Anybody make their own

Done with my first batch, and have learned a lot. Biggest issue I ran into was over wetting the green powder. The trick is to simple get it moist enough to get it to grain while stirring it. Then you put it through a sieve, shake it first so the voluntary stuff comes out, then rub the rest through. Stuff looks good, and uniform. I would guess the grains are right at the 1mm size, I am going to get a bigger sieve to do a bit larger grain next time. I am going to get some video of this stuff and Goex and post it, hopefully there will be no difference...........:rolleyes:
 
After the outbreak of the American Revolution, the American Army had very little powder reserves. That resulted in Patriot newspapers printing instructions on how to make the stuff. They had a lot of home manufacturing of blackpowder in those days. The French came along and sent a lot of powder (and troops, guns, money and ships).

The lesson? It's not that hard and there was no shortage of home gunpowder makers. The trick is consistency and power as not all blackpowder is equal.
 
I made about a pound of BP last year and loaded some .45 Colt cartridges with it, just to see if I could. I made the charcoal from white cedar, and used stump remover for the KNO3 and garden dusting sulphur. (I got the stump remover on clearance at Walmart for $1 per pound.) Ground it up in a Harbor Freight rock tumbler with .457 lead balls cast from hard lead. Dampened it, squeezed and kneaded it, then pressed through a kitchen sieve to make the pulverone. The first testing didn't work so well, but I figured out the powder was still too damp. It worked great a month later when I was sure the powder was bone dry. I'm pretty sure the limiting factor was the impurities in the saltpeter. I need to find a fertilizer dealer who sells "spray grade" or hydroponics potassium nitrate in 50 pound bags. The sulfur is the least critical ingredient, so techincal grade or USP sulfur is probably not signiificantly better than this 90% stuff I used.

It was fun, but for the most part I like using smokeless powder better. I'll try it again when I find some cheap high-quality nitrate.

Has anyone tried pressing BP? How strong a press does it take? (I know it depends on the diameter of the puck)
 
Thanks for the charcoal list!

Regarding saltpeter - it's available in bulk on fleabay in very high quality "pyro" grade. 5 pounds on the way with some sulfur and pyro grade charcoal to boot! Just enough stuff to give this a try. I'm highly considering baking up a batch of charcoal as well.

Cheers,
Oly
 
Got to take my first batch out and shoot it. I guess I lost my virginity in both respects, shooting a black powder revolver and using my own homemade powder. I met a buddy of mine whom is a bit more experienced than I in black powder so I had good help.

Some initial thoughts, shooting the 51 Colt and the 58 Remy for the first time was great, and much easier than I thought. I could not hit the broad side of a barn if I tried, which concerns me no matter what I was shooting with.

I first ran a couple of cylinders of Goex 3f black powder through them at the recommended 22 and 35 grain measurements respectively. Man there is a difference in bang there.

I then loaded some of my own powder to those same measurements. They went bang but were anemic as everything I read on the net said they would be, do to the different densities. I increased the amounts as I went up, sometimes just loading one cylinder. The .44 was taking 50 grains of the homemade and was getting close to the 35 of the Goex, and I was out of cylinder. I ran out of space in the cylinder in the .36 before it got close to a full load.

I did note that my grains were much larger then Goex 3f, so my thoughts are this. I am going to grind this stuff down finer. That and it probably hindered that I corned it yesterday and I am sure there was still some moisture in the powder. The nice part of the full cylinders is it fit the wad and ball right at the top which was nice, felt like a good compression of the powder.

All in all I walked away from the session feeling pretty good about my home brew. I think with a little tweaking it will be a competitive propellant. My buddy was just impressed that it worked and I was punching holes in the target downrange. I think maybe he even got a bit excited about it. The Homemade made considerable more smoke as well, it was kind of cool to see big smoke rings come out of the end of the barrel as it went off.

This black powder revolver thing is cool..............
 
UPDATE

Update:

Had a chance yesterday to send roughly 100 rounds down range in my "51 Navy and '58 Remington. Since my first outing with this powder I have ground the powder down to a finer consistency and let it dry out further.

My initial thoughts are, WOW, what a difference.

If I fill the cylinder to about an 1/8" below the rim, add wad and bullet and compress. That will leave the ball sitting right below the rim. Bangs this time were right on the money with Goex, seat of the pants feel. Aim was much better (or consistent), I was able to hit a stationary clay pigeon at 16 yards with the .36, which I was unable to do on the first go around. Smoke seamed to be a bit less, I am guessing this has to do with the powder being a bit more dry.

I am very happy with these results and the guys I was shooting with had a hoot shooting the guns. They were also blown away the powder was homemade. My only regret was not getting the camera out and videoing a couple of the shots. Next time out I will and post the vid.
 
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