My homemade black powder

[swamp]

I was Army EOD and did a lot of loading shots when I was mining and never got a powder headache. Just lucky. We used a lot of 75% dynamite and ANFO. Later went to Tovex.
swamp

[Vettepilot]

@DoubleBuck. Interesting! Small world!

I went to grade school in Pearce; two grades to a classroom. High school in El Frida. Bunches of partying in Agua Prieta, Mexico! When 12 years old, my friends and I would ride our 50cc motorcycles from Pearce, over Middlemarch Pass to Tombstone. Ditch the bikes in the bushes outside of town, and walk in. Learned to fly in Tucson, and did lots of drag racing there. Also lived in Sierra Vista. Do you remember those two old Plymouth Superbirds at the junkyard on the west end of Benson? Cool cars! The guy wouldn't sell them. Oh, my mother was head of the Chamber of Commerce in Willcox for years. Had many wild stories to tell about old Rex Allen!

Still wondering if contact with nitro via smokeless powder can contaminate ya...?

Vettepilot

[almar]

I got that stuff all over my fingers when making paper cartridges and never got any headaches. But if you worry about the dry smokeless, its much less likely. Worry more about the sugar you consume every day.

[Vettepilot]

Well... I'll uh, do that...

Vettepilot

[Linstrum]

"A little dab'l do ya!" I guess that was for Brill Cream, but the same goes for using a little bit of something like IMR4895 with some acetone. IMR4895 is a single base powder, no nitroglycerin in it. Bullseye, Unique, Red Dot, and Alliant 2400 are some of the ones that will get you. I got into trouble with Hercules 2400, back before it was Alliant 2400.

Usually, the label says what kind of powder it is, or you can look it up. Single base has no nitroglycerin in it, double base does. FWIW, triple base powders have nitrocellulose, nitroglycerine, and nitroguanidine. IMR7383 is a triple base, remember when that stuff was $2.75 a pound?

The name of the game is don't mix up more than you will need, that way you won't have to worry about storage life. However - - -

Propellants have a lot more than just what burns in them. Preservatives to increase shelf life, desensitizers, acid neutralizers, burn rate controllers, and plasticizers that prevent the powder grains from breaking into smaller pieces. When powder is dissolved in a solvent, some of this other stuff MIGHT separate out. Now, if you took a whole pound of powder and mixed it up with a half gallon of acetone, you might have a heck of a problem with storage life IF you wanted to dry it all out and use the powder for shooting purposes, but not for gluing purposes. Cost-wise, you'd be better off buying some collodion glue if you were going to use that much, anyway.

I would think that a 1/4 teaspoon of IMR4895, IMR4064, or IMR3031 would do a LOT of pistol caps, and you'd still have some left when you're done.

As far as what other "nitros" will give you a headache, nitromethane, like we used to use in model airplane engine fuel, would give me a little buzz, but not bad. I sometimes got my fingers covered with it while re-fueling my McCoy Red Head engine. I loved the smell of the engine exhaust, but I guess that was the castor oil.

I never had a problem from just handling powder, like Alliant 2400, Bullseye, Unique, Blue Dot, and Red Dot. But I never got any in mouth, which could have been a whole other story!

Have fun!

[HamGunner]

For my primer sealer I use a ratio of 1 to 5, 1 part Testors Glosscote Top Coat to 5 parts alcohol. Acetone would likely work as well. The Glosscote contains alcohols, ketones, and petro distillates plus others things not listed on the bottle. It is hazardous to breath, or get on your skin, or in your eyes, etc. But just one drop of the 1 to 5 mixture seals up my priming compound so that it stays put and it soaks right through the paper cap that I place on top and press down into the primer after the compound has dried a few minutes. Works well.

I have some of the nitrocellulose Duco Cement that I use when making paper loads for my 1851 Navy and tried mixing it with acetone, but it would not mix well for me. My acetone (actually finger nail polish remover) had other ingredients in it that apparently did not want to mix well. I guess pure acetone must do the trick. Did not try alcohol.

I too have had the bad migraine headache from the ammonium nitrates that soak through the bags of the prilled blasting granules. I worked at a rock quarry as the rock crusher operator, but helped unload the explosives when the truck brought them to us. Even with gloves on I would get a headache so I think just breathing the fumes is all it takes.

