My homemade black powder

[LAGS]

Has anyone tried Pressing the three seperate chemicals without moisture to see how each binds on their own ?
Then try pressing them with some moisture to see how each chemical reacts to the moisture.
Don't sweat using up your chemicals.
Your Pucks can be re-cycled and used in your next batch of powder.

[HighUintas]

My studies indicate that at the proper pressure, supposedly 2700 to 3500 psi, the sulphur plasticizes, and this is what "glues" the powder together and forms a solid mass. At least theoretically, water should not be necessary, though it might help the process. I wonder if commercial powder has a optimum moisture content, verified before pressing??

Comments welcomed!

Vettepilot

Vp, what documents did you get that information out of? I remember you stating that before, and I think it's extremely interesting. I'd love to read whatever you've read!

I think the commercial producers that are shooting for the highest quality ( Swiss ) probably monitor moisture content and adjust it for their process as needed. Control is how you get consistent quality!

[DoubleBuck]

HighUintas, I have put feelers out, to see if I could find a Paulownia tree. The State says it 'may' be in Benton County, but I'm yet to find it. I have many types of trees here on my farm, and my wife is into all things plants, and she's looking too. We're fairly sure, from the flower pictures, of Paulownia, that we don't have any. Arkansas also lists it as an extreme invasive species, so I'm glad we don't have any. But, if I find one, I'll snatch some wood, and give it a try. Lots of guys say it's the real deal. I've used three willows, including Black, and I've used Black Locust. It was very fast linear burn, and was clean, but according to the Chrono, it was 100 fps slower than Balsa. BUT, Sassafras was very close to 100 fps faster, than my Balsa powder, which is incredible on the linear rate. That Sassafras is three years old. Lots of people tout Black Willow, but it was third in the chrono department, for me. I have one more, that I really want to test out, but can't get weather cooperation, at this time. We've had light rain, every day for a week.
On the press deal and dry powder; I have a 20 ton commercial press (and a 60 ton, too) which I use to make pucks. I've not used the big one, because people seem to be getting their results with 12 and some even 6 ton presses. And, I don't want to kill my puck die, which becomes a possibility, with 60 tons. What I may not be doing, is leaving them long enough in the press. The longest I ever left one, was about 10 minutes and that was because I got busy and forgot it. Usually, I leave them about 2 minutes, in the press, with the press loaded pretty well. Paramax says he's getting good results with a 12 ton press, and I know I'm putting more than that on them, but don't know if length of time is what I'm missing. BTW, I do 1 one ounce puck, at a time. Measuring them with Mics, I'm getting that optimum compression of them, but dry just has not worked for me.
On the Sulfur deal, I've read what VettePilot said about it 'plasticizing' with pressure, but have no idea where. Probably on one of the Pyro sites, or another group on this site. But, as I recall, that text also said, once that happens, there was no need keep the pressure on it. VettePilot, do you concur?
You asked me about my cleanliness and speed tests translating to the same, in the barrel? The cleanliness, absolutely. The speed, I cannot verify. I've only owned the chronograph for about three months, or so. I will say, that the three powders that have chronographed the fastest, had the fastest linear burn rates, as well. I shot up all my Swiss powder, before I bought the chrono, so I don't have a 'factory' baseline to compare to. But, I had my rifle zeroed with it, and the three powders I've made, which had a faster linear burn rate, than Swiss, all three shot high, on the same target. And, I do have the couple of videos, on the linear burn tester, for the Swiss. It was very mediocre on the linear burn. I was using Graff and Son's Swiss and they have changed manufacturers since I bought their powder probably three years ago. So, it may be hard to get that baseline back. I can tell you, lighting a line with a stick match, almost every powder I have tested, blew that Swiss away, with easy lighting. It was stupid hard to light. The first time I lit mine, it smoked my hand. haha

[Paramax55]

The way I press my pucks, I get two at a time. I have about 3/4" of height in my 2" die. I'll press one and almost immediately push it through into a shorter die that I made. That gets put back on the press as the base for the second puck. I'll put pressure on the both of them and let them sit. After two minutes, there is already room for a couple more pumps. The next 10-20 minutes will give me a couple of 1/2 pumps. When they are good and done, they won't lose any pressure - even after more than an hour. I get two pucks about 1/8" thick. I find it interesting that you are getting the same results in two minutes of wet pressing that it takes me a half-hour or so to get by dry pressing.

