My homemade black powder

[FrankJD]

I wrote this in post #6511: “Just for grins (and trying to cut down on air float), I poured about 8 oz of 99% rubbing alcohol in an old blender then ran my charcoal and sulfur through it on the highest speed, for about 90 seconds. The alcohol prevented dust and allowed the particles to move freely so I created a nice, black smoothie. I melted the KNO3 in a very small amount of water then dumped that into the blender and ran it a few seconds longer (basically a modified CIA method). I poured the slush onto a cookie pan to dry and the alcohol/water was gone within 24 hours. At this point, I'm going to ball mill the solids for 10-12 hours to further grind it down to fines. Results remain to be seen.”

The above was a total of 200 grams of dry material at the standard 75/15/10 ratio.

After straining the remaining liquid from the black mud (and an old t-shirt works fine - don’t spend money on cheesecloth), the ball will set up and get semi-hard, which is when I push the ball thru a regular strainer. That makes a bunch of large, soft grains that will dry pretty quickly, generally within 24 hours in normal weather. You can then grind those coarse grains in the tumbler to refine the molecular structure before making pucks and corning the powder.

I’m like you in that I only shoot cartridge BP, so dense 2F and 3F is my goal. I’m also a rank amateur compared to some of the other guys who post here. The biggest variable I’ve observed is the charcoal, because the other two ingredients are relatively consistent, and I’m trying to use only local wood types to be self-reliant. My next improvement will be to utilize an old kiln to better control burn temperatures.

Thank you again. There are SO many varied processes for making the holy black that it'll make yer head spin in total confusion!

Currently using Swiss 1-1/2F for cartridge rifles and Swiss 3F for flintlock rifles (both down the tube and in the pan, hence the preferred need for the finer 3F).

[Dieselhorses]

This works wonders, no “mishaps” yet. Ground lots of pucks! Just have to go slow.




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[LAGS]

That looks very much like the meat grinder that I use for grinding my charcoal before it gets ball milled.
I have thought about grinding my pucks with the meat grinder.
But mine only had corse cutting plates since I got it used at a yard sale.
I dont like grinding powder with metal blades.
The chance of a spark is very low.
But once you grind the powder , I would wash out the grinder , so other sparks that happen in the shop could ignite dust or chunks left in the grinder.
I just try to do things as safe as I can because I don't ever want to see the dark side of the moon.

[FrankJD]

There is NO way I'd put any dry gunpowder into a metal grinder and spin the handle.

[LAGS]

I agree with you Frank.
I have not heard of any accidents happening , but I ain't going to be the first one to have one.

[FrankJD]

I agree with you Frank.
I have not heard of any accidents happening , but I ain't going to be the first one to have one.

I'd give ya a "like" on that, Sir!

[HamGunner]

BUT , do not adjust the grinder tighter until you run that larger granules thru the un-adjusted grinder three times.
That helps prevent you ending up with too much fine powder or dust.
If what you have needs more refining , I adjust the grinder by spinning the adjuster down no more than one turn.
Then again , run that larger powder thru the grinder at that setting three more times.

I tried LAGS method of grinding-screening, grinding-screening, at least three times with each grinder setting before tightening up the grinder and it certainly did seem to reduce the fines by at least half of what I used to get. It is a good bit of grinding and screening, but if you end up with more usable sizes, then it sure is worth the effort.

I just finished up a 4 1/2 lb. batch of Black Willow BP today. Had two 2 lb. batches plus 1/2 lb. of leftover fines that I tossed into those batches as well. Got it all screened and most of the dust separated out ending up with 1/4 lb. of FFFFG, 3 lbs. of FFFG, 1 lb. of FFG, and only about another 1/4 lb. of fines/dust. I usually would end up with at least 25% of my batch as fines and this time I ended up with only around 12-13% of the batch as fines.

