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Bp Recipe ?
- Thread starter ConRich
- Start date
TruthTellers
New member
Charcoal, saltpeter, and Sulfur... three very simple ingredients. You can get the saltpeter from Spectracide stump remover, charcoal you can make at home, and Sulfur you can order off Amazon or Walmart.com.
Beyond that, it has to be mixed together and milled. The milling part needs to use spark free material, so marbles and copper plated lead buckshot would work.
I've thought about doing it myself, but I'm not out in the country and I'm not willing to put my neighbors in danger. I doubt you'd have an explosion, but there's less of a chance of an accident if you don't do it.
Beyond that, it has to be mixed together and milled. The milling part needs to use spark free material, so marbles and copper plated lead buckshot would work.
I've thought about doing it myself, but I'm not out in the country and I'm not willing to put my neighbors in danger. I doubt you'd have an explosion, but there's less of a chance of an accident if you don't do it.
Thanks for your reply, I am very fortunate to live in a rural environment were I can shoot in my back yard or at a nearby private member range.
My interest in learning to make my own BP is mostly about that SHTF thing, I use Goex for fun, but when SHTF and I have to put dinner on the table with what we have at the time and the Goex can is empty.
I can cast balls and find a way to set the powder off if I had powder which is not easy to find.
Rich
My interest in learning to make my own BP is mostly about that SHTF thing, I use Goex for fun, but when SHTF and I have to put dinner on the table with what we have at the time and the Goex can is empty.
I can cast balls and find a way to set the powder off if I had powder which is not easy to find.
Rich
Go here and ask. Some of them make their own. You have to have a ball mill and if you want really good powder you have to corn it by putting it in a puck and pressing it. http://gunslingersgulch.com
I thought about making BP. Just a short while ago you could buy big bags of 99.9% pure potasium nitrate on Ebay. I don't see it now. There are still youtube vids on making BP and making charcoal.
But I think the best thing to do is just buy it in bulk to have on hand. I bought 25 pounds from Powderinc and still have some on hand. Buy as soon as you can. It just keeps going up. Graf & Sons also sells it. I have used Pyrodex and prefer real black but the Pyrodex works fine if thats all you can get.
Its not that good in a flintlock. But you can put a small charge of black in first followed by the pyrodex.
https://powderinc.com/
But I think the best thing to do is just buy it in bulk to have on hand. I bought 25 pounds from Powderinc and still have some on hand. Buy as soon as you can. It just keeps going up. Graf & Sons also sells it. I have used Pyrodex and prefer real black but the Pyrodex works fine if thats all you can get.
Its not that good in a flintlock. But you can put a small charge of black in first followed by the pyrodex.
https://powderinc.com/
It has to be mixed together in the correct proportions and doing it is extremely dangerous. BP is a low grade explosive. Commercial BP is made with the ingredients wet in a slurry then dried under highly controlled conditions and there are still explosions in the factories.
Keeping that in mind, a net search for 'making black powder' turns up 46,800 sites. And check local ordinances first.
Keeping that in mind, a net search for 'making black powder' turns up 46,800 sites. And check local ordinances first.
There was an article in one of the Backwoodsman magazine called "making grandma's black powder".
It was made by scraping dirt from a chicken run and putting the dirt in a bucket with a hole in the bottom and a cloth for a screen. Boiling water was poured in the dirt and the water was captured in a second bucket under that.
Then the water from the bucket was boiled and the chrystals that floted to the top were skimmed off. This was the potasium nitrate. The chrystals were dried on a pan till comepletely dry.
The chrystals were mixed with a sugar slurry and iron oxide. Red rust scraped from metal. This was layered in a pan and when almost dry was cut in squares. The squares were screened over another pan to make granuals. Then when dry they were ready to use and put in a can. It made about one pound of powder.
So you see how much easier it is to just buy it now and have it on hand? Waiting till the end of the world is the wrong time to start making powder.
It was made by scraping dirt from a chicken run and putting the dirt in a bucket with a hole in the bottom and a cloth for a screen. Boiling water was poured in the dirt and the water was captured in a second bucket under that.
Then the water from the bucket was boiled and the chrystals that floted to the top were skimmed off. This was the potasium nitrate. The chrystals were dried on a pan till comepletely dry.
The chrystals were mixed with a sugar slurry and iron oxide. Red rust scraped from metal. This was layered in a pan and when almost dry was cut in squares. The squares were screened over another pan to make granuals. Then when dry they were ready to use and put in a can. It made about one pound of powder.
So you see how much easier it is to just buy it now and have it on hand? Waiting till the end of the world is the wrong time to start making powder.
maillemaker
New member
This is the definitive thread on how to make your own BP:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?103852-My-homemade-black-powder
Be aware that the thread is over 100 pages long, and there is a lot of disinformation in the thread because people jumped in at page 50 without reading all the pages up to it and they spout off false information and then leave.
Also the thread covers two different mechanisms for making BP but finally settles out mostly on the corning method.
I buy my supplies, sulfur and potassium nitrate, from Duda Diesel. I make my own charcoal. I have yet to try making BP - still getting my equipment together.
There are 2 main ways to make BP: Screening, and corning.
In screening, you mill your ingredients together, and include a binder, like Dextrin. You then dampen the powder and push it through a screen. This results in very light powder that does not measure by weight or volume compared to real black powder. You will have to use more of it to get an equivalent bang. In a long arm, this is not such a big deal, but with smaller guns like revolvers, this can be a problem.
