Home made powder

Funny that the dangerous (explosive) BP would be safer to make than the safer smokeless.
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When I was growing up in the 70's I was given a present of a chemical science kit. It included the ingredients and instructions on how to make basic black powder. You would not believe the amount of chemicals you could mix with what was included along with project instructions. It would give a liberal a brain seizure now days lol.
 
youtube removed most of the good black powder making videos.
Really isn't that hard or dangerous to do.

Right up there with filling your tank with gasoline.
 
It is truly amazing the common house hold chemicals that can be combined to make smoke or bang or into blood or nerve agents

now if I could find a good cheap "legal" source for fine aluminum powders and some other "make big bang" ingredients....

Fred....slitting Black Cats and concentrating great piles of flash powder since 1963

Ah crap now I need to clean my old lead ball tumbler and get back to perfecting my BP mix.....grin
 
Black powder making in small quantities is a lot safer, but still subject to stupid handling. One of the old Firefox books covered it, including making your own charcoal and saltpeter. Sulfur has to be mined or purchased. And in the end, the finished product is inferior to manufactured black powder.
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I belong to a couple of forums that have members that make black powder on a regular basis. Simply screening it gives you powder that works but you have to compress it and then screen it to get a good quality powder that rivals Swiss.
 
Mind you, gun cotton(aka Nitrocellulose) is just nitroglycerin soaked cotton.
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This is simply not so. Nitrocellulose is a chemical compound (or series of compounds) all its own.
Where did you grow up, TO?

I was amused by Guffeyhistory.

Anecdote alert.
Back in the days of real chemistry sets, the bomb squad was sent out on a call for homemade nitroglycerine. They expected to see a little "oil" in the bottom of a test tube. They were surprised and had to increase precautions when they arrived at the home to find a quart jar of product on the mantelpiece.
 
I got my recipe from an old copy of The Anarchists Cook Book.

There are other, nastier mixtures, that i would whole heartedly recommend not playing with.
 
Was dynamite ever made by soaking cotton with nitroglycerine? I have heard of diatomaceous earth and even sawdust being used to stabilize NG into dynamite.

One of the various insurrectionists manuals had a recipe for "Poor Man's C4." Guncotton (High nitration nitrocellulose.) I understand there is also an aqueous synthesis for real RDX.
 
My only comment is......might want to talk this over with your better half first!
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Start by talking to your insurance agent. Give him or her the opportunity to talk you out of it before you strain your home life.
Did I mention that homemade explosives are not a covered peril?
 
From the OP

I can assure you that I have no intention of trying to make gunpowder, either Black or Smokeless.
It's just that when I started to look into it, that I realized the complexity of the process.

Alfred Nobel and due Pont became very wealthy at making explosives. This wouldn't have happened if it was easy and anybody could do it.

Also explosives are something to be feared. An explosion moves at a rate of 35,000 fps, that's 10X faster than a fast .223 ! !

The comparison to a meth lab is true enough. Kaboom
 
Propellant and explosive manufacture is a dangerous business. It used to be accepted that a plant would blow up every now and then. An old article about a dynamite plant said each building had a man limit to hold down casualties when it did blow. The author said that when he and his guide entered a building that was fully staffed, the two least busy workers would leave.

Then there was the story about the plant that was rebuilt after an explosion. They moved one work station a foot so the new guy would not be standing in a dead man's footprints.

The last time the DuPont black powder plant blew up, it was the company's intention to rebuild, fill outstanding orders, including a big government contract, and then shut down. Gearhart and Owens bought the plant to dba Goex. Now owned by Hodgdon.
 
C7AR15 asked:
Has anybody ever made their own smokeless powder ??
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Not me.

I've been looking at the history of gunpowder from Black to smokeless. There is a lot of chemistry involved here !
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There certainly is.

And black powder is comparatively easy consisting - at its most basic - of carbon, potassium nitrate and sulfur. Still, it's not the ingredients, it's the process by which they are ground up, mixed and turned into granules that gets tricky - and burns down houses and maims people who try it without knowing what they're doing.

Anybody ever made a black or smokeless powder and loaded a round and shot it ? That would be impressive.
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I went to high School with a guy who made is own black powder. Burned down his front porch while trying it - nearly took out the whole house. He didn't load a round with it, he filled a fire extinguisher cylinder with it and ignited it. As a 17 year old, I was impressed. 40+ years later, I would be horrified.
 
Find a copy of Handloading by Phil Sharpe

In that text he explains how gun powder is made. After reading that text, you still want to make your own powder, good luck!
 
Jim Watson asked:
Was dynamite ever made by soaking cotton with nitroglycerine?
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No.

The smokeless propellant known as gun cotton was made by soaking cotton in a mixture of sulfuric and nitric acids (with a few other steps thrown in along the way).
 
Lolol...good read

Make your own smokeless ... not me no.. uhuh... thats a disaster waiting to happen

Now if tou can figure out how to reduce the price of Vita vouri powder... that would be something
 
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