Great read. Thanks for the info.
"Failure to prepare is preparing to fail" - Benjamin Franklin
Well,another excellent thread.HOWEVER,if I tried this my wife would run me down the road.Her Father tried to make black powder ONE TIME.HE blew up his tractor shed.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo
I have read this post and skimmed through it again, so if I missed it, my apologies for asking again: can this be used for reloading ammo? And how would this be accomplished (as far as pressure and how much to use)?
David
dumb question here, is this recipe for corrosive or non corrosive bp?
Not a dumb question at all. I keep my non-corrosive BP recipe next to my recipe for dehydrated water and design sheets for submarine screen doors.
The recipes here will still end up hydroscopic (hygroscopic?) after burning, and thus are corrosive.
sarcasm noted.
whats the difference between typical black powder, and the stuff the store sells saying "non corrosive"?
sulphur. what makes BP particularly hydroscopic. But I haven't heard anyone confirm a sulphur-free BP is truly non-hydroscopic. Possible exception of BH209, but not too many users of that powder. All the others, everyone I talk to say it still attracts water.
The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"
Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!
well, that kinda makes it impossible to make non corrosive BP, doesn't it?
ok. so. non sulfur is, less corrosive, then?
is there a recipe for non sulfur BP?
http://www.oocities.org/wdb_0wnz_j00/bp_top.html
I strongly suggest you do not consider this the only source. "I hear" there are plenty of issues running without sulphur, as it helps reduce ignition temperature.
Sulphurless powders
Lancaster Noble Noble Thomas name sulphurless powder sulphurless powder sulphurless powder
(stoichiometric)sulphurless powder
SFG.12Potassium nitrate 70.5 80 87.1 70 Charcoal 29.5 20 12.9 30
so, seems like this is what i want to do. Ill have to do some reading to see what issues I may have. Is the process in making it the same, just one less ingredient?
Black powder made without sulphur is in the class of "pulver" powders that include "ammonpulver", a highly effective but difficult to store primitive smokeless propellent that is covered in a few semi-scholarly posts here at Cast Boolits. Do a search for "ammonpulver", it is an interesting footnote in history.
Waksupi is correct, it is the potassium nitrate that makes black powder hygroscopic, or damp. Elemental sulfur, the form that sulfur is in in black powder, is for all practical purposes insoluble in water.
I am surprised no one covered ash content of the charcoal, ash is a real powder-killer. Charcoal is easily tested for its ash content by burning a known weight and then weighing the remaining ash. I have found willow charcoal with 15% silica ash, 1/7 of its weight in inert useless residue that slows combustion! Woods that work well for powder charcoal are European willow (not native in North America so it is not found here); most varieties of grape vine (Goex may use grape but not sure); cottonwood - The Confederate States made powder equivalent to Du Pont using cottonwood, and it grows all over western, southwestern, and southern North America; avocado - you've got it made if you live in Florida, southeast Texas, or Southern California; and just about any other light open grain wood. Oak, walnut, mahogany, and the other dense hardwoods are the worst. THE KEY FOR WOOD IS LIGHT WEIGHT WITH AN OPEN GRAIN, AND CHECK FOR THE ASH CONTENT OF ITS CHARCOAL, IT SHOULD BE LESS THAT 4%. Compensate for the ash when you make your powder, if the charcoal has 4% ash that means you only have 96/100 of the charcoal called for, so increase the charcoal by adding 1.04166667 times the amount called for (1 divided by 96%).
I started making my own black powder back in 1965 and never had any trouble because I followed the safety rules and used safety equipment, like no iron or steel tools that spark when dropped or struck, or power tools. Have fun!
rl 1217
~+:/&\:+~+:/&\:+~+:/&\:+~+:/&\:+~+:/&\:+~+:/&\:+~+:/&\:+~+:/&\:+~+:/&\:+
There is no such thing as too many tools, especially when it comes to casting and reloading.
Howard Hughes said: "He who has the tools rules".
Safe casting and shooting!
Linstrum, member F.O.B.C. (Fraternal Order of Boolit Casters), Shooters.com alumnus, and original alloutdoors.com survivor.
0«--- this is my head
¯^«----- this is where what you said went over my head
I think it's very interesting how the molecules stick together ,, the Kno3,charcoal and sulfer to form something so powerful like the BP.
still not sure what to do to make bp non corrosive
The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"
Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |