Old Western Black Powder Pistols

Vrubel,

You tell me that you have tested your powder and it approaches 14 cubic CM per second of burn, and I will try it. If it is far off, either under or over, forget it.

Under it is underpowered, over, it is illegal, per ATFBE.

Have you proofed it, do you know what the burn rate is? Do you know how to determine the burn rate? If I were making my own, would think I would be happy to get a "boom", were I buying, I would think I would want consistency.

To them out there who think a slight overcharge is gonna blow their gun up, the originals were proofed at WAY higher loads than you could ever get in your gun, like all the way to the muzzle, with just room enough to cram in 2, yes, 2 balls. To be accepted, they had to pass that, and that was the brass framed models the Confederacy was making, with "iron" cylinders, I assume these were wrought iron, as they had to be twisted to make them stand the load. But, they did, in many instances. The ones that didn't went back for a better cylinder.

Cheers,

George
 
Sorry that it took so long to get back to you on this one. Two things:
1) I haven't done a perfect proof on it, but it looks like it's approaching 14cm3/sec. I'ld say 11cm3/sec, but I'ld want to get a camcorder and get it down perfect. if you know of another way to proof other than 70g of material and a stopwatch, let me know.
2) yes, 19% of the atmosphere is made of O2, and that's what oxidizes (OXYgen.. hence Oxidize) and it's not just simply the Chlorates that do it, the nitrates do it as well. The only reason that Nitrates don't oxidize as easily is because of the element the Nitrate is bonded too, in this case Potassium. Perchlorates are more likely to break their bonds with the potassium because of the type of bond the Perchlorate has with it's self and the Potassium. It's just weaker than the Nitrates is all, but I guarentee you that if you were to take pure KNO3 and stick some metal in there, eventually, you'ld have a rusted whatever, the nitrates forming a bond with the principal metal in the material and the potassium realigning with the residual material.
 
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Well, the more you are willing to burn, the closer your stopwatch method will be.

If you are only willing to sacrifice 14 cm3 of powder, then you have to be dead nuts with the start and the stop of the watch. 10% over or under, and this IS PER SECOND, you have made useless firestarter or banned explosive, per ATFBE or whatever all letters they have now.

I will , may have already, post a site that tells you a little more. Basically, take a coke can, cut it to a reasonable depth, calculate the volume leveled off, in cm3, ignite it and time the total burn. 140 cm3 should take 10 seconds. If it is faster, it is illegal, if it is slower, two options, fertilize the garden, or put it back in the mill, wet, after you have wet mixed the next batch. If you are not mixing it wet, mashing the air from the sulfur and charcoal, which are NOT hygroscopic, they are hydrophobic, you are not getting a good compound.

Press the cake when tou are done mixing, dry and corn, then break down further and sieve to get consistency of grain size.

If you want to sell it, you're gonna have to go to a little more expense than you have shown to spend so far, ie, can't burn too much to time the burn.

Cheers,

George

The link: http://www.fortliberty.org/military-library/how-to-make-black-powder-and-other-explosives.shtml
 
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