Traditional Muzzleloading Association
Shooting Traditional Firearms and Weapons => General Interest => Topic started by: RobD on January 14, 2023, 07:24:11 AM
-
Long gone are the days when the average USA citizen could purchase black powder at their LGS. Fed regulations on BP storage, along with added red tape and taxation and limited demand for the holy black have seen that happen. I get my Swiss BP via mail order, but if the current gun control panacea continues, methinks that mail order BP may end as well, and that will force those who who require that powder (cartridge as well as muzzleloader) to consider making their own, particularly if a flintlock is the weapon to feed. Notice I didn't say "bootleg their own".
IF done in a "proper safe manner" - and there IS such a method - the results will almost always NOT yield a powder equal to that of the commercial Swiss or Goex, but it is still better than nothing and at least will allow my flintlocks to function as they should. Current SAFE black powder making processes appear to be 20-25% less "powerful" than the commercial variety and upping a charge by that percentage closes that gap significantly, so I'm told by more than a few prominent sources. The three black powder making ingredients are readily available to anyone from multiple sources, both online and local to each of us. The tools and materials to effect the BP making process are elementary.
"Safe" BP manufacture means never mixing all three ingredients together DRY, always WET.
Let's put things in perspective. Just as with loading a muzzleloader or making metallic cartridges, there is a safety risk that we all are forced to negotiate. Wet powder of any ilk means safe powder. Wet black powder will not ignite let alone burn. That horn of 2F Goex you've got dangling at yer side is about as close to walking around with a pipe bomb or grenade as it can get. Is that not safe?
For decades there have been EXTENSIVE threads on the CastBoolits forum on making black powder. Several of those threads are posted on even today. The matter of the legality of making any gunpowder ends with each of us, with or without local, state, and federal laws.
Without powder, firearms won't work, and their inclusion in a firearms website/forum is almost a given ... or should be.
For those of concern with making muzzleloader fuel ...
Black Powder Safety, the Law, and You (https://www.skylighter.com/blogs/fireworks-information/fireworking-safety-the-law-and-you)
-
I have also tinkered with the idea of making BP, but at the end of the day weighing how much I have been actually shooting the holy black, I'll stick with purchasing it for now... (though admittingly the direction our Country seems to be going) - one never knows when a paranoid big-brother government is going to bring the hammer down on even more regulations against all the shooting sports...
There are videos and books out their on how to make BP, and this is good IMHO. It's certainly an alternative, should one want to pursue it... It would be a worthy pursuit... After all, it is what fuels this shooting interest... :shake
-
I will chronicle my BP making efforts within this thread, if only for demonstration purposes.
-
As I have posted before, I made my attempt at BP making with success. Well success in that it goes poof when ignited in the open air.
It's still in mill powder form from last yr. I haven't corned it as I have no press, so thar it sits until I can press it.
I joined our local club recently and they get a club discount from our local supplier, buffalo arms, so I'll be getting as much powder , as often as I can , thru the club.
If and when I get a press I'll resume my experimenting .
Keep us posted Rob.
Kevin
-
I like the concept of "self sufficiency" and have always wondered about the BP making process ... for at least the last 6 decades.
My KNO3 (potassium nitrate aka "saltpeter") and sulfur come from Skylighter. I need to make willow charcoal - that will not be a fun task, methinks.
The BP making process of my choice grinds the charcoal and sulfur together and to speed this up I'll be using a ceramic burr electric coffee bean grinder. The KNO3 goes into boiling water. Once it's dissolved, the sifted mix of charcoal and sulfur are added into the pot and stirred. When the concoction is fully wetted, the pot is removed from heat and placed in a pan of ice water, then chilled isopropyl alcohol is added to the watery mix and stirred until the resulting sludge is cool. This is an important part of the process as it leeches KNO3 into the charcoal and sulfur particles. The mix further thickens as the KNO3 precipitates into the other two ingredients, in about 10 minutes time.