With this batch, since I did not have enough sun to dry stuff outside, I placed the finely ground up Potassium Nitrate on my heavy duty cookie trays and placed it in the oven at the lowest setting for about 1 1/2 hours before tossing it in the mill with the sulfur and charcoal. I did not dry the sulfur any further, but the charcoal was freshly charred and I had sealed it immediately after getting it ground up to almost airfloat. I milled the batches for over 12 hours each and it did well. Not enough clumping to worry about and I did take the tub off about every two hours to shake the dickens out of it before tossing back on the rollers.

What I ended up with this time was a bit denser/heavier than my last batch of Black Willow, as I think I failed to get the last batch of charcoal completely done. It had a slight bit of under cooked wood in the middle of some of the pieces. This batch got probably an extra 1/3 the mill time as compared to the last batch as well. I saw no under cooked wood, although it was mostly a dark brownish color rather than black. It took me a lot longer to char this time since it was much cooler outside and that seemed to keep the charring temperature down a bit, which actually made it easier to control once it reached the jump off point where the wood temp seems to want to climb faster once it gets closer to 500-550 degrees.

Anyway, I weighed the FFFG at 23 gr. using the 25 gr. volume setting of my BP revolver measure, as that is the volume that I have always found to be the most accurate in my Navy .36 Cal. I guess that about puts it right around 92% density of store bought. I think I had a batch or two of Sassafras that was just a bit denser/heavier than this batch of Black Willow, but not by much. This Black Willow batch does seem to want to burn well and is easy to ignite. Did not do a paper burn test, but just from a few small ignition tests that I did do, it seemed to be jumping up and down ready to go. Should be some good BP.

[Dieselhorses]

I tried LAGS method of grinding-screening, grinding-screening, at least three times with each grinder setting before tightening up the grinder and it certainly did seem to reduce the fines by at least half of what I used to get. It is a good bit of grinding and screening, but if you end up with more usable sizes, then it sure is worth the effort.

I just finished up a 4 1/2 lb. batch of Black Willow BP today. Had two 2 lb. batches plus 1/2 lb. of leftover fines that I tossed into those batches as well. Got it all screened and most of the dust separated out ending up with 1/4 lb. of FFFFG, 3 lbs. of FFFG, 1 lb. of FFG, and only about another 1/4 lb. of fines/dust. I usually would end up with at least 25% of my batch as fines and this time I ended up with only around 12-13% of the batch as fines.

With this batch, since I did not have enough sun to dry stuff outside, I placed the finely ground up Potassium Nitrate on my heavy duty cookie trays and placed it in the oven at the lowest setting for about 1 1/2 hours before tossing it in the mill with the sulfur and charcoal. I did not dry the sulfur any further, but the charcoal was freshly charred and I had sealed it immediately after getting it ground up to almost airfloat. I milled the batches for over 12 hours each and it did well. Not enough clumping to worry about and I did take the tub off about every two hours to shake the dickens out of it before tossing back on the rollers.

What I ended up with this time was a bit heavier than my last batch of Black Willow, as I think I failed to get the last batch of charcoal completely done. It had a slight bit of under cooked wood in the middle of some of the pieces plus this batch got probably an extra 1/3 the mill time as the last batch as well. I saw no under cooked wood, although it was mostly a dark brownish color rather than black. It took me a lot longer to char this time since it was much cooler outside and seemed to keep the charring temperature down a bit, which actually made it easier to control once it reached the jump off point when the wood temp seems to want to climb faster once it gets closer to 500-550 degrees.

Anyway, I weighed the FFFG at 23 gr. using the 25 gr. volume setting of my BP revolver measure, as that is the volume that I have always found to be the most accurate in my Navy .36 Cal. I guess that about puts it right around 92% density of store bought. I think I had a batch or two of Sassafras that was just a bit heavier, but not by much. It does seem to want to burn well and is easy to ignite. Did not do a paper burn test, but just from a few small ignition tests that I did do, it seemed to be jumping up and down ready to go. Should be some good BP.

That’s what has been happening to me as far as “harder than usual-under cooked charcoal”. Been separating it from the fully cooked stuff and re-cooking. It takes a little bit of charcoal to make 4 or 5 lbs BP.


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[HamGunner]

It takes a little bit of charcoal to make 4 or 5 lbs BP.

