My homemade black powder

[HamGunner]

Here's what a puck looks like this morning with new puck pressing setup. You can see the machining marks.

Hey, that looks like a decent puck right there. Yep, your more finished machining do wonders. That first puck, well I also must admit it was a bit on the rough looking side. Looks like you are getting there. It took me months to get all my gear and methods figured out and a couple of failed batches before I finally got some acceptable results.

I owe most all of my "self proclaimed success" to this great bunch here on this Forum and especially to the those that have donated considerable time and knowledge to this very, very, long and informative Thread.

[Linstrum]

HamGunner

I'm a Ham Radio Operator, too, KB6COS. I got my license back in probably August of 1984. I'm grandfathered in as Novice Class. I was originally helping some guys with the electrical theory part when they were getting their Amateur Licenses, so they helped me get up to 5 words a minute doing code to get Novice Class. When the Novice Class Enhancement came along, I went to 10 meter voice at 28.3 to 28.5 mHz, and was there until my Uniden HR 2510 10 meter quit working a few years ago. I do miss it, and need to find another 10 meter rig, but no one makes a modern 10 meter mobile quite like the Uniden HR 2510 10 meter rig.

[KenH]

Well guys, one has to question his motivation and desires for doing this, I guess. Universally I suppose, everyone get's some or all of these benefits:

Ready Black Powder availability not subject to market vagaries.
Much, much reduced cost.
Possibly better (cleaner) performance.
Self reliance.
Self satisfaction.
Just plain "something to do" busy work.
.................................................. .

Vettepilot

Thank you for your comments, and of the reasons posted for making my own BP, by far the main reason is the "self satisfaction" you mention. Between forging, making Damascus, San Mai and knifemaking, along with ham radio projects, reloading, a bit of playing with programming, all the other things I've got going on "just to have something to do" is WAAAAY down the list. I just plain enjoy learning new things, and if they go "Bang" so much the better

Thank you for the other comments you made, that reflects my thinking on the ball mill, screening aspects. Since I'm so new at this I'm trying lots of different things, some I might not think are all that necessary, but recognizing my lack of knowledge it doesn't hurt to try?

Yep, I firmly think the KNO3 ball was due to moisture. Once I broke open the ball the powder inside was damp and needed to be dried to prevent caking.

I must say the internet is a wondrous thing with the ability to get help from so many varied sources. This forum has be invaluable to me in learning many things, and this thread

I designed and built a KW 6 meter amp using a Russian GS31b Triode. While I say I designed the amp, it was with MUCH help from an RF engineer down in Australia.

Thank ya'll for the help.

[Vettepilot]

You're welcome!

"In any involved endeavor, one must find their own path..."

Vettepilot

[Super Sneaky Steve]

I'm not sure if this has been covered in the thread but several people have told me that their lead balls and rubber mills have been degrading into the powder making it much dirtier. I've seen some proof videos on youtube but many variables have been changed making it harder to say what caused the powder to be cleaner. Nonetheless I am currently milling a batch it a PVC pipe with some very expensive big brass balls.

If my resulting powder is much cleaner it will be worth the cost.

I'll keep the group posted.

[HamGunner]

HamGunner

I'm a Ham Radio Operator, too, KB6COS. I got my license back in probably August of 1984. I'm grandfathered in as Novice Class. I was originally helping some guys with the electrical theory part when they were getting their Amateur Licenses, so they helped me get up to 5 words a minute doing code to get Novice Class. When the Novice Class Enhancement came along, I went to 10 meter voice at 28.3 to 28.5 mHz, and was there until my Uniden HR 2510 10 meter quit working a few years ago. I do miss it, and need to find another 10 meter rig, but no one makes a modern 10 meter mobile quite like the Uniden HR 2510 10 meter rig.

I had a Sommerkamp 10 Meter at one time. It is very much like the Uniden 2510 or the Radio Shack version of the 2510 and had the same chip, only it was actually meant for export only, because they were easily altered for CB frequencies and it of course had more wattage out than CB legally allowed. But so many used illegal amps for CB anyway that it would have made little difference actually.

