My good friend Bill Knight (aka Mad Monk) is a retired chemist and former consultant to many if not all the American BP makers. We have had quite a few conversations on the topic. He is the eminent authority in North America regarding Black Powder.
If I may be so bold as to summarize the tiniest snip of one of our conversations, Bill was asked as a paid consultant, to analyze and evaluate various batches of BP (at different times by different corporations) and to advise them on how they could improve the powder in various ways.
Each time it seems, the analysis did not echo what the powder company wanted to hear, and the advice seems to have been generally ignored.
One particular bit of advice was regarding the wood to use for charcoal, and the fact that the wood absolutely needed to be debarked prior to being turned into charcoal. This info was disregarded as "too costly" and when the wood is not debarked the resulting powder always produces copious fouling.
Another recommendation was that the species of wood was paramount,
with several specific species recommended over all others. That advice was also rejected as one manufacturor only wanted to use whatever he could obtain most economically.
When it was said that BP shooters demanded a better product, Often the reply was to the effect of "they'll take whatever we make or have none at all."
I could wax eloquent at nauseating length regarding the numerous "simple fixes" that were rejected for reasons ranging from "too costly" to "what does he know"... :-(
As a result, Mr. Knight no longer bothers to "cast his pearls before swine" and only participates in select forums. When he does choose to post, and an equally learned colleague engages him in some esoteric discusion (for example, regarding early experiments in measuring pressure curves) the resulting thread is like a golden lecture from a NASA scientist on rocket design.
One of the finest and least fouling of powders is Swiss, which if I recall correctly uses debarked Buckthorn Alder, and they are practically fanatical regarding their charcoal. Even that powder does not compare with the finest grades of powder that were produced in 1890 (as Mr Ideal Tool points out)
Bill has experimented with quite a number of different wood types, even the same species grown in different geographical regions. Type of wood is absolutely critical, as well as climate and region, since we are in fact dealing with the porosity of different species, and organic chemistry of the saps, sugars, and other organic and inorganic materials in the wood. Even the discrete size of the sticks, manner of stacking, charcoal cooking temperature, and length of cooking are important in the end result of a quality charcoal .
>Ok, so if the current Goex powder is so inferior as to be something only a
> few people would want, and it's so easy to make that one guy makes it
>himself, why isn't this vastly superior, easily produced powder on the
> market, putting Goex out of business?
It is simply the market forces involved. Please remember that the North American commercial market for BP is a mere fraction of the Military and Defense Market which has little care about "moist fouling" and fine residue as prized by small arms hobbiests.
yhs
prof marvel
