My homemade black powder

[indian joe]

Thanks, VP. That's a very good point on not corning powder if using a muzzleloader when you have the grain durability formula figured out. I do want to optimize my corned powder for use in my 45-90, but having the option to make some less labor intensive stuff for the ML will be great. I will search for the modified glutinous rice starch you mention and likely tap you later for process advice

Brimstone, about that creosote optimization. Are you just doing various charcoal cooking experiments and seeing how they perform in your rifle, or are you actually having the creosote content analytically determined somewhere?

my screened is hanging together quite reasonable with 2% Dextrin but hoping VP's rice starch idea takes it to another level

[Vettepilot]

When using factory black powder, or (yuck) substitutes, I just go volume/volumetric measure like most people. Why not? I don't need the possibly higher accuracy of weighed charges. That level of accuracy is higher than I can hold without a benchrest.

When loading homemade pressed powder, I do the same because my density is close to factory.

When loading screened homemade powder, I sometimes weigh the charges because of the large density difference from factory. As Indian Joe provided, if weighing bothers you, just weigh once! If you want a 60 grain load, then get your scale out and measure out 60 grains of your homemade screened powder. Pour it into your volumetric measuring device. Whatever it says is your new volumetric load of homemade screened powder. It might show maybe 90 or a 100 grains on the volumetric measure, but should roughly equal a 60 grain load of factory black powder in performance. (Again, this assumes you've made good powder to begin with.)

Note: I assume ZERO responsibility for other people's loading practices.

Vettepilot

[Vettepilot]

Well guys, here's what I experienced with that rice starch. I made up a batch using it because apparently it's favored by Asian powder makers (duh), plus I read a lot of good things about it. I was quite impressed with it, and the resulting durable grains of screened powder.

So then, I was working with grading some powder made that way one day. I ended up with about 50/50 2f versus 3f, but what I really wanted was more 3f. So the thought occurred, "I wonder if I could break some of that 2f down to 3f??" So I put a sample of 2f down on a hard surface, and ran it over with a rolling pin. And again. And again! It was work. Those grains were hard.

Then I was really sold on the MGRS binder.

YMMV. ( your mileage may vary.)

I used 2%, and I recommend putting it in during the last hour of milling plus make sure your powder ingredients are very dry to avoid clumping. 1.5% might work well too.

Vettepilot

[HighUintas]

Thanks for that info, VP.

Brimstone, when you're assaying your charcoal for ash and carbon, are you just using the burning method that Linstrum (I think) described awhile back where you weigh a sample of charcoal, then burn it to ash and weigh it again?

I tried that once but I did it after it was already pulverized and I'm fairly certain I lost a lot of it during burning due to the little air float size particles wafting away with convection currents

[Brimstone]

Yes. I run my tests at night after the wind has calmed. I crush a lump using my mortar and pestle to BB size pieces and course dust, weigh it and convert to ash. Just a little manipulation with a piece of stainless welding wire to assist in turning the char over as ash accumulates.

Pretty simple process. Oh I use a stainless steel pellet tin used for gas smokers. I just leave the lid off. It's shallow but it works.

I rest it on the baffles of my grill, the heat from both burners on low is sufficient to reduce the char to ash without any major convection currents.

My plan for creosote burn off is near identical. Nearly sealed tin, weigh the sample, torch the crap out of it with burners on max settings and come back in an hour. Let cool and weigh.

[Super Sneaky Steve]

For the starch don't cheap out, just buy some from a pyro store like this.
https://www.amazon.com/Hanabi-Chemic...2-d605505c9d1e

For $15 you get basically a life time supply. You're only using 3% of this stuff.

For the tumblers, be ware of the water washing tumblers. They have lots of nooks where powder can accumulate and compact and stay there without getting milled. The harbor freight units I saw one sale for like $56 in store. I put about 1/2lb in each can. Buy two and you can mill 2lbs at a time easy. Unless you're feeding a cannon or doing a firework show that's plenty of capacity.

[HWooldridge]

I made a small batch last night based on the original method that started this thread. Before anyone asks, I don't have a ball mill as of yet, so this is the next best thing for the present time. I do have a coffee mill, which is how I prepped the charcoal.

I followed the directions but the sulfur didn't blend properly, and I didn't see it until I had cooled the mix and squeezed out all the alcohol and water. In other words, the lumps showed up inside the cheesecloth. I'm planning to coffee grind it the next time to break up the pieces. With that said, this relatively ugly stuff still burned relatively fast - I shot a short video (that doesn't want to upload here) and timed the burn at about .56 second for 4" of travel. Certainly not good enough for firearm grade BP but might work for fireworks if I was into such things.

