This article is a bit dated. Perhaps a month or so ago I think. I am glad to hear it for sure. We need a good USA distributor of BP.Originally Posted by Vettepilot
https://www.guns.com/news/2022/02/01...art-production
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This article is a bit dated. Perhaps a month or so ago I think. I am glad to hear it for sure. We need a good USA distributor of BP.
https://www.guns.com/news/2022/02/01...art-production
73 de n0ubx, Rick
NRA Benefactor Life Member/VFW Life Member
Ok, I am really happy with the dehydrator. After about 18hrs the 1.6kg of pucks had lost 34g of weight. Since I had added 80g of water (80 ml but measurec by weighing the ironing bottle between squirts) I gave it another 24 hrs, and it lost another 14.4 g, so from a presumed 5.0% added moisture it came down to what I presume is now 2%.
Also, I dehydrated the ingredients before weighing them into the mill, and the mill meal came out as dry powder not clumped. I put them in yellow business envelopes and weighed the packets before and after drying. The KNO3 lost about 0.5% and the willow charcoal about 2%.
Although the dehydrator is not a purpose-built job I think its a LOT easier and more effective than my fan-heater and taped cardboard carton drying box. Full marks.
In contrast, I bought a malting grinder like this one and tried it for the first time today.
The rollers are knurled.
The rollers are not geared together; if the driven roller pulls your feed in, the feed will turn the other roller.
The maximum separation of rollers is 1/10 in. I set it to widest to start.
What the roller did was initially try to bust the puck, then grind fines off the puck without breaking it.
I think I blew my dough.
I may try using a 1mm angle grinder to cut every second knurled tooth row into a helical channel, turning the toothed roller into a much smaller number of spikier teeth - about 1/4 as many teeth twice as far apart, and deeper.
It would be good to gear the rollers together too. Serious machining time to achieve that.
So shall I use my old puck breaker or futz around with the malt grinder? Both, I guess.
Your pucks are too thick. We explain this in the posts about using this tool. Make them 0.1" thick or so, instead of making one thick one use separators and make 2 or 3 thinner ones.
Last edited by almar; 03-31-2022 at 09:52 AM.
“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”
― Winston S. Churchill
OK, thanks. I hoped they would be OK, but obviously I didn't pay attention. This batch will have to be done the old way then.
At present I stack up 7 or 8 pucks in a pressing, divided by a plastic sheet disk and a 0.3mm Aluminum disk, each puck made with 25ml scoop of damp meal. I will try dropping that to 15ml. Just thinking how to level the meal in the die for each puck. Probably a thicker separator disk would help- maybe 1.0mm thick so the meal deforms and moves, rather than the disk forming to the varied thickness of the meal pile.
Oh my god guys!!
I just tried to buy some potassium nitrate from ihaveadotcom. I sprung (well, was going to...) for his 45 lb. bag, down loaded from 50 lbs. by them to save shipping costs. They wanted ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN DOLLARS FOR UPS SHIPPING!! More than the total cost of the potassium nitrate and sulphur I wanted to buy!
I'm in Arizona--> not Thailand nor Australia!!
Man!!
Vettepilot
"Those who sacrifice freedom for security, have neither."
Benjamin Franklin. (A very wise man!)
Amazon Prime?
Wow, that's nuts! I bought a bag from him last year and shipping was about $30. I had heard UPS had really raised their rates but didn't know it had gone that far. Guess I won't be ordering any for a while.
I just took delivery yesterday of 50 lbs of potassium nitrate powder from Seed Ranch. Price was $97.77 with free shipping. It was delivered by UPS and was about a week in transit. I see that same price on the Seed Ranch website today and still with free shipping.
I have that same grinder and think it works great. I have my roller spacing set halfway between the 0.100 and the 0.050 marks. I usually have to give the pucks a little push by hand while turning the handle at the start then it pulls them through the rest of the way. One complete revolution of the handle is about all it takes to break up one puck. This one tool took the biggest PIA part of the process and turned it into the quickest and easiest part. I was breaking the pucks using a brass punch and hammer in a SS bowl before and it sucked.
