Achieved 1330 fps with my 1858 Remington

Super!

All commercial powders I know (with exception of substitutes) are black or almost black. I suppose it is because of the charcoal or maybe a graphite coating as you said, which is used to help the BP not to get wet.

In the other hand, I like to make my own caps just for fun, to test my self-reliance.
 
No, it's the opposite. 72 grains by volume. It fits because it's highly compressible. I fill the chamber up, ram it down, then fill it up one more time. It's also not very dense, which means I'm not overcharging the gun
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That's interesting. I compress / corn my powder to increase the density, but it's a laborious process. With your results, I may try your method.

I make a sulfurless powder using 4 parts KNO3 and 1 part willow charcoal (sometimes pine or cedar), by weight, that I just screen without corning and use it in shotgun shells.
 
It is an almost traditional recipe. 80 percent saltpeter and 20 percent charcoal. Anyway, I would add more combustible instead of oxidizer. Maybe 70 to 75 percent of saltpeter and 25 to 30 percent charcoal. At least with my charcoal made with hard wood.
 
I was going to ask if anyone was compressing the powder into pucks like in the Brush Hippie videos and then grinding. Thats how I would like to do it. I bought 10 pounds of KNo but never got any further with making BP.

But I have around 35 pounds of Goex on hand so making a batch hasn't been a priority for me. But its interesting to read about.
 
phil97: I’d like to know more about your process. I’ve been mildly interested in trying it myself, but know that if something goes wrong it’s not just my hind quarters dealing with it. Of course I figured I’d go small, but I’m rather apprehensive.
 
I tried to copy your process. No joy at the end.
65 grams KNO3, 30 grams charcoal, 5 grams superfine sulfur. Mixed well. Added pure alcohol to make a slurry. Ran it in a mixer until it turned into a thick paste. Pushed it through a fine mesh. Let it dry. Loaded into a golf ball mortar the charge wrapped in tin foil. Lit the fuse. It burned but did not go bang. The golf ball did not move.
Got any ideas about where i went wrong?
I am wondering now whether the charge has to be compressed in order to ignite properly.
Pete
PS ...primers. Years ago I bought a “Tap-O-Cap” kit and a whole bunch of toy gun caps. The process is easy enough and they work but taking a #11 out of a can is a whole lot simpler. I stocked up on those. The other thing I did for most of my BP shooting was bypass primers altogether and go to flintlocks.
 
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rodwhaincamo: My formula is the regular 75% Potassium Nitrate, 15% Charcoal and 10% Sulfur. But I use grapevine charcoal and dissolve all ingredients in isopropyl alcohol, not just wet it, I turn it into a liquid. Then let it dry and when it becomes a paste I press it through a mesh screen and leave the grains to dry for a couple days. I grind all ingredients SEPARATELY in a coffee grinder for 40 seconds each. I don't grind them together because they could ignite and explode inside the grinder. Safety first!
 
This is the definitive thread on making your own black powder:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?103852-My-homemade-black-powder

Be aware that the thread is 155 pages long currently, and there are a ton of people who jump in without having read any of the preceding pages to lecture you on how you are going to blow yourself up, etc. etc. etc.

The thread starts off with the "screen mesh" process, but finally winds up talking about corned powder, which is how commercial BP is made.

As this thread indicates, there are multiple ways to arrive at something that goes bang.

But to make BP, all you need is charcoal, sulfur, potassium nitrate, and water.

The ingredients are milled together, and then crushed under high pressure. This makes cake. This cake is then busted up and ground, and the grindings are sifted through screens to get different granulation sizes of finished BP. Fines can be recycled back to the beginning of the process.

Commercial powder is "glazed" with graphite. This is probably done to ease metering of the product, and also probably makes it less sensitive to static discharge, since graphite is a good conductor of electricity. But in the 1800s the British Empire specifically prohibited glazing of black powder with graphite, as I recall reading someplace.

Steve
 
Success

Interesting. In my earlier post, I noted a failure to perform. I had tried BP that I made using the Alcohol method mentioned earlier in this thread. Just a fizzle when I tried it in a golf ball mortar.
What had I missed? As it has turned out, i had missed the note that the powder had been compressed when used in the pistol and in shotshells.
Duly I loaded a couple of shotshells with 70 grains of what I had made and
1 -1/8ths oz of shot.
Those shells worked perfectly.
 
I made some BP from some willow charcoal I made. Didn't add anything but sulfur and potassium nitrate. I milled is in my ball mill with some lead balls. It turned out pretty good, seemed to have a some decent power. The one thing I wish I had tried was pressing it wet, into a cake them letting it dry. Mine ended up with a large amount of fine powder. It was fun to try but alot of work when a guy can buy either real BP or good substitutes. But knowing me I'll do it again, I seem to like moinkeying around with things like that.
 
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