A large coffee filter is placed into a common kitchen stainless steel strainer and the sludge is poured into the filter. Allow all the water in the sludge to filter out. When most/all of the water is out of the mix, bunch up the filled filter, put it into a new clean filter, and squeeze out any remaining water. The result is a compact ball of wetted powder.
Check the wetness of the balled powder in the filters and squeeze further to remove as much water as possible. t needs to be like the consistency of damp clay - not slurry sludge wet, and absolutely not dry.
Next up is "corning" the powder ball. All this is is rubbing the damp ball over a stainless steel screen in order to grate/create granules of powder. I'll be using 20 mesh stainless steel screen that will produce my mainstay black powder size, 3F, that I use for both tube and pan.
After the corning, the damp powder is spread out and left to dry - away from flame or direct heat - sunshine is best but not necessary. After drying, the resulting dry powder is sifted over a 40 mesh stainless steel screen to remove any fines. What's left on top of that 40 mesh screen is the working 3F powder.
-
Sounds like an interesting project. :bl th up
-
I'm curious, Rob, how much does final product cost per pound? Minus your valuable labor, of course!
-
I need to make willow charcoal - that will not be a fun task, methinks.
Having read much of what Bill Knight wrote about powder making--the problems with sulpher-eating bacteria, sourcing just the right charcoal, etc, and the regularity in which powder mills blew up back in the day, I've never been inclined to make it.
But I've made charcoal. I played with that off-and-on for about 15 years whilst doing some experimental archaeology that started with refining bog iron and went up to making crucible steel. (And later, we made mesquite charcoal for barbecue. . . .)
Depending on the quantity you need, it shouldn't be too hard--like making charcloth outta sticks. My first charcoal-making experiments were exactly that: I scaled up the charcloth-making process, using a coco tin with a nail hole in the lid. Pack the can with sticks, throw it in a hot wood fire, fish it out when the can stops venting gasses from the hole in the lid. Let it cool overnight. Charcoal.
In the coco-can-scale experiments, I got best results when the sticks were all about the same size--roughly 5/16"-3/8" diameter. Pack them in the can with as little air room as possible.
-
I need to make willow charcoal - that will not be a fun task, methinks.
Having read much of what Bill Knight wrote about powder making--the problems with sulpher-eating bacteria, sourcing just the right charcoal, etc, and the regularity in which powder mills blew up back in the day, I've never been inclined to make it.
But I've made charcoal. I played with that off-and-on for about 15 years whilst doing some experimental archaeology that started with refining bog iron and went up to making crucible steel. (And later, we made mesquite charcoal for barbecue. . . .)
Depending on the quantity you need, it shouldn't be too hard--like making charcloth outta sticks. My first charcoal-making experiments were exactly that: I scaled up the charcloth-making process, using a coco tin with a nail hole in the lid. Pack the can with sticks, throw it in a hot wood fire, fish it out when the can stops venting gasses from the hole in the lid. Let it cool overnight. Charcoal.
In the coco-can-scale experiments, I got best results when the sticks were all about the same size--roughly 5/16"-3/8" diameter. Pack them in the can with as little air room as possible.
The problem I have is not in the making, per se, it's the amount of smoke it'll create, particularly if the wood is green with a lot of moisture.
As to the unsafe nature of making black powder and its efficacy: it is only as safe as you make it, no different than loading a muzzleloader and shooting one. There are extremely safe and unsafe ways of producing black powder, the ONLY question is what will be the results in terms of Power.
-
I'm curious, Rob, how much does final product cost per pound? Minus your valuable labor, of course!
Not much, currently I figured it out to maybe about $5 a pound. With the method I'll be using, it will require the purchase of KNO3 and sulfur and IPA (isopropyl alcohol, not IPA ale :) ), the rest is in "tooling" such as the screens, coffee filters, a quart cooking pot, a can for the charcoal retort, and sundry other incidentals that can be rounded up around the ranch.
Like buying most stuff, it will depend on the volume of the purchase. Quality KNO3 can be $9/lb or as low as $6.29/lb (all plus shipping) from Skylighter, and sulfur is $5.39/lb.
The BP formula is still 75-15-10.