I guess the time I lose on the front end, pressing pucks, I gain in the back end being able to immediately grind them up.

[ChrisPer]

VERY interesting indeed.
I wish to offer a piece of perspective on pressure, as it applied to black powder cartridges.

Mr Graeme Wright did a great many years of research and actual pressure testing, which is written up in his book 'Shooting the British'.
(My mistake, it's actually 'Shooting the British Double Rifle'.)

Graeme is one of the founders of the Big Game Rifle Clubs, which started bringing the obsolete and unobtainium cartridge British double rifles back into service.

When I got into shooting and was reading Elmer Keith and writers like that, popular commentary had black powder rifles at 11,000 psi, and smokeless rounds at 30,000 or more depending what.

Graeme's work showed that 'Nitro for Black' loads could substitute for black powder cartridges and operate at LOWER PRESSURE THAN BLACK! (I can look numbers up for a longer post if interested)

The problem with BP Express cartridges is that you can't get enough powder into modern cases, as they are so thick that the volume is substantially reduced compared with the originals. And of course it is really hard to get powder of the energy density needed, as well.

With your fast balsa powder, we are getting into the space where we start to ask what the pressures actually are! I cannot WAIT to check velocities with my own BP in my own 500/450 2 3/4" BP rifle!

[DoubleBuck]

The way I press my pucks, I get two at a time. I have about 3/4" of height in my 2" die. I'll press one and almost immediately push it through into a shorter die that I made. That gets put back on the press as the base for the second puck. I'll put pressure on the both of them and let them sit. After two minutes, there is already room for a couple more pumps. The next 10-20 minutes will give me a couple of 1/2 pumps. When they are good and done, they won't lose any pressure - even after more than an hour. I get two pucks about 1/8" thick. I find it interesting that you are getting the same results in two minutes of wet pressing that it takes me a half-hour or so to get by dry pressing.

I guess the time I lose on the front end, pressing pucks, I gain in the back end being able to immediately grind them up.

Paramax, if you can dry press the pucks, that is what I find interesting. I can press them, but they just fall back to fines, with no hardness, to the grains. I may try a couple again, and see if the longer wait on them makes a difference. What you said about not needing to dry them would be a great improvement, I'll grant you. When I was experimenting with moisture and got too much, I have pressed a drop of water out, then release some pressure and watch the moisture suck right back in the puck. It would seem to me, that any moisture in the mix would adversely affect the hardness of the puck, when pressure is released. That may be the reason we can't seem to get that volume/weight ratio up to commercial powder, even though we can get the compression correct. When you get an opportunity, if you have not already done so, test the volume/weight of your powder compared to a good commercial and tell us how it compares. You may be on to something really worthwhile.

[DoubleBuck]

ChrisPer;
That rifle sounds like a bad mamma jamma. I don't think I've ever heard of one. Try that picture again. lol
Before I deleted my Facebook account, I could put a video on it, and link it to here. But, I can't seem to post vids directly, either. I guess it eats too many interwebs. Get on that powder!

[indian joe]

Update on using exactly the right amount of water when pressing pucks - my pucks were much harder after drying and ended up with 52% as 2f on a 30 screen, 8.5% as 3f on a 40 screen, and 33.6% fines.