I am considering going ahead and making pucks with this under a 50 ton hydraulic press to see if the sulfur migrates at all under load - or perhaps hand grind in small amounts beforehand, just to break up the sulfur. If the consensus is that it's a waste of time, I'll just toss it out and make more - the process is pretty easy and fast.

BTW, the charcoal was derived from a red cedar fence picket. Very light and somewhat "greasy" - I think it will make good powder if I get the rest of it right. One picket cost $4 and made two, 1 gallon paint cans of float.

To follow up on this post, I let this batch of powder dry for several days in my shop then crushed up the various sulfur clumps with my hands (was only about a half pound and didn’t take long). I mashed and sifted thru a #30 sieve; very little was left over.

Based on the previous comments, I decided not to puck it, but I did want to see if it went bang - so I borrowed a 45 caplock rifle from a friend and loaded 70 grs using a graduated measure under a patched ball. Imagine my total shock when it fired very similarly to plain old Goex. I don’t have a chronograph but it shot to same point of aim and had a similar recoil to the commercial stuff. The only downside was that it seems very dirty and leaves a lot of fouling - I don’t know if corning would have helped or not. At any rate, I’m pleasantly surprised.

I know most folks on this thread are ball millers but the wet method isn’t a joke - may not make the best powder but it’s certainly usable.

[Brimstone]

Excellent.

[LAGS]

Pucking your powder MAY make it burn a little cleaner.
But dirty powder is mostly from the charcoal.
Ball milling should solve the problem.
And your next batch if Ball Milled will work good either Pucked or Screened.
If you plan to make more powder in the future , A ball mill might be a good investment even if it a small cheap H F set up.
But you did show others that starting with basics Works.
Now you just have to find tune your set up to make powder you are happy with all the time.

[Vettepilot]

Well said Lags. Me too. (Three.)

Vettepilot

[indian joe]

When using factory black powder, or (yuck) substitutes, I just go volume/volumetric measure like most people. Why not? I don't need the possibly higher accuracy of weighed charges. That level of accuracy is higher than I can hold without a benchrest.

When loading homemade pressed powder, I do the same because my density is close to factory.

When loading screened homemade powder, I sometimes weigh the charges because of the large density difference from factory. As Indian Joe provided, if weighing bothers you, just weigh once! If you want a 60 grain load, then get your scale out and measure out 60 grains of your homemade screened powder. Pour it into your volumetric measuring device. Whatever it says is your new volumetric load of homemade screened powder. It might show maybe 90 or a 100 grains on the volumetric measure, but should roughly equal a 60 grain load of factory black powder in performance. (Again, this assumes you've made good powder to begin with.)

Note: I assume ZERO responsibility for other people's loading practices.

Vettepilot

If you think about it most powder charging (black or smokeless) is done with a volumetric measure but near all of it has at some point been calibrated with a scale
Only idiots would guess load smokeless without first checking for weight - ahh ya might do ok with those little LEE scoops and a good loading chart - but I dont have that level of trust.
Black is fairly forgiving in that you cant pour / squash / squeeze enough in most cases to do harm to self or gun. Provided some common sense regarding grain size

where the volumetric thing comes undone for me is when blokes start comparing loads - you tell me your load is 85 grains ---did you weigh it ? thats plus of minus 5 ----did you just scoop out of a container - or fill it with a pour spout horn - did you tap the measure ten times and top it up - thats + or - 8 to 10 grains - still not enough difference to cause injury but maybe enough to undo an accurate load - even thats unlikely I spose --- but there no sech a thing as volumetric grains - its a weight measure................

[HWooldridge]

Pucking your powder MAY make it burn a little cleaner.
But dirty powder is mostly from the charcoal.
Ball milling should solve the problem.
And your next batch if Ball Milled will work good either Pucked or Screened.
If you plan to make more powder in the future , A ball mill might be a good investment even if it a small cheap H F set up.
But you did show others that starting with basics Works.
Now you just have to find tune your set up to make powder you are happy with all the time.

Thanks for the comments. I do plan to build/buy a ball mill setup, and I already built a puck die. I’m primarily interested in making cartridge powder as I no longer own any ML rifles (hence the need to borrow one), and I plan to load for 45-70 and 44-40.

[LAGS]

If you are only going to shoot Cartridge guns.
Then IMO the Corned powder would work better.
Only because it is higher density per volume.
You are limited to space with the cartridges.
The same with C&B revolvers.
I pretty much only shoot ML rifles.
So either process for the powder works good for me.

[Vettepilot]

Yeah, about those Lee scoops. Don't work too well for me for loading smokeless. Too much variation when the scooped charges are weighed for my tastes. (But then I'm a perfectionist.) This happens no matter how careful I am and what technique I use.

