Home made BP

[DavidF]

Has anyone here made their own blackpowder and actually used it in a muzzle loader or cartridge? How did it perform? Do you still have all your fingers?
I think I am going to give it a try as this would be a good skill to have for when Obama gets elected and the world ends.
I started handloading last year, and I am collecting lead to start casting. This seems like a natural progression.

[BenT]

Made some when I was in high school . Don't remember how it performed . But it worked. It's was better than not having any at all.

[Old Ironsights]

Has anyone here made their own blackpowder and actually used it in a muzzle loader or cartridge? How did it perform? Do you still have all your fingers?
I think I am going to give it a try as this would be a good skill to have for when Obama gets elected and the world ends.
I started handloading last year, and I am collecting lead to start casting. This seems like a natural progression.

Statute of limitations.... BATFE.... Not going to go there...

[DavidF]

Has anyone here made their own blackpowder and actually used it in a muzzle loader or cartridge? How did it perform? Do you still have all your fingers?
I think I am going to give it a try as this would be a good skill to have for when Obama gets elected and the world ends.
I started handloading last year, and I am collecting lead to start casting. This seems like a natural progression.

Statute of limitations.... BATFE.... Not going to go there...

Well... Obviously I was joking.... I...ah... So, hypothetically......nevermind.

[KCSO]

Even had my own saltpeter bed at one time. Making serpentine powder is relativly easy but good corned powder is hard to make right and harder still to crush,tumble and screen. Complete instructions for making powder are hard to find and if I can dig up an old post on another forum I will re post it here.

[Texican]

I took a criminal forensics course in college. The Med Examiner who taught the course had a slide show with a couple of guys who attempted it. They were making it in a sort-of foundry cauldron when it went off. The after-pics showed the remains of the steel building (and everything in it) that looked like a laser had cut everything off level with the top edge of the cauldron. Everything above that line just ceased to be. I remember thinking how rather odd to see four separate legs lying there, with jeans and boots still on, and not attached to anybody.

Come to think of it, I also had a one-armed teacher in high school. He lost one as a kid making nitro.

Those were enough for me to swear off ANY forays into such chemistry experiments. Best to learn from observation...

[C. Cash]

I'm no chemist, but as I understand it, it is a very dangerous undertaking. Maybe just have a recipe handy in case the UNobama closes in and you have no other alternative, and then making the stuff might be worth the risk. Until then, I would pay the 20 bucks for a pound of Goex Just my .02.

[cshold]

Ever hear of the Darwin awards

[Old Ironsights]

I'm no chemist, but as I understand it, it is a very dangerous undertaking. Maybe just have a recipe handy in case the UNobama closes in and you have no other alternative, and then making the stuff might be worth the risk. Until then, I would pay the 20 bucks for a pound of Goex Just my .02.

Not really. Not if you pay attention, are absolutely anal, and take NO shortcuts... BUT It's not somthing to do in more than 2lb lots...

As for paying for Goex.... I'm all for supporting the only US BP maker out there, but there are limits. My last batch of BP cost about $8/lb. After I got done with it it cost about $11/lb for 3f and I got 10lb of 4f to play with as part of the bargain.

You just have to be willing to buy Bulk Chinese Powder and hand sift it.

BTW... my sifted chinese "stuff fireworks powder" shoots cleaner and more consistantly than Swiss... if at marginally less velocity for the tight SD...

Sifting is all important.

[Old Time Hunter]

Well here ya' go, dig a 2' by 4' pit 'bout two feet deep and get a good compost going. Mix in a bunch of manure (dog, cow, human...whatever), cover with a layer of hay, then pee on it! Or better yet, pour horse or cow pee over it for about half a year, keep'n it covered to keep the rain off it. Then let sit another few months until it is dry, mix it up, strain it thru a screen, crush the particles till they are fine, then store in coffee cans in a dry, cool place, until needed. Ok that's for the saltpeter....charcoal and sulpher you'll have to get yourself.

People never did catch on to why Gramps moved the outhouse every year. 'Course didn't know it was illegal to make your own, he was the County Sheriff.

[C. Cash]

Well if you make it I'll shoot it OI! I'll be standing way over here while you make it..... I'm sure there's guys that know how to do everything just right every time, but I am not one of those folks, so I stay away from such things. We have enough guys named "Lefty" in the world already

[Rusty]

If at first you don't succeed... powder making isn't the right line of work for you.

[Doc Hudson]

Now I'm not gonna jump up and say, "Gee Whiz! That sounds like a great idea!'

But neither am I going to tell you don't do it. You are a big boy and know how to make up your own mind.

However, I will give you one piece of advise that you really ought to take seriously. Don't try it without a copy of the US Army Technical Manual TM 31-210 : Improvised Munitions Handbook in hand.