-
Fascinating! I will surely be following this thread. Thank you for posting it.
Many moons ago, when I was in Junior High, a friend and I mixed up some black powder in the science lab. Not much, but it burned with a satisfying WHOOSH. I know we weren't nearly as precise as you are!
:hairy
~Kees~
-
[ Invalid Attachment ] [ Invalid Attachment ]
Doug fir charcoal. Small paint can , small garbage can fire.
so Rob, no pressing into pucks? I info I've watched all talk about pressing as being necessary.
Cool if I dont have to. Saves $$.
Kevin
-
[ Invalid Attachment ] [ Invalid Attachment ]
Doug fir charcoal. Small paint can , small garbage can fire.
so Rob, no pressing into pucks? I info I've watched all talk about pressing as being necessary.
Cool if I dont have to. Saves $$.
Kevin
The materials and process are easy, the wood I have - 40 year old well seasoned BALSA! - the problem is .... SMOKE.
No pressing, no pucks. It's the "CIA" method of making the holy black where IPA is used to leech KNO3 into the mix of charcoal and sulfur, then the resulting damp ball of black powder is screened ("corned") into granules that are left to dry.
The sole advantage of pressing the damp powder into pucks - this is a step done after the black powder is mixed and wet/damp, and before corning - is that it will increase the weight of the the resulting corned BP granules. I hear this step is necessary to create a faster burning powder, but not necessary to create a good, viable batch of muzzleloader powder. I shall see.
-
Change of plans. Instead of the CIA method I've begun to invest in the ball mill corning method. This will provide more potent powder that will pretty much equal the commercial stuff, but will cost a big bunch more to gear up for making it.
Basically, the three main ingredients - KNO3, willow charcoal, sulfur - are ball milled for many hours, 8 to 12. Prior to ball milling, the KNO3 is refined to AF (air float) quality using an electric bean grinder with ceramic burrs. The sulfur and willow charcoal are already of AF quality.
After the milling, the results are "meal powder" that go into a bowl that gets water and/or 70% IPA (isopropyl alcohol) sparingly dribbled in and mixed up with rubber gloved hands to the point where the mix will "clump", meaning it's between moist and damp, NOT wet.
A few scaled (for weight) tablespoons of the mix are put into a pucking die. The one I have is from Woody's and will make 3" BP pucks that are about 3/16" to 1/4" in thickness.
[ Invalid Attachment ]
The filled pucking die sits on a Woody's pressure gauge that goes to 6000psi.
[ Invalid Attachment ]
Between the weight of the meal powder and the amount of pressure used to "corn" out the pucks, that's all for some measure of consistency of the resulting powder.
The pressure gauge and pucking die go into a 20 ton press that will press down the powder, fusing it together at around 3500psi. The sulfur will "plasticize" and fuse the three ingredients together, and that's the essential key to making really GOOD black powder, as done commercially.
[ Invalid Attachment ]
[ Invalid Attachment ]
The resulting BP pucks are hard and initially shiny (due to residual water content) and are allowed to fully dry to a dull look in a day or so.
[ Invalid Attachment ]
Then the pucks are broken up and go into a hand grinder that will grind down to granules that are between 1F and 4F in size.
[ Invalid Attachment ]
The resulting powder is sifted through 2 or 3 screens for size. Any sizes too large or too small are kept for making more pucks.
NOW, how dangerous is all this??
Well, from my perspective, after spending weeks reviewing all the processes for making Good BP, not as much as one would think. Mixing the three key ingredients dry is of some concern, but if a proper ball mill is used - internally rubber lined, and lead balls are used for the grinders - there is pretty much no chance of an explosion happening. It takes a heckuva LOT of heat to touch off black powder. I'll be milling outside and far away from anything important to get blown up. Once the milling is over, the meal powder is handled just as we now handle black powder for our firesticks - carefully.
The corning process starts with wetting down the powder (so no chance of ignition), compressing the damp powder, and then allowing the resulting pucks to dry out.
