work - and it is fun. Then try to get better. The Walmart pine bedding is cheap and, again, it works. The hardware store Spectracide works. And Sulfur is easy to get online. Harbor Freight has a cheap scale. You will need a press if you want to corn your powder. A vice won't work (I have a big vice and I tried just for fun). But you can granulate powder if you aren't trying to get it in a cartridge. And it's fun making firecrackers with granulated powder. And you will giggle the first time you light off a teaspoon full with a BBQ lighter. And you'll probably giggle the second time, too.
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Originally Posted by HighUintas