My pucks are pretty thin but I couldn't get an accurate measurement because no matter how evenly I try to spread the meal the pucks always have high and low sides, so where to measure?
It so happened I had a batch of meal ready to press today and inspiration struck me as to how to get a more accurate measurement of puck thickness. I press five pucks at a time, so I measured the total thickness of the separators which was 0.425" then I measured the total height of the puck stack after pressing with separators in place and got 1.05", so the five puck stack minus separators would have to be 0.62" and each puck would then be 0.124". I figure this method averages out the errors caused by high and low sides on the pucks.
ChrisPer, mmb617;
I have always had pretty much the same problem with uneven puck thickness. I usually make one ounce pucks and do two at a time, with separators. When I spoon the meal in the die, I place the piston on it very gently and turn it back and forth. That seems to help even them out some, but mine always have a flat on one side and a convex on the other, unless I do one at a time. I solved the problem like mmb617 did. I measure the whole stack height with micrometers in at least 8 and usually 10 places, and average the numbers. The bottom puck is always flat on the bottom and the top puck is always flat on the top. It may not be perfect, but I'm pretty sure it's close enough. I did it that way, and then took one puck and dressed it up, and measured it, and got nearly exactly the same density, so that is the method I use.
Last edited by DoubleBuck; 04-01-2022 at 02:17 PM.
Vettepilot;
Do check out Seed Ranch. They have good nitrate, and I just bought 20 pounds, which also had free shipping, and it got from Florida to me in Arkansas, in two days. They also will combine shipping and are reasonable on Sulphur and other products. Although I bought my Sulphur from Texas, from an oil company.
Yeah, thanks. I went ahead and ordered from them. I normally buy from Duda Diesel, but recently read a blurb about prilled Potassium Nitrate not being as good, so I decided to buy the crystal/powder this time. This has the added benefit of eliminating my step of separately grinding down those prills, which is a good thing as I didn't care for that particular little chore. (Whether the powder turns out any better or not...)
I noticed some sites selling for over 10 bucks a pound! I thought, "Don't they know that you can cash and carry it right out of Lowe's for 7 bucks a pound??" Well, I suppose that's the point; they count on us being ignorant and not knowing.... and then they smile all the way to the bank!!
Jeez... how is it that everywhere you turn, everything just keeps getting worse??!! (The shipping situation.)
Vettepilot
"Those who sacrifice freedom for security, have neither."
Benjamin Franklin. (A very wise man!)
You guys with pucks that aren't flat/uniform. I'm thinking that your separators are deforming, allowing uneven compression.
Is it a problem? Dunno...
Vettepilot
"Those who sacrifice freedom for security, have neither."
Benjamin Franklin. (A very wise man!)
I never experienced it doing single pucks, even with spacers. I never considered it a problem, because I thought it was inherent to pressing multiple pucks. I just assumed it did it to everybody.
I just use plastic spacers, which I don't even remember what I cut them out of. Maybe out of the bottom of a bleach jug. As the powder starts to compress, and is able to 'give' in the middle, it concaves the top of the bottom puck, and convexes the bottom of the top puck, on mine. This happens long before target density is reached.
Different spacer material (aluminum or stainless) might stop the deformity. Something that would not deform under 3,000 pounds.
However if I'm not in a hurry, I generally just do one puck at a time. Then I just have edge creep to contend with.
With multiple volumetric measurements and weights taken to test, my density figures seem to be pretty accurate.
Back just short of 20 years and 7 months ago, I had my TV on at about 6 AM. This news blurb interrupted old re-runs of Captain Kangaroo I was watching, something about a problem in New York City. I turned around just in time to see an airliner fly into a skyscraper. I couldn't get my shoes on fast enough and grab my checkbook and get down to the farm supply store, which opened at 6 AM for ranchers and farmers like me. When I got there, the two guys who worked there had already pulled tarpaulins over the huge stacks of bags of ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate, and dusting sulfur. I had known the district manager since 1968, so I told the guy in charge, who already knew me, to call my old friend and get permission to sell me what I wanted because I did hydroponic farming, and without the ammonium nitrate and potassium nitrate I'd be out of business. I got what I wanted, which I still have a lot of. Sulfur isn't used in hydroponic farming, if you get my drift. But September 10, 2001, was the last day a lot of stuff was sold in large quantities at reasonable prices, and after I saw what happened on TV, I knew what kind of knee-jerk reaction was about to come, including all sorts of bans on stuff because a bunch of nut cases used box cutters, which had zero to do with farm fertilizer.