I first got a Coded Tech License and my wife took her test for Coded Tech about a month after I did. She actually knows very little about radio theory, so I was on my own setting up the station. She got her license probably 6 weeks or so after passing the test, but they temporarily lost all the test paperwork for everyone in my class and it was 7 months before I finally got my license.

In the meantime, I had my tower and rotor up, a homebrewed 5 element 10 meter Yagi, an Antron 99 ground plane, and the whole station set up to include a Kenwood 820. I had the whole station grounded well and all running through a Low Frequency pass filter with no detectable stray RF and all the fine tuning done through a dummy load, but anything needed on the air such as antenna testing, had to have my wife keying up the station as I was still without a license to operate. That was a long 7 months. Had all kinds of toys but couldn't play with them.

Am now a General Class Licensee and have all sort of various 2 meter handhelds and mobiles which are mostly Icom. I have 3 HF radios and all are Kenwoods. A TS430, TS530, and a TS830. The 430 is all solid state, but the other two have one driver tube and two final tubes. I love those old hybrid radios. They have studio quality audio. Also have an SB220 Heathkit 1,000 watt tubed amp. Have talked all over the world, but I actually use my station very little. Just not all that interested in rag chewing. Was more of the challenge of getting all the engineering and tuning done that I was fascinated by.

I have most of my hobbies downstairs in my combination Casting/Gun Tinkering/Ham Radio/Reloading shack. Central air and heat, so I can play anytime of the year to my hearts content. Have a ventilation hood over my casting table, so I can even cast inside. But I learned real quick not to even mess with charcoal at all inside. Made a mess so fast just weighing it out and such that I could not believe it. What a nasty hobby making BP is for sure.

73 de n0ubx

[HamGunner]

I'm not sure if this has been covered in the thread but several people have told me that their lead balls and rubber mills have been degrading into the powder making it much dirtier. I've seen some proof videos on youtube but many variables have been changed making it harder to say what caused the powder to be cleaner. Nonetheless I am currently milling a batch it a PVC pipe with some very expensive big brass balls.

If my resulting powder is much cleaner it will be worth the cost.

I'll keep the group posted.

I have some soft lead ball in my mill and no doubt there is a slight bit of lead that gets eroded off into the meal, but I have not been able to detect all that much so far. I have a good many hard 12 gauge ball and don't expect them to shed much, but I also put in probably 10 lbs. of .319-320 dia. soft lead or single(0) sized ball and was actually hoping for it to reduce a bit in diameter as it is about .004-.005 too large to use in my .32 cal. squirrel rifle. It will work without patch perhaps, but I doubt the accuracy would be all that good and I do think the leading would be a problem without a patch.

I have milled probably 15 lbs.of BP at least so far with the above lead ball, but have not noticed much decrease in diameter. At least not enough for me to be able to use it in the .32 cal. rifle yet. I just recently added another 6-8 lbs. or so of .375 dia. ball and conicals to the mill that I accidentally cast at about 9 BHN instead of soft 5 BHN. I had just tossed in some more soft ingots into a half a furnace full of 13-15 BHN alloy that I thought was my soft furnace before casting up that batch for my .36 Cal. OOPs, wrong furnace. They should be hard enough to not erode much.

I will also keep tabs on the soft lead as well as my harder lead to see if I can tell if they are eroding down enough to measure and will report back if I see much change.

[LAGS]

In my HF mill that is only 3 lb.
I use .60 cal lead balls cast out of Mono Type lead so it is much harder.
I have used Lino Type lead also.
The weight of the balls is 2 1/2 lbs to grind 1/2 lb of powder.
When I get the mold for my .75 Blunderbuss, I will cast larger balls.

[KenH]

I forgot to mention my ham radio journey. I got involved with CB back in the early 70s when it was so popular. My favorite part was building antennas, and turning scrapped TVs into a bit of "extra" power. I got my tech license (WA4UBD -"Ugly Bad Dog") mid '70s - code was VERY hard for me (I ain't got no rhythm). It wasn't until around '96 or so when I "finally" got enough code to pass the 13 wpm code and upgraded to General, then a week later to Advanced. Always said if it wasn't for code I'd be an Extra - then in early 2,000's they dropped code to 5 wpm, so a couple weeks later I upgraded to Extra. A few months later I changed to the K9FV vanity call. "FV" is my Dad's name and the "9" area was the only place I could get the FV. Dad sure got a funny look on his face when I told him what I'd done.