[mmb617]

Sometimes I feel like I'm some rich guy with my own private gun club. Even though we've had a string of really nice spring weather days here in central PA and I've been at the range every day, I've had the whole place to myself every time. I'm not complaining though. I make myself at home and spread out my supplies, my spotting scope, and my folding chair. Then I go set targets at 25 and 50 yds and settle in for a few hours. Life is good.





We had us a beautiful day yesterday so I took the chronograph to the range along with my Traditions Deerhunter flintlock. I wanted to do a little comparison testing between Scheutzen 3f, my own 3f and my 4f as main charge. On all the shots I used my own 4f in the pan. This wasn't any kind of exact scientific testing as the sample size was only 8 shots with each and I didn't worry about exactly the same amounts of powder but just filled my powder measure to the 50 grain mark for all shots. It was more to satisfy my curiosity and give me something a little different to do.

The stars were perfectly aligned as the chrono registered every shot. Sometimes it's hard to get perfectly lined up so the shots all pass over both sensors or the sun interferes, but not this time. I made that scrimcloth screen that I can either drape over the top or down the side depending on how high the sun is and it helps a lot.





So on to the results. With 50 grains (by volume) of Scheutzen 3f through the 24" barrel with 1/48" twist shooting a .50 caliber PRB the average speed was 1304 fps. With everything else the same but my own 3f in the barrel gave me an average of 1167 fps. And finally using my own 4f as charge the average was 1206 fps. My own 4f was used to prime the pan in all shots.

No real surprises here. My homemade powder does deliver less velocity than the commercial stuff but not enough that I care. I'm only using about 50% of the maximum charge anyways so if I wanted more velocity I could up the charge but since all I do is shoot paper that's not necessary. I was always told that using 4f as charge would yield higher speeds when the amount is measured by volume rather than weight since the smaller grains will pack more weight into a given volume and that seems to be true. One of these days I'll have to weigh similar volumes of 3f and 4f and see just how much difference there is.

There were two things I did find interesting. Perhaps some of you will give your thoughts on them.

First was the hangfire issue. I've been shooting only my homemade powder for the last few months so it's what I'm used to. Seldom is there any noticeable delay between when I pull the trigger and the shot goes off with either my 3f or my 4f in the barrel. Yesterday when using the commercial powder back to back with my own I noticed there was often just a slight delay with the Scheutzen but not with my powder. I couldn't really call it a hangfire, as it wasn't much, but it was noticeable in comparison. I think my powder flows well both from the flask to powder measure and from the measure to the barrel, but the Scheutzen flows even better. Which made me wonder, is it possible that the commercial powder is flowing so well it's partially filling the flash tunnel and giving a bit of a fuse effect? Or is the graphite coating slowing ignition slightly?

And then there's the flash in the pan deal. I've gotten into the habit of picking the touch hole before each shot. I can usually feel the powder grains with the pick using 3f in the barrel regardless of whether it's my homemade or commercial, and I don't have too many pan flashes, but I do get a few. What I have noticed lately, not just yesterday, is that with my 4f in the barrel I never get a flash in the pan. If the powder in the pan ignites the shot goes off. I would be willing to bet on it. When I ram the ball with my 4f behind it I see a little puff come out the vent, so I assume I'm pushing a bit of the powder out. And when I pick the vent I can't feel anything, it's like there's empty space behind it. Could it be that little puff I see is clearing a good flame channel? Yesterday I was only shooting the one rifle but I've noticed the definite reduction in pan flashes in all my rifles when using 4f instead of 3f in the barrel. I'm going to have to look through my records and see just how pronounced a difference it is. I can't help it I'm OCD about record keeping and keep a tablet at the bench where I record every shot I take, then transfer that info to a spreadsheet when I get home. So I'm able to look back and calculate percentage of misfires and pan flashes as well as how many shots I get out of each flint and how often it's been knapped. Yeah I've got too much time on my hands!

[Vettepilot]

Very nice post. Pennsylvannia; beautiful state! Very nice range it looks like too. Congrats on having that to use, and on your fine shooting day.

I need to engineer a chrono sunscreen for myself. The other day I was at the range in a poor "chrono-light" day, and only 5 shots out of 80 registered! I have since bought the infrared light kit for my chrono, but I want to make a screen/shield for it too.