Yes it does. I charred my well seasoned small pieces of wood inside of cans that are placed inside 1 lb. coffee cans that are placed down into my 20 lb. lead casting furnaces. The outer coffee cans have sealing lids with a hole in the center of each lid to hold a temperature gauge. I leave a small amount of lead in the bottom of the furnaces for the coffee cans to sit on and some small lava rock inside the coffee cans for the charring cans to sit on so that I can get a more uniformly heated char.

Anyway, it takes several hours just to do one session of charring of the two furnaces and for 4 lbs. of powder, it takes me at least two sessions of charring of both furnaces to end up with enough charcoal. Even though one only needs about 1,050 gr. of charcoal per lb. or 4,200 gr. for the 4 lb. batch, that is a lot more charcoal than one would think, since it weighs very little.

Making BP certainly would not be a way for one to make it rich even if it could be sold. There is so much time and labor involved, that one would only make pigeon feed for his trouble. As nasty as BP is and the extent of effort needed, I still like making it.

[LAGS]

I agree that selling your own Homemade powder ( if it was legal ) would not be worth it.
Selling off extra chemicals to friends could offset the costs to make your own powder.
It is nice to have your hobbies pay for themselves.
I prefer to spread out my time making powder between doing other things like building my guns.
But if you focus all your time just making powder , it well becomes not worth it.

[HWooldridge]

I’m happy to report my first batch of corned powder from grape charcoal turned out to be extremely fast - a 12” test line of screened 2F flashed around a quarter second. It really surprised me because the raw milled powder was not nearly as quick - almost lost my eyebrows this time. I’m planning to load some 44-40 rounds tonight and compare against Goex across the chronograph tomorrow.

[DoubleBuck]

HWooldridge;
That sounds great and do post your results. Good luck with it!

[LAGS]

I hope that Grape charcoal works good.
That would give me a reason to grow some grape plants.
Then I can make Wine along with my charcoal.
Hmmm.
It gets so hot here in Arizona , maybe I should plan on making Raisins.

[Dieselhorses]

I hope that Grape charcoal works good.
That would give me a reason to grow some grape plants.
Then I can make Wine along with my charcoal.
Hmmm.
It gets so hot here in Arizona , maybe I should plan on making Raisins.

Black powder is the “raisin” we all here LOL. Seriously though, If I can make my own powder, repurpose spent primers and cast my own bullets, all I have to do is make sure I have ample brass.


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[Dieselhorses]

I have to recant the grinder type I illustrated in post#6582, (been a little while since I ground any bp) - it's a gain/corn grinder.



Don't mean to keep harping on the subject but this guy still has all his fingers... (FF to 7:10)

https://youtu.be/D24DR5OLtds

[HWooldridge]

Update on the grape batch - I used a ‘92 El Tigre, 44-40, made in the 1920’s for the test (22” barrel).

Average velocity for the homemade stuff was 949 fps, average for Goex was 1137, and my control load of 26 grs RL7 yielded 1465. Both BP’s were screened at 3Fg.

Things I noticed:
1. My corned powder was slightly less dense and compressed a bit further, which I didn’t take into account, so allowing for a bit more to fill the case would have been a better apples to apples test. I only loaded 5 of each so the sample size was small.
2. Surprisingly, the grape charcoal was very clean shooting - it looked almost like smokeless after five shots, while the Goex left its typical heavy fouling. It was easy to see the bore with the homemade and a patch came out with minimal junk.
3. The standard deviation for my powder was 50 fps, the Goex was 5 fps. I believe this was due to the less than optimal compression.
4. This batch was the typical 75/15/10 mix, and the green meal was milled 15 hours.
5. Slug for all loads was the Accurate Mold 43-215C, with my home brew lube.

I think this recipe shows a great deal of promise - just need to fine tune the loading.

[indian joe]

Update on the grape batch - I used a ‘92 El Tigre, 44-40, made in the 1920’s for the test (22” barrel).

Average velocity for the homemade stuff was 949 fps, average for Goex was 1137, and my control load of 26 grs RL7 yielded 1465. Both BP’s were screened at 3Fg.

