Powder shortage continues.

[GeneCC]

Learn how to make black powder (last resort).

Very very bad idea.

The process of making black powder...

1. Incorporation of sulfur and charcoal.
2. Addition of potassium nitrate
3. Compression into cakes.
4. Breaking up the cakes.
5. Screening and sorting.


Step 4 is extremely dangerous and where most of the fatalities over the years have happened.

Rather make smokeless powder using the "Ball Propellant" process. It's dangerous but not as bad as black powder.

[bogey1]

Very very bad idea.

The process of making black powder...

1. Incorporation of sulfur and charcoal.
2. Addition of potassium nitrate
3. Compression into cakes.
4. Breaking up the cakes.
5. Screening and sorting.


Step 4 is extremely dangerous and where most of the fatalities over the years have happened.

Rather make smokeless powder using the "Ball Propellant" process. It's dangerous but not as bad as black powder.

I think you are wrong. BP is very safe. You dont mix it dry or ball mill it dry with all ingredients mixed together. You use water to mix all ingredients together, then run it through a screen when its dry. Its not shock sensitive, it wont blow up if you hit it with a hammer. I have not once ever heard of ia accident making BP at home.
BP is one of the safest powders to make.
Flash and whistle mix is shock sensitive. Not BP.

[elweasel]

I agree as long as you know what to and why you do it mixing BP is relatively safe. However just remember how dumb the average person and by definition, half the world is dumber than that.

As for smokeless, dealing with nitrocelluose and acids just is not my sense of fun. Again remember the average person. And dont forget to be awesome.

[GeneCC]

I think you are wrong. BP is very safe. You dont mix it dry or ball mill it dry with all ingredients mixed together. You use water to mix all ingredients together, then run it through a screen when its dry. Its not shock sensitive, it wont blow up if you hit it with a hammer. I have not once ever heard of ia accident making BP at home.
BP is one of the safest powders to make.
Flash and whistle mix is shock sensitive. Not BP.

You have made your own black powder? Too?

The process you describe is called "corning", a technique that was abandoned in the early 1800s because of poor shot to shot consistency.

I HAVE had accidents with black powder but mostly I've had disappointments. Corned powder stinks.

I still have all ten fingers and my eyes which means I've been lucky too.

Black powder is static sensitive unless treated (usually graphite) and while not shock sensitive is still a touchy explosive.

Anyone else out there who feels froggy is invited to try corned black powder in their firearms.

Me? I'll stick with either commercial stuff or substitutes. I've run out of luck, thank you very much.

[GeneCC]

As for smokeless, dealing with nitrocelluose and acids just is not my sense of fun. Again remember the average person. And dont forget to be awesome.

Ball process was designed to use old single base artillery propellants. No acids required. The touchy part is getting the grain sizes right, applying a deterrent and then getting the progressivity correct.

I don't intend to make the stuff. If pressed I'd rather work with it than horse around with corned black powder or play with the Wheel of Death to break up the cakes of pressed black powder.

[bogey1]

You have made your own black powder? Too?

The process you describe is called "corning", a technique that was abandoned in the early 1800s because of poor shot to shot consistency.

I HAVE had accidents with black powder but mostly I've had disappointments. Corned powder stinks.

I still have all ten fingers and my eyes which means I've been lucky too.

Black powder is static sensitive unless treated (usually graphite) and while not shock sensitive is still a touchy explosive.

Anyone else out there who feels froggy is invited to try corned black powder in their firearms.

Me? I'll stick with either commercial stuff or substitutes. I've run out of luck, thank you very much.

Static guard and grounding straps will cure that.
I dont make it for firearms. I make it for lift charge and burst charge. As i said, (worst case scenario) you can use it in place of gun powder.
As i said, Bp is so safe it shouldn't be an issue,.

[Gunsnwater]

I think you are wrong. BP is very safe. You dont mix it dry or ball mill it dry with all ingredients mixed together. You use water to mix all ingredients together, then run it through a screen when its dry. Its not shock sensitive, it wont blow up if you hit it with a hammer. I have not once ever heard of ia accident making BP at home.
BP is one of the safest powders to make.
Flash and whistle mix is shock sensitive. Not BP.

I have shot muzzle loaders since the 70s and hitting black powder with a hammer, or shearing it in a smokeless powder measure will ignite it. Static electricity can set it off. Yes the wet works but you still have to break it up dry before you screen it. It also works as a dry mix before the water, it's call serpentine powder. Black powder is the most dangerous propellant because it doesn't need compression to increase burn rate, it's a constant. It always explodes while smokeless deflagrates. Check out the book hatchers notebook. It's all in there.

[Gunsnwater]

Put some black powder on an anvil and hit it with a hammer, mine went off.
Check out the warnings on powder measures "smokeless only"

[bogey1]

Put some black powder on an anvil and hit it with a hammer, mine went off.
Check out the warnings on powder measures "smokeless only"

Ive done that. With mine, and goex. Nothing. I'm used to the real sensitive powder, the kind you can barely touch. Maybe Ive been lucky all my life

heres something i clipped from the web..

