My homemade black powder

[LAGS]

My RCBS scale had a 250 gr. Marked Weight that came with the scale.
I used that to check digital scales accuracy.
The weight of bullets works.
But they are not Certified weights.

[Vettepilot]

No, they're not, but you could file or modify them till they're perfect, then just take special good care of them, in your chosen charge weights as checks. Nice idea actually.

Vettepilot

[indian joe]

My RCBS scale had a 250 gr. Marked Weight that came with the scale.
I used that to check digital scales accuracy.
The weight of bullets works.
But they are not Certified weights.

I misspoke! my balance beam scale is a Redding (different colour green hey!) had it since the year dot - dont remember a calibration weight. It runs out at 500grains - can squeeze another hundred out of it by eliminating the powder tray but the digital is just easier.
The digital scale has a 50 gram weight with it that I used to set it up - not done since - that one was about 20 bucks landed in my mailbox - cant believe how good its been for the price

[LAGS]

They do sell weight sets for calibrating or checking your scales accuracy.
I think they are sold by RCBS
Years ago I took Coins and weighed them.
Then stamped the weight on the ones I wanted to use for checking my scales.
But that was back in the days where a Penny was solid copper.
Not these laminated coins are now.

[Vettepilot]

@Indian Joe: Yeah, some Chinese stuff is pretty darn good, and it seems like the general quality of their stuff is improving. I'm having pretty good luck with some of their machine tooling, believe it or not...

I often use "Banggood", which I prefer to AliExpress. AliExpress is kind of what I call a "Clearing House" like Optics Planet is for gun stuff. (Not really the right term, I know.) But they don't really sell things themselves, they actually just source it from other suppliers. So if you have any sort of a problem, ya have to deal with that. So I prefer Banggood when possible.

All in all, I don't mind the longer shipping wait times in most cases when buying from China, 'cause you save a ton and about 98% of everything one buys these days is "Made in China" anyway.

Just a moment ago I bought a cell phone charger from Banggood for my daughter for Christmas. Five dollars versus 20 from most sources! I can live with savings like that, and buy yet more crap!!

;~)

Vettepilot

[indian joe]

@Indian Joe: Yeah, some Chinese stuff is pretty darn good, and it seems like the general quality of their stuff is improving. I'm having pretty good luck with some of their machine tooling, believe it or not...

I often use "Banggood", which I prefer to AliExpress. AliExpress is kind of what I call a "Clearing House" like Optics Planet is for gun stuff. (Not really the right term, I know.) But they don't really sell things themselves, they actually just source it from other suppliers. So if you have any sort of a problem, ya have to deal with that. So I prefer Banggood when possible.

All in all, I don't mind the longer shipping wait times in most cases when buying from China, 'cause you save a ton and about 98% of everything one buys these days is "Made in China" anyway.

Just a moment ago I bought a cell phone charger from Banggood for my daughter for Christmas. Five dollars versus 20 from most sources! I can live with savings like that, and buy yet more crap!!

;~)

Vettepilot

Thanks for the tip on Bangood - I mostly go to Ebay but got some stuff off Aliexpress last year (industrial sewing machine parts that ebay just didnt have)
I dont feel guilty about this kind of buying at all - as an Aussie farmer we had to face the open market and play the hand they dealt us all our life.
Yes I bought quite a bit of chinese tooling - some of that stuff is a little brittle but 5 bucks instead of 50 for an end mill - and yeah quality definitely improving.
I have a side hustle that involves electronic components - all that stuff starts life in china so why do I need to feed a middleman a 500% markup.

[Vettepilot]

ABSOLUTELY!

I've bought electronic items from Banggood for 3 bucks with free shipping, and seen the exact same item in Walmart for 25!

Prices on some items have gone up on Banggood lately, but they have everywhere else too. I'm getting good use out of Banggood tooling, plus have seen raving reviews. Not doing production, so it works for me...

I suppose some day "brick and mortar" stores will be gone and that will be bad, but they're doing it to themselves with price gouging. I have to shop hard myself.