I think your hangfire postulations are correct, but I have no experience with Flinters. Are you using pressed, or granulated powder? I'm guessing pressed, but nice results in any case, and being happy with what you have is what counts. It would be interesting to see how your velocity compares to commercial using weighed charges.

I had a major "Duh! moment" while reading your post! Ya know how you take everyday sayings, (expressions), for granted, and never give a thought to where they come from? I had a personal revelation the other day watching a special on steam engines, whereby it suddenly hit me where the saying "Going balls out!" came from and why. In this case, it was "Flash in the pan." Duh!! - ;~)

Tip for guys that use acetone, or would like to: A gallon of the stuff, at 20 bucks now, is a hassle if you only need a little, which is most often the case. I keep some on my work bench, as I find many little uses for it if I actually have it. I purchase little bottles of fingernail polish from the Dollar stores. They sell normal style, which have oils in them, but they also sell it in pure form, which is what we want. Ironically, I once figured it out, and it comes out to around the same price as buying a gallon! The bottle size is perfect for on the work bench.

If you want real nitrocellulose glue or paint, order up some professional table tennis balls, (ping pong) and dissolve them in pure acetone. Works quite well. But you have to be careful when buying them, as many ping pong balls, especially cheaper ones, are no longer made of nitrocellulose.

Edited for clarity on tennis balls.

Vettepilot

[almar]

you mean table tennis as in ping pong ? Cuz...uh..never heard of tennis balls made of nitrocellulose.

[HWooldridge]

FYI, ping pong ball composition was changed in 2014 - new ones are no longer made from nitrocellulose.

[RoyEllis]

https://www.3riversarchery.com/nitro...hing-glue.html

No need to mess with making your glue, nitrocellulose glue is still in use by traditional archers......save your powder for more important use!

[mmb617]

Are you using pressed, or granulated powder? I'm guessing pressed, but nice results in any case, and being happy with what you have is what counts. It would be interesting to see how your velocity compares to commercial using weighed charges.
Vettepilot

I'm using pressed powder. I will have to try that comparison using actual weighed charges as that would be more of an apples to apples comparison.

Which reminds me I've been meaning to compare weights of equal volumes of my powder and commercial. To my mind the differential in weights should correspond closely to the differential in velocities produced.

[Vettepilot]

I'm using pressed powder. I will have to try that comparison using actual weighed charges as that would be more of an apples to apples comparison.

Which reminds me I've been meaning to compare weights of equal volumes of my powder and commercial. To my mind the differential in weights should correspond closely to the differential in velocities produced.

Yes, that should be the case, and it would be interesting to find out if it holds true in your case.

Yes, ping pong balls were made of nitrocellulose, and yes, they did change that. But as of last year, I was still able to find/buy the ones made of nitrocellulose. Cut one up and burn it. If it's nitrocellulose it will burn quickly and with almost no residue.

Sorry; I can't remember where I sourced those. I bought a good many as they were going to get harder to find I figured. Like most good things these days...

Vettepilot

[jmh54738]

I'm using pressed powder. I will have to try that comparison using actual weighed charges as that would be more of an apples to apples comparison.

Which reminds me I've been meaning to compare weights of equal volumes of my powder and commercial. To my mind the differential in weights should correspond closely to the differential in velocities produced.

Easy request ,...with your powder measure set for 50 grains, what does a measure full of your powder weigh. With my pressed powder, I have been only to achieve about 83% of the weight of an equal volume of DuPont BP. Thus my measure set at 50 grains will yield a weighed charge of 41 grains. I screen, but don't polish the grains.
jmh54738

[mmb617]

Easy request ,...with your powder measure set for 50 grains, what does a measure full of your powder weigh. With my pressed powder, I have been only to achieve about 83% of the weight of an equal volume of DuPont BP. Thus my measure set at 50 grains will yield a weighed charge of 41 grains. I screen, but don't polish the grains.
jmh54738

Well now this is really interesting to me. Your pressed and screened but not polished powder produces 83% of the weight per volume of a commercial powder. My homemade powder is done the same way. I don't have a gauge to measure pressing pressure but I use a 12 ton press and crank the handle about as far as I can reasonably take it. I should mention that I use a 3 inch puck press as I know a lot of people use a somewhat smaller one. I stack 5 pucks at a time for pressing with 22-23 grams of raw meal in each puck.

