My homemade black powder

[LAGS]

Most of my powders come out at 80 to 85 grains in a 100 gr measure for corned powder.
A few batches came out a little heavier but never up to 90gr per 100 gr volume measure.
My powder is pressed with a Fly die on a HF 20 ton press , so I don't see how I can get the density any higher.
My screened powder with a binder stays around 65 to 69 grains per 100 grain measure.
But still shoots good

[DoubleBuck]

ChrisPer;
From the sounds of it, I'll bet you have some good powder!

[indian joe]

Most of my powders come out at 80 to 85 grains in a 100 gr measure for corned powder.
A few batches came out a little heavier but never up to 90gr per 100 gr volume measure.
My powder is pressed with a Fly die on a HF 20 ton press , so I don't see how I can get the density any higher.
My screened powder with a binder stays around 65 to 69 grains per 100 grain measure.
But still shoots good

maybe doin a little better with the corned 93, bout the same with screened 67,
Am using a 45/70 case for comparisons and old goex 5FA as my reference
I tap the case 12 times to settle the charge, the HM settles more than boughten - if you are just straight scoop measuring we proly right on equal

[ChrisPer]

Yes. I just added it up and I have to stop making it or exceed my local limit for storage. Better do some shooting!

[ChrisPer]

The difference for mine is just that I tapped and settled it as much as possible.

[LAGS]

I do tap the powder measure a little with both powders.
The 45/70 case with my HM powder on batches I made a few months ago was 64 grains.
But when I weighed it yesterday it only weighed 61 gr.
Same with the 100 gr powder measure.
Months ago the powder weighed 85 gr per 100 gr measure.
But yesterday it only weighed 81 gr.
Maybe the powder is drying out more.
We don't have humidity here in Arizona much.
Today I may check all my previous made powder and remark it just to see if all batches did the same thing.
I am also going to make that Balsa Charcoal.
It is getting into the 100 degree temperature range around here.
So my pucks dry out in the sun really fast.
But I still wait at least two days before I grind most of them.

[Vettepilot]

Oh yeah. It's starting to get hot here too dammit. Going to take my daughter on a 3 day camp/shoot today. It will be the last time we will be outside in the daylight until after Thanksgiving!! (Get's to 130+ degrees in the shade here.) I never liked the heat, but now as an old fart, I just can't tolerate it. After this trip, if we go shooting, it will have to be a several hour ride to the mountains...

Anyway, if my chrono decides to cooperate this time, I'll get us some comparative numbers.

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

I think I had elaborated on my chrono issue before. Last time out, I only got about 3 or 4 readings out of 80 shots. It's a "high dollar" Millenium 2 CED, that I splurged on 'cause I wanted a good one...

To be fair, it was late afternoon on a heavily partly cloudy day, but still... Anyway, I went ahead and bought the special infra-red lighting kit for it, so we'll see how that goes. Anyone here have any experience with this model??

I figured the light kit was going to be a necessity for me because all my shooting tends to be late afternoon. We're "night people" and don't do mornings well at all.

Thanks,
Vettepilot

[DoubleBuck]

Brimstone;
Thanks for the report. Somewhere on a fireworks test I had read that Plum was good. But, they don't care about clean burn. That can really be a deal breaker, too.

Lags;
I think you're gonna REALLY like the Balsa. Just beware it cooks fast and is easy to overcook. I believe at this point, that I probably over cooked it. If my thoughts are correct, it should have easily been my best powder. It was only a very few feet per second slower than my best on the chrono; which was an uneven test. The fastest was screened powder and the Balsa was corned. The burn rate on it was hands down the fastest. That stuff is like lightening. I have a block of it left and plan to really take pains to get it right and do another good batch of it. Good luck with it and be sure to let us know how it performs for you.

[LAGS]

Thank you DoubleBuck.
I think I will make the balsa Charcoal on my gas grill instead of in a wood fire.
That way I can control the burning temperature easier.
I will also do the first batch in a quart paint can so I am not wasting a lot of wood if things go wrong.
I normally do charcoal in my gallon paint can on my wood barbeque.
The cost of the balsa does not concern me as much as availability of the balsa.

[ChrisPer]

Balsa is a hideous price from craft and model shops. The cheapest I have seen online is offcut blocks apparently for building surfboards.
I worked out based on yields that I would need to spend almost twice the gross national product of Poland to make enough powder.