Clearly, many have used them and made out fine, but I decided long ago they weren't for me.

As you mentioned, black powder is much less touchy about load variances. Truly though, unless you're shooting very long range, small variances in load charge actually affect accuracy somewhat less than we tend to imagine, with any type powder. Even less with bp than smokeless due to the much lower energy density.

Vettepilot

[indian joe]

If you are only going to shoot Cartridge guns.
Then IMO the Corned powder would work better.
Only because it is higher density per volume.
You are limited to space with the cartridges.
The same with C&B revolvers.
I pretty much only shoot ML rifles.
So either process for the powder works good for me.

Lags
I shoot screened exclusively in the C&B guns - just fill the chamber to the top, compress with the loading lever, (screened will take that compression easily) add a ball, grease and go its a simple easy way to load for sure - ends up a just tad bit less than full throttle load.

[indian joe]

Yeah, about those Lee scoops. Don't work too well for me for loading smokeless. Too much variation when the scooped charges are weighed for my tastes. (But then I'm a perfectionist.) This happens no matter how careful I am and what technique I use.

Clearly, many have used them and made out fine, but I decided long ago they weren't for me.

As you mentioned, black powder is much less touchy about load variances. Truly though, unless you're shooting very long range, small variances in load charge actually affect accuracy somewhat less than we tend to imagine, with any type powder. Even less with bp than smokeless due to the much lower energy density.

Vettepilot

I use a little one to measure my 4227 for duplexing - its about + or - 1/2 grain on the scale and if ya keep checking (every 5 or 10) on the scale - get the hang of it pretty quick and reduce that to about 1/4 grain + or -
Have a bigger one I use to scoop black onto the scale tray for my weighed cartridge loads - 2 scoops is just a little over so it makes that process much quicker - I also got a little digital gold scale off of ebay thats way faster than the RCBS balance I have (still use the balance to cross check the electronic one - its been dead accurate so far but its chinese electronics)

Big benefit of the digital scale it goes way past the balance scale so I can weigh boolits over 500grains or loaded rounds when I forget what it is cuz I put it in the wrong packet during a bench cleanup - thing didnt cost much at all and its been real handy.

[Vettepilot]

Yeah, I back check my digital scales with the old balance beam as well. Electrons can get confused, but not gravity. I've got several good digital scales, but I seem to grab the cheapest little China one the most and it works great!

Ya gotta watch it, as some of those have an "auto-off" that does not have a time option selection, or maybe not a good one. It's kind of aggravating when every dam time ya turn around and the scale has turned off, maybe even with a partial charge on it! (I often "throw" a light charge, then "trickle up".) Then you wonder if you should maybe recalibrate it when that happens too...

I WAY splurged a while back and bought an RCBS automatic charge dispenser. It's very cool, but kind of aggravatingly slow in practical use.

Vettepilot

[LAGS]

I understand that Indian Joe.
I loaded up some 45/70s for a friend using some of my screened powder.
Because of the lower density of my Screened homemade powder.
We had to use 84 grains by Volume of screened powder.
That meant that we had to fill up the case , compress it down , then add the rest of the 84 by grains by Volume to get the 70 grain performance.
It worked most of the time.
But sometimes the powder wouldn't always fit in the case.
Corned powder worked much better , but was a little Fuller than it would be with factory powder, plus it had to sometimes needed compressing to get it all in and be able to seat the Boolit.
Both shot great , they just took a little more care to reload.
With the Corned Powder , I was only trying to use 80 grains by Volume to equal the 70 gr volume of factory powder.
Now those two measurements were Volume to equal the weight of factory powder.

[dtknowles]

Yeah, I back check my digital scales with the old balance beam as well. Electrons can get confused, but not gravity. I've got several good digital scales, but I seem to grab the cheapest little China one the most and it works great!

Ya gotta watch it, as some of those have an "auto-off" that does not have a time option selection, or maybe not a good one. It's kind of aggravating when every dam time ya turn around and the scale has turned off, maybe even with a partial charge on it! (I often "throw" a light charge, then "trickle up".) Then you wonder if you should maybe recalibrate it when that happens too...

I WAY splurged a while back and bought an RCBS automatic charge dispenser. It's very cool, but kind of aggravatingly slow in practical use.

Vettepilot

This might be a helpful hint for some. Fabricate a check weight that is very close to your charge weight and use it for checking the digital scale instead of checking against the balance mechanical scale. If you are weighing 100 grain charges of powder, you could use a 90 to 110 grain bullet of known weight to make sure the scale has not drifted.
Tim

[Vettepilot]

That's not a bad idea!

Thanks,
Vettepilot