Not bad! After getting the puck pieces ran through the grinder twice at it's widest setting, I kept very slightly decreasing the gap for every grinding after seiving. I thought I remembered someone saying this helped their distribution. It probably took me 10-15 grinds total.

now youre cookin! - your grind and sieve is what I been doin

[HighUintas]

HighUintas, I have put feelers out, to see if I could find a Paulownia tree. The State says it 'may' be in Benton County, but I'm yet to find it. I have many types of trees here on my farm, and my wife is into all things plants, and she's looking too. We're fairly sure, from the flower pictures, of Paulownia, that we don't have any. Arkansas also lists it as an extreme invasive species, so I'm glad we don't have any. But, if I find one, I'll snatch some wood, and give it a try. Lots of guys say it's the real deal. I've used three willows, including Black, and I've used Black Locust. It was very fast linear burn, and was clean, but according to the Chrono, it was 100 fps slower than Balsa. BUT, Sassafras was very close to 100 fps faster, than my Balsa powder, which is incredible on the linear rate. That Sassafras is three years old. Lots of people tout Black Willow, but it was third in the chrono department, for me. I have one more, that I really want to test out, but can't get weather cooperation, at this time. We've had light rain, every day for a week.
On the press deal and dry powder; I have a 20 ton commercial press (and a 60 ton, too) which I use to make pucks. I've not used the big one, because people seem to be getting their results with 12 and some even 6 ton presses. And, I don't want to kill my puck die, which becomes a possibility, with 60 tons. What I may not be doing, is leaving them long enough in the press. The longest I ever left one, was about 10 minutes and that was because I got busy and forgot it. Usually, I leave them about 2 minutes, in the press, with the press loaded pretty well. Paramax says he's getting good results with a 12 ton press, and I know I'm putting more than that on them, but don't know if length of time is what I'm missing. BTW, I do 1 one ounce puck, at a time. Measuring them with Mics, I'm getting that optimum compression of them, but dry just has not worked for me.
On the Sulfur deal, I've read what VettePilot said about it 'plasticizing' with pressure, but have no idea where. Probably on one of the Pyro sites, or another group on this site. But, as I recall, that text also said, once that happens, there was no need keep the pressure on it. VettePilot, do you concur?
You asked me about my cleanliness and speed tests translating to the same, in the barrel? The cleanliness, absolutely. The speed, I cannot verify. I've only owned the chronograph for about three months, or so. I will say, that the three powders that have chronographed the fastest, had the fastest linear burn rates, as well. I shot up all my Swiss powder, before I bought the chrono, so I don't have a 'factory' baseline to compare to. But, I had my rifle zeroed with it, and the three powders I've made, which had a faster linear burn rate, than Swiss, all three shot high, on the same target. And, I do have the couple of videos, on the linear burn tester, for the Swiss. It was very mediocre on the linear burn. I was using Graff and Son's Swiss and they have changed manufacturers since I bought their powder probably three years ago. So, it may be hard to get that baseline back. I can tell you, lighting a line with a stick match, almost every powder I have tested, blew that Swiss away, with easy lighting. It was stupid hard to light. The first time I lit mine, it smoked my hand. haha

How much wood would would you need to do a test on polonia? I could probably send you a USPS flat rate box full if you're interested!

The tree in my backyard is definitely Paulownia. I shot my first eight rounds of my own homemade black powder today! Or, more appropriately, gray powder. I will have to write up the details this evening for post, but for a preview I loaded 68 grains of my 30 screen powder, which I think is probably close to F or 1.5F OE, with a 405gr bullet, and was getting around 1175 fps.

[Paramax55]

I've tested my powder for density. My 3F is slightly larger than GOEX 3F and it comes out 12% lighter than GOEX for the same volume. I can get 25 grains of GOEX in an old .45acp case and 22 grains of mine in the same case.

[Vettepilot]

A while back I had an SD card malfunction, and lost a ton of data. My fault for not having multiple backups of hard earned data!!

It truly is heart breaking when something like that happens, especially nowadays when some things on the web "mysteriously" disappear overnight thanks to the powers that be... Anyway, I've slowly been trying to rebuild my research library, on numerous subjects.

I read it in several places about how sulphur goes into a plastic flow that binds the BP ingredients together at from 2700 to 3500 psi, but cannot find those sources now, even after hours of searching. Goex uses 3500 psi for their process.