Let's see, the large size candy bars cost something like $1.29 at Walmart, so even if potassium nitrate cost $5 a pound by the time it is at your house, that's about 3.9 candy bars a pound. What's so unaffordable about that? Get it while you still can, because who knows when something will come along and it won't be available the next day at any price.
But here's to finding it someplace where it won't cost you $5 a pound! And cheaper candy bars, too! Good luck!
P.S. Pretty cool guy I knew back then, he passed away a few years ago. His nephew was the governor of, well I'd better not say. This governor announced how nice it was that none of the fatalities at the World Trade Center were from where he was. My 60 year-old buddy walked into the governor's office and beat the Holy Stuffings out of him and gave him a lecture about how bad it made him and everybody look, something about lack of compassion and humility. Yep, my buddy Bert was one of the good guys, and he campaigned against his nephew come reelection time.
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There is no such thing as too many tools, especially when it comes to casting and reloading.
Howard Hughes said: "He who has the tools rules".
Safe casting and shooting!
Linstrum, member F.O.B.C. (Fraternal Order of Boolit Casters), Shooters.com alumnus, and original alloutdoors.com survivor.
Linstrum;
Yes, and they locked us down for awhile on Ammonium Nitrate after the OKC bombing. And, prices skyrocketed.
OMG!! Captain Kangaroo! Even as a young'un, I thought his hair was weird, but I watched him! God we're old!
Now Mr. Rogers... just couldn't stomach that guy, even being so little.
Guys, every time there's an attack on us, we lose more freedom ourselves. I really think when something bad happens, the oppressors celebrate with Champagne, Steak, and Lobster. Their thought; "OMG, just think what rules, regulations, and restrictions we can force on them now, and they'll accept it!!" "COOL!!"
I don't buy a bunch of prepping supplies for TEOLAWKI, though I probably should. I DO tend to try to stock things that I figure are not long for our world. That's why I still have primers, though it's so bad I'm afraid to use/shoot what I do have...
Sorry. Yeah, I know, I'm negative. But I'm really fearful for the world my poor 16 year old daughter was born into... (Read my sign-off saying.)
It never ceases to shock me just how much our forefathers knew and understood about how governments are, and to be afraid of them, all those years ago!!
Vettepilot
Last edited by Vettepilot; 04-02-2022 at 05:15 PM.
"Those who sacrifice freedom for security, have neither."
Benjamin Franklin. (A very wise man!)
For anyone interested, i tested out a new miroku made winchester 1886 in 45-90 today and its a sweetheart. I tested some BP loads with 90gr of my 2F powder with 7gr of 5744 primer under a 405 gr cast and it was a nice powerful round 2000 ftlbs (1490 fps), but the new winchester 1886's can handle up to 50000 psi safely so i loaded some smokeless and got 3200ftlbs at about 40000psi. It will produce around 4000 ftlbs with IMR 3031 and close to 5000 with jacketed lighter bullets. This is quite a beast of a rifle. I have nice 45-110 shiloh sharps on order i think i should be getting it around christmas. Merry christmas me....but that's going to be interesting to see what kind of performance i get with it, BP only though. That's going to be one that i care for. I am thinking 50-110 from turnbull next...i better calm down though everyone is talking about bad times ahead. But I figure that if the dollar wont be worth as much, better buy while the getting is good.
Last edited by almar; 04-02-2022 at 05:57 PM.
“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”
― Winston S. Churchill
Oh boy! You're likely to catch flack for that "duplex load" announcement...
I'm jealous of your gun(s). And your budget! Congrats!
;~)
Vettepilot
Last edited by Vettepilot; 04-02-2022 at 09:40 PM.
"Those who sacrifice freedom for security, have neither."
Benjamin Franklin. (A very wise man!)
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