Building projects have always been my favorite part. The current station is an IC-7610, AL-82 amp, the afore-mentioned 6 meter KW amp, hex beam, 6 meter yagi, and 160 meter dipole feed with hombrew ladder line and balanced tuner.

Back to topic at hand - BP. My pucks are coming out nice, hard, and pretty strong. My problem is when breaking them up, then running thru the pepper grinder set for coarse grind there are still LOTS of fines - more like 4Fg and finer. Would adding a tad of dextrin to the mix the last 30 minutes of milling help keep a coarse grind for 2Fg maybe?

I now have 4 mesh - just right for separating balls from powder after milling. For power I have 10, 12 (Fg) 20 (FFg), 40 4Fg), 80 approx 5Fg), and 200 (too fine for anything mesh. It's my understand if I stack #12 on top of #20, then #40 on bottom the really coarse stays on top of #12, with the 2Fg and finer falling thru #20, and the powder that stays on top of #20 would be 2Fg and powder on top of #40 would be in the 3Fg range?

Do I have that correct?

[Vettepilot]

For me, pass 16 hold on 30 is ffg. Pass through 20 but hold on 50 is fffg. This corresponds to most charts I've ever seen, including Goex's.

Here's an interesting site with loads of bp info:

http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/...ain-sizes.html

And here's more black powder info than you want to know:

Vettepilot

[KenH]

That's some good info there - thanks.

[HWooldridge]

I saw a note referring to "jet milling", which appears to be done with compressed air, but looks like it grinds everything down to fines (then I'm assuming it gets compressed and corned).

[HamGunner]

I ran across several interesting things from that link myself. May have answered my question as to why my Sassafras charcoal seemed to make a bit stronger and faster burning powder than my Willow and I tried three types of the Willows native locally including Black Willow, but still liked my Sassafras the best. I always thought that Black Willow was supposed to be the cats meow. But they seemed to prefer to use the Black Willow charcoal for making cannon powder.

Black Powder III
"Experiments conducted in the 19th century showed that there were significant differences in the amount of gas produced by charcoal made from different types of wood. For instance, dogwood charcoal was found to yield about 25% more gas than the same weight of charcoal made from fir, chestnut or hazel trees and 17% more gas than charcoal made from willow. This is why dogwood was preferred for black powder intended for pistols and rifles, while willow charcoal was preferred for making powder for cannons."

Of course their European Dogwood is not the same wood as our North American Dogwood and is likely not a Dogwood at all. Probably is Frangula Alnus or Rhamus Frangula, which is actually a Buckthorn that has Dogwood like leaves and similar berries. Has yellowish under bark. According to the University of Pennsylvania, this European Buckthorn is an invasive species in parts of the US. So might be available to some, but does not seem to be in my area. I tried locally grown Carolina Buckthorn, but although low in ash, it was not fast burning. I think this Thread discussed this (European Dogwood) already and I think I have it correct. Someone correct me if I am wrong. I think it is commonly called Smooth Alder Buckthorn.

[HamGunner]

This from the above link also likely helps with some of the questions discussed just a few pages back about size of powder and burn speed/characteristics.

Black Powder III
"The action of black powder depends not only on the composition of its ingredients, but also the size of the grains, shape of the grains and the density of the grains among other things.There are other factors that influence the rate of burning, but these three are the most important. The reason is because black powder is surface-burning. Smaller grains of gunpowder will have more surface area exposed to ignition than a larger grain of the same weight, therefore smaller grain powder will burn faster than the larger grained type. However, if the powder is packed too densely, the flame cannot easily spread from grain to grain, than the same weight of powder packed in a less compact manner. Therefore, very small grain mealed powder and very large grain powder are both slower burning. The shape of the grain also will affect the burn rate, because of the surface area exposed to ignition. Shapes like cubes or spheres offer less surface area than irregular shaped grains of the same mass, therefore they burn slower. This is why laminated or flaky powders burn much faster than normal and diamond shaped grains burn more rapidly than rounded grains."