I did find one interesting document that verifies the above, and I will post it below. One thing to understand is that this pressure is per square inch, so you need to multiply your die surface area by the psi to get the actual force you need to apply. This is why a 6 ton press is just barely enough in most cases.

A 2.5" die would require 8.6 tons force to equal 3500 psi.
A 2" die would require 5.5 tons force to equal 3500 psi.

Interesting info:

https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-best...ning-gunpowder

Regarding the text screenshot below, I could not post the entire pdf document, which is an in depth study done by the government in 1981 at the Aberdeen, Maryland labs. So here's a screenshot of one of the relevant pages. (Lower photo)

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

@HighUintas: That's a very good result, and congrats. You confuse me on your mention of grain size however. Generally, .45 cal uses fffg, and .50 and up, ffg, though these two; 45 and 50 cal often use either flavor.

As I recall, ffg passes a 16 mesh and holds on a 30. And fffg passes 20 mesh, and stays on 50 mesh.

5/23 edit to add a missing "f". All of a sudden lately, my spell check/auto correct nanny has been giving me fits!!

Vettepilot

[HighUintas]

@HighUintas: That's a very good result, and congrats. You confuse me on your mention of grain size however. Generally, .45 cal uses fffg, and .50 and up, ffg, though these two; 45 and 50 cal often use either flavor.

As I recall, ffg passes a 16 mesh and holds on a 30. And ffg passes 20 mesh, and stays on 50 mesh.

Vettepilot

I'm shooting a 45-90. I have seen on one of the black powder sellers websites (I can't remember who, but they're one of the bulk sellers) they actually recommend 3F for 45-90. But then everyone I've asked for guidance on this (I'm just starting out with cast and BP!) Says to go with 1.5f or 2f. So...??

Anyway, I have the same screens as maillemaker. I use a 20, 30, and 40. He said his 30 is like a 2f and 40 is like a 3f. But when. I compare what my grain sizes look like that come off my 30 screen, they're definitely bigger than. My OE 2f. I'd say the OE 2f would stay on a 25 screen, if I had one.

[LAGS]

I mark my powder.
What Passes thru a 20 screen but will not pass thru a 30 is what I call 2f.
What Passes thru a 30 but will not pass thru a 40 is what I call 3f.
What Passes thru a 50 but will not pass thru a 60 is what I use for 4f.
Anything finer is Dust to me and gets Re Processed
Those grades work very good.
And I don't see any need to buy more screens like a 25 or 35 to refine my powder to Factory Standards.
I wonder what screens Danial Boone or Davy Crockett used ?

[DoubleBuck]

HighUintas;
I just sent you a personal message, and sent you one a few days ago. If you can figure out the message system, let me know and we'll talk this over. Thank you!

[DoubleBuck]

VettePilot;
The chart on the left was the one I quoted, a few posts back. I found it interesting that Ned found Plum to be the fastest and the highest lift, of the powders tested. The page on the right was very similar to the one that I read, on the subject, too.

[DoubleBuck]

VettePilot;
BTW, you don't suppose both of us read what we can't find, sometime over the last three years, on THIS thread, do you? Haha. I'm not going down that rabbit hole, but if you do, put a marker on it, or something.

[DoubleBuck]

ChrisPer;
What a COOL rifle!!!! Thank you for the picture! That really is too neat!

[DoubleBuck]

ChrisPer;
"Graeme's work showed that 'Nitro for Black' loads could substitute for black powder cartridges and operate at LOWER PRESSURE THAN BLACK! (I can look numbers up for a longer post if interested)"
So, I assume he's talking Nitro Cellulose? That would be interesting for me, because, well....It's INTERESTING!

[HighUintas]

HighUintas;
I just sent you a personal message, and sent you one a few days ago. If you can figure out the message system, let me know and we'll talk this over. Thank you!

I didn't realize that! I always have to make it a point to check those and I never remember.