And guys, while we're way off topic here, and on the subject of foreign purchasing, if you are into casting shotgun slugs, or want to be, check out the various Russian slug molds! They make some truly excellent slugs. I haven't bought anything since the war, so you'll have to look into that, but they're great slugs. Very accurate. Check out "Svarog slugs" on Google.

Vettepilot

[mmb617]

I misspoke! my balance beam scale is a Redding (different colour green hey!) had it since the year dot - dont remember a calibration weight. It runs out at 500grains - can squeeze another hundred out of it by eliminating the powder tray but the digital is just easier.
The digital scale has a 50 gram weight with it that I used to set it up - not done since - that one was about 20 bucks landed in my mailbox - cant believe how good its been for the price

Your digital scale is probably the same or similar to the one I have, and I've also been impressed with how good it is for the price. I use it for my modern cartridge reloading since it weighs down to 1/10 of a grain. I periodically check it against a balance beam scale and it's always dead on.

But that scale only has a max of 50 grams so it wouldn't be able to weigh out ingredients for my black powder making and I don't think I need that level of accuracy there. I use a cheap digital kitchen scale that only weighs to 1/10 of a gram for powder making.

[dtknowles]

For making black powder I have a Palouse digital scale with 5 pound capacity. I got it for weighing packages for mailing but it turns out to be good for a lot of things. I have smaller digital scales for lighter things and two mechanical reloading scales. I have a set of check weights and a bunch of items of known weight to check scales too. Steel stick on wheel weights make fine check weights if you fine tune them.
Tim

[indian joe]

Your digital scale is probably the same or similar to the one I have, and I've also been impressed with how good it is for the price. I use it for my modern cartridge reloading since it weighs down to 1/10 of a grain. I periodically check it against a balance beam scale and it's always dead on.

But that scale only has a max of 50 grams so it wouldn't be able to weigh out ingredients for my black powder making and I don't think I need that level of accuracy there. I use a cheap digital kitchen scale that only weighs to 1/10 of a gram for powder making.

my little digital quits somewhere around 850 grains which is great because its enough to weigh loaded rounds of 45/70 size - likewise goes to 1/10th grain and always checks out dead on
digital kitchen scale is plenty good for the other stuff. mine tends to shut down a bit soon sometimes so I always weigh my containers empty and write the tare weight on them that way if it switches off halfway through something can just switch back on and continue - deduct the container weight from the display and carry on instead of emptying stuff out and start again.

[Vettepilot]

Yeah, I was using a scale at one time that would do that, which is why I mentioned it. Drove me nuts, so I got a different one.

Vettepilot

[indian joe]

Yeah, I was using a scale at one time that would do that, which is why I mentioned it. Drove me nuts, so I got a different one.

Vettepilot

I guess its a battery save thing - bit of a pain though if you doin stuff like sieving material onto the scale - the tare weight containers is an easy fix.

[Vettepilot]

Yeah. But as I found out wasting money on my first one, some have adjustable "time off" settings, and some don't. Getting one that did, and setting it to the 3 minute option fixed me right up. Now, even if I get distreacted or something, the scale stays on for me.

In some situations/loading scenarios, I like to charge the shell then immediately seat a boolit. My first scales never stayed on doing that. It's "time off" auto function was ridiculously short, and not adjustable.

Vettepilot

[HWooldridge]

I made another “wet” batch over the weekend and then made pucks. I let them dry for two days in my greenhouse and crushed them today. Weighed everything ahead of time and here are the screened results: 120 grams of pucks made 19 grams of 1F, 16 grams of 2F and 16 grams of 3F. The rest turned into fines so I re-pressed those and got two more pucks. I noticed it took more water to do the second pass with the fines; I also lost a little bit of nitrate (the water dried and left a faint white residue).

[Vettepilot]

It takes, very, very little water if you're using enough pressure. (2700 to 3500 psi) Many have found in humid climes, that they don't need to add water at all.

When done properly, my studies indicate that the sulphur literally plasticizes and flows under that pressure, and binds the mix together. Just the tiniest bit of moisture aids that process, but it's way easy to overdo it...