Yesterday I wanted to compare weight to volume so I got out the scale I use for reloading as it's the most accurate one I have when measuring in grain increments. I used my powder measure which is locked at the 55 grain mark to measure volume and carefully filled it just level full for each test.

My commercial powder was Schuetzen 3f and it consistently gave me a weight of 55 grains for the indicated 55 grains of volume. Spot on. I weighed about a half dozen charges of my own 3f at that same indicated 55 grains volume and while the weights varied a little they were pretty consistent averaging out to 45.9 grains. Which is 83% of commercial, same as you got.

The next time I take the chrono to the range I'll get some readings comparing charges with the same weight of Schuetzen and homegrown. I'd almost bet the velocities produced will be about the same when the actual weight of the charges are the same. But we'll see. Sometimes I get results that are not what I expected. The fun part then is figuring out why.

Switching gears a little I did another test yesterday. I've been making my charcoal using cedar fence pickets I buy at the Home Depot. My friend who manages a building materials warehouse told me he can get me all the 1x6 cedar scraps I want, and brought me some to try since we didn't know if they were the same species of cedar as the pickets. I made a batch of powder using charcoal made from those scraps and it worked well, so he asked how much of those scrap pieces I wanted.

I had only a rough idea of how much raw cedar translates into how much charcoal and then into powder. An experiment was clearly in order. I found that the one gallon paint can retort I use is nicely filled by 30 lineal inches of 1x6 cedar, and that amount weighed 836 grams before cooking. After cooking the charcoal weight was 230 grams. I'm using the 15% charcoal formula so that amount of charcoal would be enough for almost 3 1/2 lbs of powder.

Going one more step I figured that 3 1/2 lbs of powder would be enough for 430 shots @ 55 grains/shot, which at my current rate of consumption would last about 6 weeks. What it all boils down to is that it wouldn't really take all that much to stockpile a lifetime supply (at my age). If I had 100 or so pieces of that 1x6 that were each 2 ft long I most likely would never run out. I think I'll tell him to keep bringing it till I have that much. It won't take up that much room and it's not going to go bad.

[almar]

I never really used a muzzleloader for my tests only cartridges and percussion pistols where both require to compress the powder to a given volume.
I learned pretty soon in my testing that compression plays a big role in the velocity output. So this is why i measured both velocity by weight as well as velocity by volume. If a given weight of less dense powder is compressed into the same volume as a denser powder, you will somewhat "boost" the less dense velocities because you have to compress it more. This is why many state in BPCR books that the key to consistent velocities is an equal amount of compression and this may seem like an easy thing to accomplish but not always. Using a drop tube helps a good deal and an even amount of compression applied after as well. I surpassed swiss velocities early on with a given weight, but only managed to surpass swiss slightly for the same volume as well after alot of milling upgrades. Now things may be different for muzzleloader somewhat and this is unknow territory for me but i am interested in seeing new development.

[jmh54738]

[QUOTE=mmb617;5376509]Well now this is really interesting to me. Your pressed and screened but not polished powder produces 83% of the weight per volume of a commercial powder. My homemade powder is done the same way. I don't have a gauge to measure pressing pressure but I use a 12 ton press and crank the handle about as far as I can reasonably take it. I should mention that I use a 3 inch puck press as I know a lot of people use a somewhat smaller one. I stack 5 pucks at a time for pressing with 22-23 grams of raw meal in each puck.

Yesterday I wanted to compare weight to volume so I got out the scale I use for reloading as it's the most accurate one I have when measuring in grain increments. I used my powder measure which is locked at the 55 grain mark to measure volume and carefully filled it just level full for each test.

Great report, mmb617.