[DoubleBuck]

ChrisPer;
Lol, I hear you.
Maybe about two years ago, I saw a place on line, out of Denver. If you find their site, it looks like they have a lot of scrap. I've wondered if a guy could literally buy their scraps. It looks like you could dig through them, and find enough for what we do. Floor sweepings from saws and plainers would work great for our use, if you could talk them into selling it. Especially if it is already debarked when they cut it up. I thought about pursuing it but had too many irons and just never did.
Poland's GNP is growing steadily with their popularity. haha

[LAGS]

My Balsa "Retort Report"
I cooked up a quart paint can of balsa today.
I had a 16 penny nail hole in the lid of the can.
I set it upside down on the side burner of my barbeque and set the flame on high.
It took a little over an hour to cook it until the flame coming out of the vent hole facing down started to reduce from a jet flame to a candle flame.
The charcoal was looked at after it cooled for a half hour.
It looks great and was cooked all the way thru except for a few brown strips in a few sticks.
I ground it up in my antique meat grinder made in Czechoslovakia.
Man is this charcoal light.
The ground stuff feels like air fly already.
I will mill it in my HF ball mill tomorrow or when I cook another batch.
I think I can get three Quart retorts full of the wood I bought.
It was a 3x3 x12" solid hunk of balsa from a local craft supply ( Hobby Lobby )
The was cut into 1/2 x1/2 x 4" prices.
The ground charcoal from one quart retort came out to 1.3 oz
So that one block of balsa will make about 1 1/2 pounds of black powder.
It cost a little over $10 but it to me is well worth playing with to see how good it works.
Then I may look into finding more in a larger quantity.
( And maybe a better price )
I will let you know how the first batch of powder comes out.
When grinding the sticks , the brown strips in the wood ground up easily and tell me that cooking time was just about perfect for Brownish kind of charcoal.

[Brimstone]

I've tested Southern Red Maple. The intent was to clone regular run of the mill Goex and was my first attempt some 6 years ago to match a commercial powder. My ratio was 75/15/10 typical musket blend.
Mine was marginally faster, 60-80 fps faster over a 10 shot test string. Fouling was identical in all respects. A perfect Goex clone.

I'd read somewhere that powder works out of California favored Western Red Alder and that they used a sporting blend. I got my hands on some wood chips for BBQ smokers. I tried smoking meat too,not to my liking.

Anyhow my ratio with western red alder was straight to 78/12/10 sporting ratio. Hot burning stuff. Virtually no carbon fouling, the residue was almost exclusively very light grey dust.
Now according to the lore I'd read, this was the goal of the powder works as supposedly in the heat and dry of the area any other factor like soft fouling as was popular in Western European powders was all but useless out west. Grease was the answer and to that end if grease was to be the fouling management method then velocity would be the absolute goal.

24" CVA Bobcat is the test tube. 40gr is my nominal test volume, always is. 50 caliber patched round ball, patch strips lubricated with Gato Feo. Initial test shot registered 1,235 fps at 20 feet from muzzle. I have no further data, I hit the chronograph on shot 2.

Don't shoot through a chronograph off hand.

[LAGS]

Report on my Willow Charcoal powder I just made.
Wow, It is FAST
But the density isn't all that great.
The ground up powder came out at 79 gr in a 100 gr measure.
The #4 f grind stuff only weighs 67 gr in a 100 gr measure.
The press pucks were pretty hard when I cut them up with a pair of wire cutters before I ground it up in my ceramic coffee grinder.
The stuff I ground into #1f weighs the most.
I am keeping the 1f for my .75 cal Blunderbuss.
The willow charcoal was not made by me.
I bought it from another member a while back.

[Brimstone]

Don't take my results with plum as gospel by any means. This is subjective IMO, what I consider too hot burning and too dirty might be acceptable to you. Either way it'd be interesting to get a second opinion on plum as a charcoal source.

[ChrisPer]

Fruit woods are very interesting because they have to be pruned annually for production, and ripped out every 15 or so years and a more fashionable fruit variety planted - at least that's the industry picture. That means if you can get thicker prunings from a producing orchard you can likely get more than you could use.
I spent a fascinating day with a former Yugoslavian inspector who told me all about making and smoking sausages like they did in the old country, and his favourite smoke woods were apple, pear and peach.
I just lit a fire with plum prunings as kindling. They were pretty thin! I have no plans to try them in powder due to the effort to debark them.6

One pyrotechnician I have chatted with has had grape success with grapevine prunings. Same story - if you can score them before the vintner throws a match in the pile, you can get awesome powder and lots of raw material free.

[Nobade]

If anyone is looking for the Haifa brand potassium nitrate for a decent price, I just ordered a 50 lb bag for $62 + $34 shipping from https://hortamericas.com/
I figure I ought to get as much as I can while it's available.

[LAGS]

@ brimstone
I too hope that others do not take my posts as Gospel.
There are so many things that can mix in when doing things with home equipment since everyone works differently.
But I love to share with others , mostly so I can prevent them from wasting their time doing certain things .
I also want others input to prevent me from wasting my time too.
But your share gives me info I may use if I ever come across material that you used.

[Hossfly]

I use an old hot plate for cooking my charcoal. Very easy to control temp. And an old tin popcorn container with 2 holes in top. One for gas escape and other for Lyman thermometer. Could very easily hook up to a PID control for very precise cooking. About 5 hrs cost less than .50 cents at .10 cents per KWH.