Things I noticed:
1. My corned powder was slightly less dense and compressed a bit further, which I didn’t take into account, so allowing for a bit more to fill the case would have been a better apples to apples test. I only loaded 5 of each so the sample size was small.
2. Surprisingly, the grape charcoal was very clean shooting - it looked almost like smokeless after five shots, while the Goex left its typical heavy fouling. It was easy to see the bore with the homemade and a patch came out with minimal junk.
3. The standard deviation for my powder was 50 fps, the Goex was 5 fps. I believe this was due to the less than optimal compression.
4. This batch was the typical 75/15/10 mix, and the green meal was milled 15 hours.
5. Slug for all loads was the Accurate Mold 43-215C, with my home brew lube.

I think this recipe shows a great deal of promise - just need to fine tune the loading.

did you load equal scale weight for your comparison to goex ?? I would hope NO because the clean burn is a big deal (my opinion anyway)

I would say normal that homemade takes more compression --

I mount my compression die in a little direct linkage press sos I can feel whats going on and for comparison I use a luggage scale attached to the end of the handle

what I found doing that is the same amount of compression force on an equal scale weight of both powders gave so close to identical column height in the case that I couldnt see a difference - this despite the homebrew being only about 92% of Goex density in a measure.
I have given the willow powder what appears to be some pretty serious compression and have not messed up velocity at my standard of shooting.

[HWooldridge]

did you load equal scale weight for your comparison to goex ?? I would hope NO because the clean burn is a big deal (my opinion anyway)

I would say normal that homemade takes more compression --

I mount my compression die in a little direct linkage press sos I can feel whats going on and for comparison I use a luggage scale attached to the end of the handle

what I found doing that is the same amount of compression force on an equal scale weight of both powders gave so close to identical column height in the case that I couldnt see a difference - this despite the homebrew being only about 92% of Goex density in a measure.
I have given the willow powder what appears to be some pretty serious compression and have not messed up velocity at my standard of shooting.

You are correct, I did not weigh the two powders on a scale, but used the same volume setting. Since my batch wasn’t as dense, it had less “boom dust” in the case.

Edit: Tonight, I took one primed case and simply filled it level to the case mouth with my homemade 2Fg, then compressed it just enough to allow the bullet to seat fully. I didn’t have the chronograph set up anymore but it made quite a big bang in the Colt SA. Same level of light residue in the shorter pistol barrel. Next weekend, I’ll load ten shots using this method and see how they group. I’m limited by case volume and only so much is going to fit, regardless of what I do.

[HamGunner]

Although my picture seemed to upload on it's side, this grain/corn grinder is the same type grinder that Dieselhorses has pictured above and is the same grinder that Willard McBain uses on his U-tube video. I have been using this grinder to bust up my pucks, but not nearly as fine as McBain. I only set the grinder on a very coarse setting and then like McBain, I also use it for just busting up one puck at a time. I do my finish grinding with my ceramic burr coffee grinder.

A slow steady crank is all that is needed to bust up the pucks and I feel that there is a 99.99 % chance that a spark WILL NOT happen because the metal parts of the grinder are not even touching. If it should, I only loose one puck and perhaps some arm hair as I keep my face away from the hopper.

I found that out of all the processes involved in making and then corning BP, busting up the pucks was the part that I just hated the most. That was before I started using this grain grinder. I now find that busting up the pucks is easy with little effort.

With the setting I have chosen, I get coarse granules from this grain grinder that are more the size of coarse rock salt and that size is so much easier to reduce down with the little ceramic burr coffee grinder than the stuff I was ending up with before after busting up the pucks with a mallet.

[LAGS]

I have to agree with you that there is a very low chance of the powder being set off in that type of metal grinder.
But the reason I only use my old meat grinder except for doing my charcoal,
Is because it is OLD.
It works , but I am missing cutters and screens.
Plus mine is so Old , that metal is kind of flaking off.
I think it use to have a chrome finish.
So just in case , when I grind my charcoal I run a magnet thru the ground charcoal.
I haven't found anything Yet.
But it is better to double check things you are doing if there are any potential issues that can come up.