I just got done shooting with BP made from Aspen, Cedar, Grape, charcoals, and Goex FFg. Rifle is T/C Seneca percussion 45 cal, caps are hot Italian, and bullet is 230 grain T/C Maxi, lubed w/ Maxi lube. Charge weight in all cases is a weighed 70 grains. Temperature 54 deg F. The Aspen and Cedar charcoals are soft and mellow, going from a hand crank burr mill directly into the powder mix. The grape wood charcoal was hard and crisp, so it got burr milled then ball milled, after which it was air-float. All 1/2 pound batches were processed in the same manner. Four shots fired with each powder w/o swabbing the bore. I had to stop after 3 shots with the grape wood powder as the fowling was too great to risk another charge. With all powders, the velocity increased with each shot, as the barrel heated and fowling increased, amounting to around 50 to 60 fps. So here is the average velocity...
Cedar 1387 fps
Aspen 1431 fps knew this was good immediately, felt it on my shoulder.
Grape 1115 fps
Goex 1337 fps ffg

My powder screening is rather coarse, probably a F and FF mix. The powder goes through a 10x10 mesh with .068 openings and is caught by a 14x14 mesh with .043 openings. My sense is that the Cedar & Aspen BP 's both are cleaner than Goex. So why Aspen ? Well, I have the trees.....and the dry wood density is quite low. If I had only Cedar trees, I would shoot cedar, which was still better than FFg Goex.
jmh54738

[jmh54738]

I just learned this...


"The Aspen tree is a deciduous tree that belongs to the genus Populous. Primarily it belongs to the willow family. As with the willow family, the wood of the Aspen is soft but durable."

The wood that I used was specifically from "Quaking Aspen". I planted them as little twigs, now 20" diameter trunk at waist high. The limbs are weak. I see that I have plenty of 2" to 3" diameter windfall branches to gather. For my location, this will be my wood of choice for BP...it works and it is free.

[DoubleBuck]

[QUOTE=jmh54738;5376681]

Well now this is really interesting to me. Your pressed and screened but not polished powder produces 83% of the weight per volume of a commercial powder. My homemade powder is done the same way. I don't have a gauge to measure pressing pressure but I use a 12 ton press and crank the handle about as far as I can reasonably take it. I should mention that I use a 3 inch puck press as I know a lot of people use a somewhat smaller one. I stack 5 pucks at a time for pressing with 22-23 grams of raw meal in each puck.

Yesterday I wanted to compare weight to volume so I got out the scale I use for reloading as it's the most accurate one I have when measuring in grain increments. I used my powder measure which is locked at the 55 grain mark to measure volume and carefully filled it just level full for each test.

Great report, mmb617.

I just got done shooting with BP made from Aspen, Cedar, Grape, charcoals, and Goex FFg. Rifle is T/C Seneca percussion 45 cal, caps are hot Italian, and bullet is 230 grain T/C Maxi, lubed w/ Maxi lube. Charge weight in all cases is a weighed 70 grains. Temperature 54 deg F. The Aspen and Cedar charcoals are soft and mellow, going from a hand crank burr mill directly into the powder mix. The grape wood charcoal was hard and crisp, so it got burr milled then ball milled, after which it was air-float. All 1/2 pound batches were processed in the same manner. Four shots fired with each powder w/o swabbing the bore. I had to stop after 3 shots with the grape wood powder as the fowling was too great to risk another charge. With all powders, the velocity increased with each shot, as the barrel heated and fowling increased, amounting to around 50 to 60 fps. So here is the average velocity...
Cedar 1387 fps
Aspen 1431 fps knew this was good immediately, felt it on my shoulder.
Grape 1115 fps
Goex 1337 fps ffg

My powder screening is rather coarse, probably a F and FF mix. The powder goes through a 10x10 mesh with .068 openings and is caught by a 14x14 mesh with .043 openings. My sense is that the Cedar & Aspen BP 's both are cleaner than Goex. So why Aspen ? Well, I have the trees.....and the dry wood density is quite low. If I had only Cedar trees, I would shoot cedar, which was still better than FFg Goex.
jmh54738

That's an excellent test and I'm glad the Aspen worked so good for you! I have burned a lot of it, when living in Colorado and Wyoming, and thought it would surely make good powder. I have lots of Eastern Red Cedar, which is supposed to be really good charcoal, just never have tried it. Have a six inch diameter grape vine behind the house, but heard several years ago it was dirty, so never have tried it either. I'm with you on using what's available and works. Sounds like you stumbled on to a good one, with the Aspen. I think yours may be the first actual Quaking Aspen test I've read of. If it's that good, you might take another sample, when the buds swell, and leafing out starts. That is supposed to be when the wood's sugar content is the highest and retains the volatiles the best.
Great job, and your powder sir, will shoot!!!

[maillemaker]

Great test!