The next big concern is breaking up the pucks (literally with a hammer over the cloth covered pucks) and then taking one puck at a time to the hand grinder. Again, the bugaboo for igniting black powder is heat, not static electricity. Can the grinder created a spark of heat to kick off the powder in the grinder's hopper? I don't see how that could happen as there is nothing in or about a grain grinder that would be capable of creating the kind of spark that a flint on a frizzen will create, nor has any such incident been recorded.
Are we havin' fun .... yet? :laffing 8)
-
After milling the 3 ingredients into "meal powder", the corning begins ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D24DR5OLtds
-
Oh Rob,
Somehow I knew you would be using a press. :bl th up
Looks good sir, now make it go bang.
-
The milling begins in a few days, when the weather is a bit better. The 20t press won't arrive until next week.
If ya see a mushroom cloud blooming in the eastern sky, well, y'all will know what that's about! :Doh! :scared: 8)
-
The milling begins in a few days, when the weather is a bit better. The 20t press won't arrive until next week.
If ya see a mushroom cloud blooming in the eastern sky, well, y'all will know what that's about! :Doh! :scared: 8)
Well we sure hope we don't see one!!! To cold to be sleeping outside... :*:
-
So how many cans of powder could you get fro the Maine Powder House for all the money you have invested in this venture?
Thanks for keeping us in the loop. Can't wait to see the final results!
~Kees~
-
Without considering the initial investment in tooling, the cost of the chemicals alone - which is really all that's required - would work out to about a few dollars for a pound of any granule size powder. That resulting powder, whether the CIA or ball milling methods are employed, would be about 20% less potent than any commercial black powder, and perfect for a muzzleloader or cap-n-ball revolver ... it would not be as good for cartridge guns. Also, unlike the faux black powders (Pyrodex et al) it will work very well with flint guns. It means upping the load in any gun. If 70 grains of commercial was used, it'll take about 85 grains of homemade to equal the commercial powder.
On the super cheap and simple side, getting a cheap Harbor Freight ball mill, about 50-100 of yer lead balls, and some screens about all the tooling actually required. The chemicals are easy to find and cheap ...
DudaDiesel.com for KNO3 ($13/5lbs) and sulfur ($5/3lbs).
FireworkCharcoal.com for willow charcoal ($15/lb)
I'm not at all cavalier about black powder. It IS an explosive. I'm Very concerned about actually making black powder from a safety perspective. One shouldn't just dive into making black powder without a cautionary fear and a dedicated responsibility to safety. If yer head's not screwed on right 'n' tight, it'd be foolish to begin the BP making process. 'Nuff said.
Weigh out the chemicals (okay, you'll need a cheap digital scale) to create no more than an 8oz weight of BP for starters. Ball mill the ingredients for 8 to 12 hours. The results are called green meal powder - put it in a bowl and add a small amount of water to make it into a dough-like substance that's moist/damp and not fully wet. Now it's inert and there's no chance of it igniting. Grate that dough ball over a 20 mesh stainless steel screen. Sift the results over a 30 mesh screen - what sits on top of the 30 mesh screen is 2F powder - grate that over a 30 mesh screen then sift that on top of a 40 mesh screen. What sits on top of the 40 mesh screen is 3F powder. Allow the powder to thoroughly dry - spreading it out on foil or paper in the sun will take only an hour or so if the relative humidity is low. That's about it. Not too complicated, eh? And relatively safe.
Binder. Some folks do the above BP making method, but most will add about a 1-2% binder to the initial mix that goes into the ball mill. A binder does just that - makes the KNO3 infuse better into the resulting black powder. Dextrin is the commonly used binder, which is essentially corn starch. Dextrin is about $4/lb and will last for many pounds of black powder making.
However, if the resulting dampened powder is to be "corned", no binder is required because the corning process requires compressing the powder into "pucks" and that process will plasticize the sulfur and thus bind all 3 three ingredients. Corning will create black powder that is quite suitable for cartridge building. It is NOT a requirement for muzzleloaders.
The basic black powder formula is 75% oxygen (KNO3 - potassium nitrate), 15% fuel (charcoal), 10% igniter (sulfur).