This manual has the best directions on how to make blackpowder I've ever seen. Unlike many of the books such as The Anarchist's Cookbook, there are no steps left out and there are no shortcuts. If you carefully follow directions, and don't try any shortcuts, you can make some fairly good powder and keep all your extremeties. TM 31-210 has a 3-page section on how to make blackpowder with an ingredient and tool list and illustrations of the steps. In addition there is another 3-page section on how to make your own potassium nitrate.

These manuals can generally be found at bookseller stalls at larger gunshows. I bought my pocket-sized copy for about $5.00, and several years later bought another copy for a friend for $8.00. At a guess, I'd say the price is probably in the $10-$15.00 range these days.

BTW, this recipe tells you how to make corned powder that is much more consistent and powerful than the serpentine powder, and it won't separate due to vibration in a powder flask or can.

[DavidF]

Thanks for all the info. I now have some more reading to do, but it sounds like the manufacturing may need to be on a larger scale than I would be comfortable with to make it worth the labor involved. I am sure I will give it a try at some point though just to take the mystery out of it.
I haven't done any searching yet but are there any limits on the amount of powder, black or smokeless allowed in possession, properly stored?

[foxtrapper]

Check Youtube I have seen a couple of detailed videos on making BP there. If I recall ,they used a mortar and pestal and it was time consuming . I'll see if I can find the link and post it here. I'll be right back

[foxtrapper]

I'm back. Like I said there are plenty of how- to videos. Here is one link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtHKiRdtEGc Good luck and be careful

[Driftwood Johnson]

Good Grief!

Powder mills used to blow up regularly, and these were the guys who knew what they were doing. As a matter of fact Goex had an explosion just a few years ago. The US Cartridge Company in Lowell, Mass, near where I live, had an explosion that destroyed an entire neighborhood. My Dad worked for Hercules Powder Company in Kansas during WWII making bazooka fuel. They had a press they extruded the fuel into sticks and one day the whole building dissapeared. Lucky my Dad was not there that day.

These guys are the professionals, and they have accidents. Making explosives is not for amateurs.

Don't even think about it.

[Doc Hudson]

Good Grief!

Powder mills used to blow up regularly,

They still do!

Why do you think it was so hard to find GOEX powder for a couple of years in the not too distant past?

And fireworks factories explode with monotonous regularity.

[Doc Hudson]

but it sounds like the manufacturing may need to be on a larger scale than I would be comfortable with to make it worth the labor involved.

The recipe in TM 31-210 calls for 5 1/2 cups of ingredients. I don't know for certain, but I believe that would produce no more than a pound or two of powder. If you screw up, that is more than enough to ruin your day, but not enough to be catastrophic for the entire neighborhood.

[Old Ironsights]

The single biggest problem with commercial BP manufacture is that it is done in bulk inside a building where dust can linger.

Done the "old way" - in small (1-2lb) WET batches (3-4lb when wet with alcohol) and sun dried in low humidity after brass-screen corning - your odds of being where it could go boom are greatly minimized.

The key is to never let the BP dry out untill it is corned and on the drying sheet.

Wet BP isn't dangerous... won't even burn well. Dry Mixing will get you killed.

Both the Army FM & Ulrich are very clear on that point.

[MikeS.]

Stupid me as a teen stole saltpeter and sulfur from a school lab, crushed Kingsford briquettes and mixed the 3 together w/o a recipe to make my own BP. It barely burned.

So now I'd like to read the proper way of doing it and the formula.

[Nath]

Yes OI I was just gonner say I thought it's made wet but I thought they used water!

Nath.

[Retro]

I can't believe no-one's mentioned the musketeer.ch website yet...

[Old Ironsights]

I can't believe no-one's mentioned the musketeer.ch website yet...

I did... I mentioned Ulrich by name... just didn't list the site.

Yes Nath, Alcohol works better than water. Fewer contaminants and evaporates more rapidly when you want to dry it.

[don Tomás]

Stupid me as a teen stole saltpeter and sulfur from a school lab, crushed Kingsford briquettes and mixed the 3 together w/o a recipe to make my own BP. It barely burned.

So now I'd like to read the proper way of doing it and the formula.

Mike,
Did the same thing when I was kid in the '50s. Folks got me one of those chemistry kits for Christmas and I used the little bottles of saltpeter & sulfur with ground up briquettes. Mixed it all up with alcohol (using water just didn't seem right) in a pie pan and let it dry in the sun. Didn't look like much, but the pan went off with a pretty good "poof" when I set a match to it. I had pulled the bullets off some military .30-06 I had found and had played with smokeless powder. The "poof" reaction was a complete surprise to me. Now that I think about it, sure glad that the chemistry set didn't come with bigger bottles of stuff...
Tom

[Andrew]

I can't believe no-one's mentioned the musketeer.ch website yet...

I did... I mentioned Ulrich by name... just didn't list the site.

Yes Nath, Alcohol works better than water. Fewer contaminants and evaporates more rapidly when you want to dry it.

Yep, there is a lot of good info on Ulrich's site and some good photos too.