Realcent.org

I'm going to copy a lot of what follows and condense it from a running thread I made on a gun forum I frequent but before I do:

I decided recently to try my hand at making real black powder. All I have ever used so far is Pyrodex. My every day carry piece is an 1851 Navy (.36 caliber) cap and ball and happens to be my most fun to shoot. Pyrodex runs me $20-25 a lb. Real black would be similar if I could find it near me, and exorbitantly priced if I had to have it shipped due to haz mat fee's. So it just seems logical that I should try my hand.

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Formula was KNO3 - 168 gr, C - 33.6 gr, S - 22.4 gr. Spectracide Stump Remover for kno3 (Labels and MSDS | Spectracide), Bonide 90% garden sulphur (http://www.bonide.com/lbonide/msds/msds141.pdf), Red Ceder charcoal.

This is just the components mixed into powder, did not mill, but thoroughly mixed after running through fine mesh. I have some I wet mixed that is drying waiting to be screened into grains. My main concern is identifying the residue.

Could it be from just not milling the ingredients fine enough? Or that 10% bentonite clay in the sulphur? Any constructive advice would be appreciated!
(Note: At this stage rough mixed, the screened fared no better than this next test)



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I improvised a morter and pestle using my shaving soap bowl and a screwdriver handle. Then I ground a bit for a while while watching a movie and without wetting and screening, ran the same fine powder through the same test. It seem to me from point of ignition to end of burn I have a 50% increase and much less residue, which I have read is KNO3 due to not having an "intimate" mixture.

Here is the second burn test.


Not wanting to shell out the big bucks for a good mill, or waste money on a cheap one, I have a drill press like the one in this video. Next time I go into town, I will be picking up 1/2" round and pipe insulation and PVC/end caps and making this mill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9S2fToAmWA Video is 3 mins.

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(At this point I made the mill and ran it in that)

Much much better.

Built the ball mill, tweaking it currently. This is after 1 hour of milling with .36 caliber round balls, 1 water bottle full, in a 4 inch pvc pipe with slip caps, bout a foot long.....


Ill mill it some more, then wet and screen it. Lookin good, I think!

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Success!! Milled it till it stuck together on it's own, screened it, wetted it to get it to stick together really well, Then screened with window screen last nite. Seemed fairly dry so I re-screened it with window screen this morning to get uniformity of granules since some was a bit over wet last nite and globbed up.

I used paper this time so you could get an idea of granule size.

This is the tail end of second screening, the lager granules. Once this dries I'll be ready to test fire!




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Next I'll load some up at some point and try to get a video of me firing it. Also to note, Normal percussion caps work fine on pyrodex, but the red plastic caps for toy cap guns didn't even scare it, let alone set the Pyrodex off. Never got even 1 chamber to fire no matter what I tried.

I am hoping and expecting the real black powder to be able to be set off with toy cap gun caps, since it has a MUCH lower ingition temperature and is more sensitive by far than the pyrodex. This would also be a huge savings as toy caps are dirt ceap and real caps run me about 6.99 per 100. And rather than the $20-25 a lb if I get my chems from ebay, the purity will go up and my final cost should be around $2.47 a lb or just a measly 10% of what I pay now.

Hope ya'll enjoyed, add a new hobby to the list for me, lol !

Wow. Nice work, just be careful.

Thanks for the videos. I look forward to more.

Deal

Very insightful series of videos. A great example of technique and handling really being the key in end product performance.

Agreed, be careful.

Finally made it to the range today and she shoots better than what I buy at the store. Clean up is a lot easier than pyrodex too! Waaay less cylinder binding.

I'm sold!!! Here's some of the test shooting...

You may be the most talented and creative man I know.

That is very kind Thogey! I do appreciate it.

The process aint hard, anyone can do it I would say. The key is certainly getting the 3 ingredients down to super fine and mixed well. There is another method I haven't tried where the KNO3 is dissolved in boiling water the the C and S are added to that and the resulting slurry is rapidly cooled in ice cold alchohol causing the KNO3 to precipitate out and onto the C and S. It seems very hard to me to guage the amount of KNO3 left in solution so you would lose some of the oxidizer. I just don't like the sounds of it, so as long as I have time I'll still to milling it.

My granules do go back to dust since I just wet screen it, let it dry and screen it again. To prolong them is proper size form, next batch, I'll put an ounce or so into a 1.5" PVC pipe and use a dowel as a ram with a hydraulic jack to try and get 1300 psi and press them into pucks. This should give me a density of about 1.7grams per cc, then ill break em up and run that through a coffee mill when dry. That should give me well formed, proper sized granules that will hold up to bouncin around in the powder bottle much longer. Of course if it goes to dust, just re-wet and screen and your back to golden.

They have found powder from the civil war that still goes boom, so decay isn't really an issue.

Powder for under 2.00 a lb will cut my costs to shoot waaay back. Big O sells me a 5 gal bucket of wheel weights for $40 (80-120lbs I think last I bought a few) for my round balls.

Now if I can just figure a way to make my own percussion caps...

That's awesome man. You never cease to amaze me.

Now get on that percussion cap issue.

Deal

Yep very cool. And a small mill and lathe and you could be a one man armory.