The "real" way to make black powder is corning. To do this, you mix the charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate together in the usual proportions and mill it. Then you dampen it and place it in a hydraulic press under tons of pressure. This results in a ceramic-like cake of pressed powder. This is left to dry, and then it is broken up and ground with a ceramic grinder and then passed through screens to obtain the correct grain size (FF, FFF, etc.). Fines can be put back in the ball mill for re-use. Powder made in this way is nearly identical or even superior to commercial powders, except it is not graphite coated.
It's recommended to only make BP in small batches - 1/2 pound or so at a time. Real-life powder mills have exploded with the result of loss of life. So be careful.
Steve
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?103852-My-homemade-black-powder
Be aware that the thread is over 100 pages long, and there is a lot of disinformation in the thread because people jumped in at page 50 without reading all the pages up to it and they spout off false information and then leave.
Also the thread covers two different mechanisms for making BP but finally settles out mostly on the corning method.
I buy my supplies, sulfur and potassium nitrate, from Duda Diesel. I make my own charcoal. I have yet to try making BP - still getting my equipment together.
There are 2 main ways to make BP: Screening, and corning.
In screening, you mill your ingredients together, and include a binder, like Dextrin. You then dampen the powder and push it through a screen. This results in very light powder that does not measure by weight or volume compared to real black powder. You will have to use more of it to get an equivalent bang. In a long arm, this is not such a big deal, but with smaller guns like revolvers, this can be a problem.
The "real" way to make black powder is corning. To do this, you mix the charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate together in the usual proportions and mill it. Then you dampen it and place it in a hydraulic press under tons of pressure. This results in a ceramic-like cake of pressed powder. This is left to dry, and then it is broken up and ground with a ceramic grinder and then passed through screens to obtain the correct grain size (FF, FFF, etc.). Fines can be put back in the ball mill for re-use. Powder made in this way is nearly identical or even superior to commercial powders, except it is not graphite coated.
It's recommended to only make BP in small batches - 1/2 pound or so at a time. Real-life powder mills have exploded with the result of loss of life. So be careful.
Steve
maillemaker its funny you mention Duda Deisel. After reading this thread yesterday I did a google search for Potasium Nitrate and they came up. Good prices. IIRC 10 pounds of PN would cost around $35 plus the high price of $17 to ship to my address. I suppose the shipping is the same no matter the amount so I would order at least 20 pounds just to have it on hand.
There used to be super fine ground PN for sale on ebay and it was priced right. But I can't find it on there now. Maybe the sellers didn't make or sell enough to keep it listed.
I watched a Brush hippie video of him grinding a puck of powder with a ceramic grinder. Any idea where to get one of these? Making a ball mill looks easy enough or there are Rock Tumblers for sale on ebay for about $60.
There used to be super fine ground PN for sale on ebay and it was priced right. But I can't find it on there now. Maybe the sellers didn't make or sell enough to keep it listed.
I watched a Brush hippie video of him grinding a puck of powder with a ceramic grinder. Any idea where to get one of these? Making a ball mill looks easy enough or there are Rock Tumblers for sale on ebay for about $60.
Good link. One other consideration, and what I do to make sure that I get some consistency after corning my powder, is make sure I weigh my black powder charges rather than relying on volume of powder. My batches are not consistent in weight to volume from batch to batch, but they contain the same ingredient properties. In other words, weighed loads are generally consistent in power but no so consistent in volume from batch to batch. I only corn powder that I will use in pistols and revolvers. I don't corn the powder I use in long guns and shotgun shells. Another area where YMMV is the need to use sulfur at all. I make a powder just from home made charcoal and potassium nitrate. Sulfur only serves to lower the ignition temperature, so, it is more suitable for flintlocks. If you can throw enough fire on the sulfurless powder (with percussion cap, primer, etc..) you don't need sulfur. I find it works fine in shotgun shells.
maillemaker
New member
I got my ceramic grinder off of Amazon. A fellow named "Fly" in the above link makes a machined aluminum puck-pressing tool for pretty cheap.
Steve
Steve
Sure Shot Mc Gee
New member
A [ceramic burr only] coffee grinder helps to grind those very hard corned pucks/disks to Grade wanted. (Grade/s can be measured w/kitchen {metal screen} strainers) What isn't Grade can be ground a second time and {ball milled} in with a future batch of powder providing the same recipe of chems is unchanged.
So~ all unused homemade powder {dust to chunks} is recycled-able.
How to make isn't as easy as some say.
There is a small investment ($) required prior to homemade powder making.
Just so you know if you decide too. Don't expect your homemade powder to better a commercially manufactured power. But~~ after some experimentation with recipe and chems. You can near match a commercial manufactures powder> in performance but seldom in {volume} measure.
If knowing how? and measure? _graphite can be added_ but doing isn't a requirement.
So~ all unused homemade powder {dust to chunks} is recycled-able.
How to make isn't as easy as some say.
There is a small investment ($) required prior to homemade powder making.
Just so you know if you decide too. Don't expect your homemade powder to better a commercially manufactured power. But~~ after some experimentation with recipe and chems. You can near match a commercial manufactures powder> in performance but seldom in {volume} measure.
If knowing how? and measure? _graphite can be added_ but doing isn't a requirement.
I made a small batch, ordered sulfur online, got sump remover at the hardware store and made the charcoal fun to do. I always have to try making things myself, some work out better than others. My homemade BP worked pretty good, pretty potent, not as much as bought powder though. I think next time I'll press it, picked up a 6 ton press, then corn it and see how it does.