Home made vs GOEX vs Swiss

[indian joe]

I hear ya, Joe. I have no desire to go the CIA/puck route, but if commercial is outlawed I'd do the "simple" BP recipe and up the charges 20%, as Willard and Co. outlined.

Once I latched onto Swiss, many years ago, that's all I use for ML and cartridge. It's the Best, period. Hope you can try some, ya might get spoiled by it.

Frank ---take a long slow read of my post #26 above (its the gospel truth - I was not blowin smoke) ....I really doubt Swiss has much advantage to offer me - certainly not near enought to justify the hassle of finding it.

Maybe ( a big maybe too) I gain 50 FPS velocity ? I already got the consistent velocity, accuracy , cleaner burn

[FrankJD]

Frank ---take a long slow read of my post #26 above (its the gospel truth - I was not blowin smoke) ....I really doubt Swiss has much advantage to offer me - certainly not near enought to justify the hassle of finding it.

Maybe ( a big maybe too) I gain 50 FPS velocity ? I already got the consistent velocity, accuracy , cleaner burn

Are you doing the puck compression method, as outlined by Willard in his #2 BP making video?

[barnetmill]

If sodium nitrate is that sensitive to water absorption, it makes me wonder how it was used effectively in blasting applications without some type of waterproofing. Firearms were obviously exposed to bad weather but think about trying to use blasting powder for mining or military reasons. Assuming the storage barrels were moderately dry, the stuff would have turned into black pea soup and rendered unusable if water attacked that fast. I suspect the manufacturers added a component to the process which helped the hygroscopic properties.

Back in the 50’s before I was born, my dad loaded an old percussion, single barrel shotgun with some type of “blasting powder” and the gun blew up in his hands on the first shot. He told me much later that he thought the barrel was corroded and would have turned loose with regular black powder but no way to know at this point.

Sodium nitrate mixed with sugar will take up water (childhood experiments with sealed pipes lol). But it does burned fast and explode when confined.

[indian joe]

Are you doing the puck compression method, as outlined by Willard in his #2 BP making video?

yeah ---but there a bunch of blokes right here on this forum (Almar and others) that have left Willard eating their dust a long ways back. Not knockin his videos but the info to do the job well is right here under our noses.

[Thundermaker]

All I know is that Schuetzen has been pretty much garbage for me, and Swiss is about $29/lb at powder Inc, and that's with the bulk discount. I gotta do something different.