My homemade black powder

[ChrisPer]

L.p.
"BOOM"? Explain?

There is a match, 'Class 3 Benchrest' which is basically unlimited class muzzleloading. The top competitors in past decades used fat round barrels, underhammer locks, and long cast boolits rather than RB or minies. The boolits are hammered down the bore. Three occasions that I have heard reported, the charge has gone off while ramming. The last of those was on a practice day before the 2013 Nationals, held at my location. The ramrod made an infinity-shaped hole in the roof over the firing point, and the thumb of the shooter was successfully re-attached.

[indian joe]

L.p.

In videos, you often see them bouncing the ram rod hard against the ball or bullet. Man, I don't agree with that at all. Not for consistency, nor for beating on the soft bullet like that!!

"BOOM"? Explain?

Yes Indian Joe; I agree with you as usual. A consistent pressure is the best for sure. Can you elaborate on the problems you had using 50/50 water and alcohol on screened powder?? I would think once the alcohol evaporated away, it would leave no after effects. But you've proved differently?? I would like to hear more about that if you don't mind...

Thanks,
Vettepilot

only did the alcohol, thing once
used 50/50 but it was pressed pucks - could smell the metho coming off that powder when I loaded it in the cases - nice velocities at first - but after a month or so in storage - the next lot we loaded, the grains were too soft and the powder had lost some of its kick.
My first batch of homecooked dextrin was weak also - I used 5% and the powder came out nice - consistent - all good - Then I made new dextrin, went ahead and ground ten pound of meal before I started to process it - what a mess !!! it was black glue - whatdayado? - plan "B" - ground enough more with no dex so I could dilute down to 2% dexrin - ended up with the 2% in my puck powder as well. That made good powder, we shooting the last of it now, decent velocity, very consistent chrono numbers.
Cost was part of the alcohol deal too - we get good water free - I just couldnt see the sense of the alko thing.
Something to remember you can have a good pyro powder that is lousy for rifles.

[Vettepilot]

@Super Sneaky Steve

Hmmm... sorry, but I don't! I buy about 99% of my stuff from either Amazon or E-bay, but I searched my order histories on both and don't find any orders I made for it. I bought it about a year and a half ago I believe. The bag I've got will last a long time.

Here's where I first read about it I believe: https://pyrodata.com/chemicals/SGRS

And here's a google page with more info/links:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Solu...obile&ie=UTF-8

Back to motors for just a moment. I happened to remember; I have a fire-fighter friend from Phoenix. He once mentioned to me that they frequently get called on house fires that are started by bathroom fart-fans. I haven't trusted one since he told me that! I think this is another example whereby an electric motor often doesn't pull enough amps to trigger a breaker to pop, even when the motor is catastrophically failing.

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

Ok, thanks for the info guys! Wow, I knew BP can be "impact sensitive", but that's scary.

Soluble Glutinous Rice Starch. Found where I bought it! Here:
https://www.fireworkscookbook.com/

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

@Almar

And, lastly, a thought for you Almar, that I had while working today.

You're experimenting with lower density pressed powder, and your bottom, restricting element is grain durability, right? We don't normally use binders in pressed powder, but what of adding 1 or 2 percent of a good binder in your case, to expand your options??

Just a thought...

Yeah, yeah... I know. "Oh NO!!" "Yet another thing to test!!"

;~)

Vettepilot

[Whiterabbit]

I've often thought of making a calibrated ram rod too. My idea was to have it spring loaded, with an electrical contact at the desired pressure point. (Adjustable?) Make it so it makes a semi-quiet "beep" when you hit your pressure.

Is there any data out there as to what pressure range would be appropriate??

As always with me; too many ideas-->too little time to try them all...

Vettepilot

This is almost exactly what I do. I uniform the pressure by maxing out the bottle jack

If I wanted to uniform to less than 20 tons, I'd buy a new bottle jack. easy.

[almar]

@Almar

And, lastly, a thought for you Almar, that I had while working today.

You're experimenting with lower density pressed powder, and your bottom, restricting element is grain durability, right? We don't normally use binders in pressed powder, but what of adding 1 or 2 percent of a good binder in your case, to expand your options??

Just a thought...

Yeah, yeah... I know. "Oh NO!!" "Yet another thing to test!!"

;~)

Vettepilot

Thanks for the thought Vette! Never going to do that though In my book, that stuff has no business being in gunpowder, just my opinion.

I'm currently a hair away from getting the same velocity as swiss with the same bullet and charge volume in a 45 Colt, but with 4.5 less grains of powder weight so much less fouling. I think that I will pass it with the same low weight with the next modification. Current STDEv with that charge is 6 fps too so happy with that.