The pucks should have zero evident water/moisture present when done. I suspect you are maybe using too much water and too little pressure here.

Then drying the pucks fully might well take longer than a couple days in this season without heat. A greenhouse might have more than optimal humidity to dry well. How would you feel about leaving an open can of your factory powder in the greenhouse? I wouldn't do it.

Vettepilot

[HighUintas]

In some of the reading I had done a while back, some of the literature showed somewhere around 3% moisture to be a pretty good place for pressing powder into pucks. That's what I did and it worked pretty well. It's not too hard to measure that out, so if you can get your meal dried completely and add in 3% water by weight that should be a good place to be.

Also, I found it to be pretty hard to get the meal uniformly mixed after adding water, so you might get best results if you add the water, mix it up well, then seal it in a airtight container for a few hours or maybe a day or something and then mix again and then press.

[HighUintas]

This is a little off topic but something I've been wondering about. When I shoot my 45-90, I will toss the spent cases into a jug of water with a couple drops of dish soap. When I get home to clean those cases, the cases will have tarnished in that solution to a sometimes bluish, sometimes maroon, sometimes just patina brass color. After I brush and rinse them and clean water, they generally just look like well tarnished brass. I found that something called liver of sulfur is used to tarnish copper alloys and copper. Liver of sulfur is generally a mixture of potassium and sulfur compounds like potassium sulfide, potassium bisulfide, potassium thiosulfate, etc

Is it possible that some of the combustion products of black powder left in the case would be these potassium sulfide compounds?

[HWooldridge]

It takes, very, very little water if you're using enough pressure. (2700 to 3500 psi) Many have found in humid climes, that they don't need to add water at all.

When done properly, my studies indicate that the sulphur literally plasticizes and flows under that pressure, and binds the mix together. Just the tiniest bit of moisture aids that process, but it's way easy to overdo it...

The pucks should have zero evident water/moisture present when done. I suspect you are maybe using too much water and too little pressure here.

Then drying the pucks fully might well take longer than a couple days in this season without heat. A greenhouse might have more than optimal humidity to dry well. How would you feel about leaving an open can of your factory powder in the greenhouse? I wouldn't do it.

Vettepilot

I’m hitting them with 35 tons of pressure on a 1.75” piston. Our humidity is very low right now so there’s not much moisture in the air. I put the fines in the piston with no additional water and they just came out as fines - there were some clumps but the puck fell apart. I put the dust back in the die with a spritz of water and it bound up like the first pass.

It’s also very dry and warm in the greenhouse. No plants are there right now.

[HWooldridge]

In some of the reading I had done a while back, some of the literature showed somewhere around 3% moisture to be a pretty good place for pressing powder into pucks. That's what I did and it worked pretty well. It's not too hard to measure that out, so if you can get your meal dried completely and add in 3% water by weight that should be a good place to be.

Also, I found it to be pretty hard to get the meal uniformly mixed after adding water, so you might get best results if you add the water, mix it up well, then seal it in a airtight container for a few hours or maybe a day or something and then mix again and then press.

Mixing and sealing with some water is a good idea - would likely distribute the moisture more evenly.

[HWooldridge]

This is a little off topic but something I've been wondering about. When I shoot my 45-90, I will toss the spent cases into a jug of water with a couple drops of dish soap. When I get home to clean those cases, the cases will have tarnished in that solution to a sometimes bluish, sometimes maroon, sometimes just patina brass color. After I brush and rinse them and clean water, they generally just look like well tarnished brass. I found that something called liver of sulfur is used to tarnish copper alloys and copper. Liver of sulfur is generally a mixture of potassium and sulfur compounds like potassium sulfide, potassium bisulfide, potassium thiosulfate, etc

Is it possible that some of the combustion products of black powder left in the case would be these potassium sulfide compounds?

I have always rinsed my BP fouled cases in white vinegar then toss in a big colander and rinse with hot tap water. Once dry, I can tumble in walnut shells if I want them brighter.