A small 1/2lb batch (8oz weight) would require (by weight) 6ozs KNO3, 1.2ozs charcoal, .8ozs sulfur, .16ozs dextrin. Put all 4 ingredients in a ball mill, add in 50 to 100 lead balls, mill that for 8-12 hours. How safe is the milling process? The HF ball mill drum is rubber lined. The grinders are non-sparking lead balls. It takes significant heat to ignite black powder. Just ain't gonna happen in that ball mill.
To be safe, my milling will be done outside and 100ft from my house, and inside a small shed. Better to be safe than sorry. There are hundreds if not thousands of folks ball milling black powder, most are doing it for pyrotechnics and not muzzleloaders. Haven't heard of a ball mill blowing up, yet.
The reason why there are BP making explosions is almost always by lighting up the resulting air float BP particles that becomes a fuse that travels back to the actual powder store itself. Opening up a ball mill drum will have air float dust coming out like the smoke that it is. It's not a difficult task to minimize the air float. Once transported to a bowl for adding in water, the powder is rendered inert - wet powder will have a hard time to ignite with a flame let alone a spark of heat. Grating the damp powder over stainless steel screens won't ignite it. After the granules have been left to dry, now it's essentially the same as the commercial powder you've got in yer powder cans, yer powder horns, yer powder pan chargers, yer guns - no different, and no more dangerous or safer.
Well, almost the same as commercial black powder. Almost all of the commercial BP will add a coating of graphite to the powder granules as a separate step. After the black powder has been made and sized (grated and screened), a small amount of graphite is added to the powder, and is milled without grinders for 2 hours. This coats the granules with the graphite and is s'posed to make it less prone to absorbing water. This will also somewhat lessen its ability to ignite.
Hope the above helps a bit.
:*:
-
That's amazing! You've almost got me into trying it.
Thanks for the insight, Rob!
-
I tried searching for "Ball Mill" on the HF website, with zero (0) found. Now I have had problems with their search function before where I found the object I was looking for by randomly searching, and it would have exactly what I typed in the search box so that may be what is going on. "Rock Tumbler" produced this:
https://www.harborfreight.com/dual-drum-rotary-rock-tumbler-67632.html
An Amazon search found this, and some others:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WY4YFTS/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&aaxitk=bcb26db99226a3e888550557d17473fc&content-id=amzn1.sym.7e9cd8c2-888c-46c4-82d2-714b2b703021%3Aamzn1.sym.7e9cd8c2-888c-46c4-82d2-714b2b703021&hsa_cr_id=0&pd_rd_plhdr=t&pd_rd_r=bd0abc33-486e-4a17-9353-3e6467f5e8a0&pd_rd_w=jolCQ&pd_rd_wg=7Y8W9&qid=1674759093&ref_=sbx_be_s_sparkle_lsi4d_asin_0_title&sr=1-1-9e67e56a-6f64-441f-a281-df67fc737124&th=1
or this:
https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Professional-Rock-Tumbler-Kit/dp/B07Q32W334/ref=sr_1_8?crid=3GH51WCQMBYJG&keywords=ball+mill+tumbler&qid=1674759219&sprefix=ball+mill%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-8&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bc
Is that what you are referring to?
Thanks,
~Kees~
-
Yep, rock tumblers .
I bought mine at harbor freight.
I both the 6# one, has two tumblers.
https://www.harborfreight.com/dual-drum-rotary-rock-tumbler-67632.html
Kevin
-
Most folks are using the Harbor Freight dual drum tumbler.
[ Invalid Attachment ]
-
Press is set up with a Woody's puck die and 6000psi gauge.
[ Invalid Attachment ]
-
Jealous, I want a press for various reasons and my wife said no no no. then again she said no about getting a pistol and we know how that worked out :hairy
To many projects , need to sell a few bags and horns first.
Looking forward to your final results/analysis.