[DoubleBuck]

Recently, I made my first 'Brown' powder which happened to be Black Willow. The first tests, heads up to all my other tests, were somewhat underwhelming. 20 shots .58 cal. PRB/60 gr. averaged 1266 FPS. My best powder has been 1364 with the same load. By the way, to go along with the last few posts, that powder was made with 50% water and 50% 96% Isopropyl + 2% Dextrin and was three years old when chronographed. My powder has been what I term 2.5 F. <#16 - >#50. Approximately 66% <#16 - >#24. 34% <#24 - >#50.
I got the basic equal test done and decided to try refining it some, to see if results improved. I pulled out the screens and made some matching real 2F, and a batch of 3F. The 2F was what I was most interested in, so I loaded 10 shots worth. I did want to try the 3F to see if it was amazingly different and boy was I surprised! I only loaded 5 shots of it.
The 10 shots of 2F averaged a poor 1109.33..., but piqued my interest of what hotter charges would do. The great thing was the greasy residue, that would just wipe out, easily, while not a single ball was too tight. That did really impress me.
So, I tested the five shots of 3F, and things got interesting very quickly. They averaged 1296.6, up 187.3 fps, with the same weight charge.
Point of aim was not great, but I didn't expect it to be, as it was sighted for 75 yards with totally different powder, I was pretty satisfied, by just aiming at bottom (6 O'clock edge) and taking what it gave. The group of 10 did well with seven being within about a 2 inch group. The bullseyes in the pictures are three inch.
The 3F opened up some, but it was heavily overcast and nearly dark, and I was really surprised my chrono picked up the last two shots. Especially the last. I could barely see the sights, and those two last shots are the most out of order.
I'm not giving up on it, yet. I still have lots of cooked up charcoal and will try some heavier loads and will vary the recipe on the next batch, and see what that yields. 67 fps gain may not be that hard to obtain, with some massaging. I'm hoping for another 150, but that may be a different story.
I'm also interested to apply AlMar's new density work to it. On paper, I have the measurements required. We'll see how reality compares to my math. haha.
I had a great day of play, and hope every one of you guys did, as well!

[almar]

Hey double buck, I love reading your posts. You will notice after a few pucks that there is a color and feel to the pucks. the color at about 1.7g/cc is grey like that little box on the upper right corner of this page, the one with your avatar and the "welcome doublebuck" in it. If its about 1.5 looks about like the grey in the background surrounding that box. If its darker than that, its too dense. When its too light like 1.4 , I find that it stays dusty no matter how much you screen it, and its not very good for consistent velocity, but its fast. I have a comparison showing that the same powder after removing the dust cut the STDev in half.

For grain size, A study showed that sometimes larger grains burn more efficiently because of more space between the grains for the fire to travel. Most often, with the charges I use, the smaller grains burn quicker. One test I am doing now is observing how the velocity yield per grain changes as I increase the charge for a given bullet. If it lowers very sharply, it means that a lot of the powder is unused. For front loading long barrels, you can play around with a lot of parameters.

[indian joe]

Ok, thanks for the info guys! Wow, I knew BP can be "impact sensitive", but that's scary.

Soluble Glutinous Rice Starch. Found where I bought it! Here:
https://www.fireworkscookbook.com/

Vettepilot

Its not the powder "impact sensitive" - there is something else going on with these pre igniting slug guns - I proposed diesel ignition from lube in the barrel - but they laughed at me - still say why not - shooter (inadvertantly) leaves a fired cap on the nipple and the hammer down on it - all it takes then is 12 to 1 compression ratio from shoving the slug downbore - or was there an ember downbore ? - I sat round the campfire with one bloke had his thumb almost shredded off - the projectile came up in a long sliver passing the jag end of the ramrod into the meaty part at the base of his thumb and out near the thumbnail - this bloke had not rammed the load all the way home when it blew.

[SeaMonkey]

I agree Indian Joe that what you've suggested is the probable cause.

Primitive civilizations have created fire-starters based upon that principle with tubes far shorter than a rifle barrel.

Air rifles have been known to "diesel" when fired if any flammable liquid trace is present behind the pellet.

So, what would be the solution to preventing such mishaps?

[Vettepilot]

Its not the powder "impact sensitive" - there is something else going on with these pre igniting slug guns - I proposed diesel ignition from lube in the barrel - but they laughed at me - still say why not - shooter (inadvertantly) leaves a fired cap on the nipple and the hammer down on it - all it takes then is 12 to 1 compression ratio from shoving the slug downbore - or was there an ember downbore ? - I sat round the campfire with one bloke had his thumb almost shredded off - the projectile came up in a long sliver passing the jag end of the ramrod into the meaty part at the base of his thumb and out near the thumbnail - this bloke had not rammed the load all the way home when it blew.

Wow! I never thought of that!! Heck yeah, that could happen! It wouldn't even need to be "dieseling" the lube, though that might be the case. It could also just be the compression causing the powder to heat up enough to combust.

I'm surprised I didn't think of this. I've been teaching my daughter different bushcraft ways of getting a fire started, and right this moment I have the pieces gathered up to make us a compression fire starter. If an 8" piece of 1/2" tubing can generate enough heat via compression to start a piece of char cloth glowing/on fire, why couldn't a tightly sealed patched ball set off more volatile black powder in ~30" of bore??? It could!!

Wow again! That's a scary revelation! Thanks Indian Joe. (I think...)

;~)

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

Solution to it? Dunno... we don't want to drill a hole in the bullet to relieve compression. . (Ha, ha)

But I'll be pushing that projectile down slooowly now! And of course, never have a cap on the nipple!!

Vettepilot

[ChrisPer]

I had never considered the heating of the compressed air as a possible ignition source for that accident. That is easy to test, easy to orgenaise prevention once you know the source of the hazard.
This gives me a chance to plug one of the best youTube channels of all - clickspring. This little relevant video is using that principle in a firestarter, but anyone who loves the workshop and ancient technology should scope all his work.

[ChrisPer]

Lift the hammer off the nipple before starting to load. Little compression when you ram, then.
Also, the ordinary muzzleloaders have not ever displayed unexplained detonation while ramming. This is probably because of windage letting the air back past the patched ball.

[indian joe]

I agree Indian Joe that what you've suggested is the probable cause.

Primitive civilizations have created fire-starters based upon that principle with tubes far shorter than a rifle barrel.

Air rifles have been known to "diesel" when fired if any flammable liquid trace is present behind the pellet.

So, what would be the solution to preventing such mishaps?

1) shoot a round ball gun
2) make dang sure the nipple is clear before you load - we used to be able to blow down bore but thats illegal on the range now - can still do it with a blow tube though
3) ram slow - if the nipple is clear and ya take it easy with the ramrod you cant generate enough pressure for diesel, so that leaves a burning ember down bore as the only possibility.
4) to my thinking the burning ember idea is less likely even - whats left in a barrel ? maybe a card wad tipped sideways - I dunno - I have shot a fair bit of BP cartridge and juice box or writing tablet card wads - if you can find em you could easy reuse em out of my rifles - a bit of torn patch in a roundball gun will smoulder but these slug shooters dont use cloth patches anyways

accidents happen when we goof off and do something wrong - forgot the powder? no biggie - double charged it - oooops, lucky its blackpowder !, shot the ramrod up the range ? that hurt, seen a bloke do that with a 12 gauge and a good heavy rod, he didnt shoot anymore that day, the first (and last) re-enactment I went to one bloke fired his ramrod at the advancing army - no problem at the distance it happened but up close somebody woulda got skewered.
I am agin speed events with muzzleloaders - too many things to go wrong - specially when patch ball guns are part of it .

[indian joe]

I had never considered the heating of the compressed air as a possible ignition source for that accident. That is easy to test, easy to orgenaise prevention once you know the source of the hazard.
This gives me a chance to plug one of the best youTube channels of all - clickspring. This little relevant video is using that principle in a firestarter, but anyone who loves the workshop and ancient technology should scope all his work.

getting compressed air to 360 degrees to light the powder would be a stretch I reckon but generating enough compression to fire combustible oil or grease ? proly not difficult with the nipple blocked .

[DoubleBuck]

Not trying to be smart, but Diesel Fuel requires a minimum of 300# compression, to spontaneously combust. Oil is higher than that. It takes 15:1 compression ratio to spontaneously combust low grade gasoline. At 14.7# atmospheric pressure at sea level, that would require 220.5 pounds of compression. I think any one of those would be really hard to achieve, ramming a ball down a barrel. Not saying it's impossible, but I'm saying it's highly improbable. Even with a busted cap on a nipple.
In a 40 inch barrel, of .58 caliber, there are 10.569 cubic inches of space. If you ram a .570 ball, without powder or patch, that leaves you 39.43 inches of flammable gas/air to compress into less than 1 inch of space, just to achieve a 10:1 compression ratio.
I'm saying there is a far greater chance of a spark, an ember, or a foreign chemical introduced into a spontaneous combustion equation, than just compression from ramming a ball. Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, but probabilities of it happening, from compression alone, is astronomically low. A burning ember in a firing chamber is not.
QUICK EDIT: If the powder is resting in a 250° chamber, everything I just wrote is immaterial. Once powder starts to gas, compression becomes very much into spontaneous combustion play.

[lbrowning]

Tried some of my screened BP with a single-shot pistol; weak as a kitten. It went "pffft" and I think I heard the ball bounce off the cardboard target. I think I could have thrown it harder. I made the BP with cedar pet bedding charcoal, ball-milled, added dextrin, wetted and forced through a strainer. It was still quite crumbly and the finished product seems too fine. I think I was afraid to get it too wet. Can I repeat this step? Ideas? This is my first try; fun, but I was hoping for more!

[DoubleBuck]

lbrowning;
Haha! I'm sorry you had bad results, but that was funny nonetheless!
If you didn't burn the charcoal up, got all the ingredients of the recipe right, ball milled it all long enough, didn't get too much dextrin, and got it really dry after screening, I would think it would work.
If all those were followed and not good results, I would question the ingredient purities. If they are pure, then I'm at a loss. The one key thing we've probably all experienced at one time or another, is the dry part. Make sure it is dry, or it won't perform to snuff, for sure.
To your question, I would have no problem wetting it again, if you don't leach the KNO3 out of it. Others may have more input to your problem. Good luck with it, and don't let failure stop you!