[Brimstone]

I'm not sure if this has been covered in the thread but several people have told me that their lead balls and rubber mills have been degrading into the powder making it much dirtier. I've seen some proof videos on youtube but many variables have been changed making it harder to say what caused the powder to be cleaner. Nonetheless I am currently milling a batch it a PVC pipe with some very expensive big brass balls.

If my resulting powder is much cleaner it will be worth the cost.

I'll keep the group posted.

You mean Jake? I'm not overly confident in the mass of ceramic shot. Maybe it's denser than I am assuming but given concerns, as this is a tool, unhardened stainless steel shot is the perfect answer.

[Vettepilot]

This from the above link also likely helps with some of the questions discussed just a few pages back about size of powder and burn speed/characteristics.

Black Powder III
"The action of black powder depends not only on the composition of its ingredients, but also the size of the grains, shape of the grains and the density of the grains among other things.There are other factors that influence the rate of burning, but these three are the most important. The reason is because black powder is surface-burning. Smaller grains of gunpowder will have more surface area exposed to ignition than a larger grain of the same weight, therefore smaller grain powder will burn faster than the larger grained type. However, if the powder is packed too densely, the flame cannot easily spread from grain to grain, than the same weight of powder packed in a less compact manner. Therefore, very small grain mealed powder and very large grain powder are both slower burning. The shape of the grain also will affect the burn rate, because of the surface area exposed to ignition. Shapes like cubes or spheres offer less surface area than irregular shaped grains of the same mass, therefore they burn slower. This is why laminated or flaky powders burn much faster than normal and diamond shaped grains burn more rapidly than rounded grains."

Yes. And the mention of compaction limiting flame spread spead leads me somewhere. Many of the black powder cartridge loads are very heavily compressed. Like a 45-70 load where you have to compress the hell out of the charge to get it into the case. How can this not affect burn speed? (To a point, how can a "slug" of compressed powder burn well at all??)

From another angle, what about variability of load compaction of muzzle loading guns just caused by a human doing the loading? Why doesn't that seriously vary the burn, and thus velocity, accuracy, etc.?

Of course, we are slowing the whole burn process down in our minds to analyze it, when in fact it's all happening in milliseconds (microseconds? nanoseconds?), even when slow.

Vettepilot

[indian joe]

Yes. And the mention of compaction limiting flame spread spead leads me somewhere. Many of the black powder cartridge loads are very heavily compressed. Like a 45-70 load where you have to compress the hell out of the charge to get it into the case. How can this not affect burn speed? (To a point, how can a "slug" of compressed powder burn well at all??)

dig out a compressed charge from a case - still got much of the grain structure intact particularly towards the base of the charge - seating compression is way different than than the amount of compression used to form grains

From another angle, what about variability of load compaction of muzzle loading guns just caused by a human doing the loading? Why doesn't that seriously vary the burn, and thus velocity, accuracy, etc.?

yes it does - effect velocity - if you really careful (ramming a muzzleloader) can get ES down maybe into the high teens - do it like most good shooters and over the chrony you lookin at 40 to 80 FPS - sloppy loading ? dunno I like to believe I dont do that

Of course, we are slowing the whole burn process down in our minds to analyze it, when in fact it's all happening in milliseconds (microseconds? nanoseconds?), even when slow.

I have a different picture of cartridge ignition anyway (its only imagination I have no way to get inside there and see it) - the initial primer charge is enough to drive a projectile out of the case, in so doing its gonna loosen the compressed charge plenty enough to allow flame propagation right through the column? its not like we lit it at the bottom and it burns forward like a fuse (like a solid cake would do) note here solid pellets of blackpowder have been tried and failed even tho it seemed to work with pyrodex.

Vettepilot

......

[Super Sneaky Steve]

You mean Jake? I'm not overly confident in the mass of ceramic shot. Maybe it's denser than I am assuming but given concerns, as this is a tool, unhardened stainless steel shot is the perfect answer.

You'd really use stainless steel to mill with? I can't imagine anyone use a ferric material.

[LAGS]

I would be cautious on using stainless steel balls to mill.
If you want metal balls other than lead , buy some brass balls.
They are expensive if you can find them.

[Brimstone]

I'm not the only one. I'll stick to what I'm doing. Mills should be treated as each operation will be catastrophic anyway.