Kevin
-
My wife asked why I needed a 20 ton press and I said, "It's for doing difficult projects in the shop". She said, "Okay". Love my wife. :)
Making the meal powder is almost a no-brainer - get the air float chemicals into the rock tumbler with dozens of lead balls and let it run overnight for 12 hours outside. As long as I'm not awakened at 1am by a huge !BOOM! rocking the house, then the real work begins the next day ... adding 4% distilled water to the meal powder, compressing it at 3500psi to a 1/4"x3" puck, allowing the powder pucks to dry for a week, grinding them up a puck at a time, then sifting it out with different mesh screens. At least that's what the process is on paper or on a digital screen. ;)
-
You have made the process much easier to understand than wading through pages and pages on Cast Boolits. Best place on the web for cast bullet stuff, but we do tend to wander off topic considerably.
-
You have made the process much easier to understand than wading through pages and pages on Cast Boolits. Best place on the web for cast bullet stuff, but we do tend to wander off topic considerably.
Coming from you, Ric - that's quite a compliment, thank you Sir!
But all I'm doing is sifting thru many Many dozens of black powder making sources to get the *right* info and not a lotta hearsay talk. I had to do the same with understanding paper patched bullets, distilling a small mountain of info into something that made clear sense. The fun never ends. :toast
-
For those of concern with making muzzleloader fuel ...
Black Powder Safety, the Law, and You (https://www.skylighter.com/blogs/fireworks-information/fireworking-safety-the-law-and-you)
-
Good link, Rob, thanks! :toast The following comes out of it:
"While a person can make explosives for their own personal use, provided that they store them in a compliant manner, they may not transport them legally unless they have an ATF license or permit. And, that's even across town to the test-shooting site."
So even if I make my own, I can only use it in the back yard unless I get a BATF permit! Hmmm....
~Kees~
-
Good link, Rob, thanks! :toast The following comes out of it:
"While a person can make explosives for their own personal use, provided that they store them in a compliant manner, they may not transport them legally unless they have an ATF license or permit. And, that's even across town to the test-shooting site."
So even if I make my own, I can only use it in the back yard unless I get a BATF permit! Hmmm....
~Kees~
!!! SAVE YOUR USED, EMPTY SWISS AND GOEX POWDER CANS !!!
-
Good link, Rob, thanks! :toast The following comes out of it:
"While a person can make explosives for their own personal use, provided that they store them in a compliant manner, they may not transport them legally unless they have an ATF license or permit. And, that's even across town to the test-shooting site."
So even if I make my own, I can only use it in the back yard unless I get a BATF permit! Hmmm....
~Kees~
I'm sure that is just a suggestion! :bigsmile:
-
Waksupi - Personally, I wouldn't want to bet spending my remaining years in a federal prison on it. Imagine the headlines if, while transporting the home brewed powder to the range, there was an accident, an explosion, and death/s. This is supposed to be an enjoyable hobby, and fun. I can't see risking it for a couple pounds of powder. I'd even try that unholy Pyrodex if it came down to it.
-
Waksupi - Personally, I wouldn't want to bet spending my remaining years in a federal prison on it. Imagine the headlines if, while transporting the home brewed powder to the range, there was an accident, an explosion, and death/s. This is supposed to be an enjoyable hobby, and fun. I can't see risking it for a couple pounds of powder. I'd even try that unholy Pyrodex if it came down to it.
What part of "!!! SAVE YOUR USED, EMPTY SWISS AND GOEX POWDER CANS !!!" don't you seem to get? ;)
-
The part that it seems that you don't believe that the lab that would analyze the bp residue wouldn't be able to discern that it didn't quite fit the formulation of any commercial powder. It's very similar to following the advice to never use hand loaded cartridges for CCW ammo. I'm not being contentious, just stating what I would do, not do, and why. If you think otherwise, that's OK by me.
-
The part that it seems that you don't believe that the lab that would analyze the bp residue wouldn't be able to discern that it didn't quite fit the formulation of any commercial powder. It's very similar to following the advice to never use hand loaded cartridges for CCW ammo. I'm not being contentious, just stating what I would do, not do, and why. If you think otherwise, that's OK by me.
I hear ya. To each their own! :bl th up :shake