Black Powder

Black powder was the sole propellant, explosive and pyrotechnic agent for 500 years, from 1300 to 1800, and is still in use for certain applications. It is a unique and fascinating compound chemically, technologically and socially. It was invented as a pyrotechnic substance, then applied as a propellant in firearms, and finally used in engineering and mining. The history of black powder and firearms is treated in Cannon. Some authors make assertions about the history of black powder that are not supported by good evidence, and should not be accepted without better proof. An egregious assertion is that Chinese alchemists experienced a black powder explosion in 220 BCE. There is no evidence of "black powder" in China, and this is about 1200 years before nitrates were first discovered and used, according to more reliable sources. The great Chinese invention was pure nitrates, which they used in pyrotechnic devices, arrow throwers and rockets. The invention of black powder is shrouded in mystery; neither Roger Bacon nor Berthold Schwartz invented it, but high-nitrate powder is probably a European invention. Black powder is not a simple mixture of nitrate, charcoal and sulphur.

The composition of ordinary black powder is 65-75 KNO3, 15-20 C, 10-15 S, which is close to the "stoichiometric" ratio of 84:8:8 that gives the ideal reaction 10KNO3 + 8C + 3S → 2K2CO3 + 3K2SO4 + 6CO2 + 5N2. The heat released is 685 kcal/kg, and the volume expansion factor is 5100. The solid products make the characteristic white smoke. The actual reaction depends on the exact constitution of the powder, how it is prepared, and how it is detonated. The density of gunpowder is about 1.04 g/cc. Black powder is the safest of all explosives. It is insensitive to shock and friction or to electric spark. It must be initiated by heat or flame. Moisture renders black powder useless, and drying does not restore its properties.

The nitrogen in KNO3 has a formal charge of +5, which is reduced to 0 in N2 (in such molecules the formal charge is taken as zero, its average value). The carbon is oxidized from 0 to +4 in CO2 and the carbonate, and the sulphur from 0 to +6. KNO3 is a stable and safe oxidizing agent, not capable of explosion on its own. Black powder is a very stable explosive, insensitive to shock or friction, but sensitive to heat and flame. Like all explosives, it supplies its own oxygen and does not rely on the atmosphere. Note that it is much less efficient as a heat source than carbon and oxygen, which gives 2140 kcal/kg. Its utility lies in its ability to furnish its energy in a very short time, while the carbon will take a good while to burn.

How the powder burns is affected by the grain size. The larger the grain, the slower the powder burns. Fine powder is used for blasting, small grain for firearms, and large grain for cannon. A large variety of black powders are manufactured, and each type has a special designation and use. Black powder is essentially a propellant that burns at a rapid but finite rate determined mainly by its temperature. It is often said that gunpowder will only burn in the open, but explodes when confined. This is much too simple a statement. When in the open, the unburnt powder never becomes hot enough to burn rapidly. When confined, as in a firecracker, the powder quickly becomes hot enough to burn very rapidly, releasing all the energy in a very short time, quickly enough to make a loud report. Pressure does raise the rate of burning, but gunpowder has the least pressure effect of any common explosive, and for this reason is gentle to guns. A thread of gunpowder, wrapped in paper or other covering, burns at a slow and reliable rate, making a delay element or fuse.

Because of its safety and reliability, pressed black powder is used as the propellant in small rockets. A powder for this service has less KNO3 and S, and more C. Its rate of burning can be slowed with chalk, wax or talc. A typical mix is 91 black powder, 9 chalk. No more than 3% of the powder can be stopped by a #20 sieve (0.84 mm) and no less than 60% must be stopped on a #40 sieve (0.42 mm). It is compressed to 1.82-1.89 g/cc, and contains 1.8%-2.5% moisture. This propellant grain is burned in a chamber with a ceramic choke in army signal rockets, which reach 700 ft. altitude. A bursting charge expels 5 white stars that free-fall, or else a red star with parachute, that burns for about 50 sec. and falls at 10-15 ft/s. A model rocket has a pressed black powder propellent grain, and a granular black powder ejection charge. There is a delay element between the two charges, so that the rocket coasts to its maximum altitude before releasing the payload. The fuel for solid-fuel rockets, though called the "powder grain," is a cast plastic cylinder of the fuel material. The word "grain" does, in fact, seem to come from the grains of black powder that are used in a pressed charge, and has been transferred to the whole fuel assembly of any type.

Black powder is an oxidizer--fuel mixture of the type we shall discuss at more length under pyrotechnics. The sulphur and charcoal are first ground together, so that the thixotropic sulphur coats the colloidal charcoal intimately. Then the nitrate is mixed in by wet grinding. The nitrate produces oxygen to oxidize the sulphur and carbon, catalyzed by the large active surface of the charcoal, while releasing the nitrogen with the evolution of heat. The reaction begins at a temperature where there is a change in the crystal structure of the nitrate, which creates lattice defects that encourage the solid-state reaction.

War rockets were not extensively developed in China, and were used only incidentally in the West. Rockets for pleasure pyrotechnics did, however, become widely used, and were the basis for later war rockets. William Congreve developed his war rockets in the late 18th century, but they were only successfully used first in 1807 at Copenhagen. They were difficult to control, and not very effective. However, they could be fired with a light launcher instead of a heavy cannon, a principle later extensively applied. The last major use of Congreve rockets was in the Zulu war of 1879. Rockets appeared again in the Second World War for use in mass flights from landing ships and to support infantry. They also were used in the recoilless rifles and antitank rocket launchers that are still valuable, providing powerful artillery without the weight and recoil.

[Gunsnwater]

http://goexpowder.com/handling.html
It is very short I didn't want to steal from them so I just posted the link. A few years ago I read about the impact so I took a few granuals and put them on the anvil part of my vice. At first they didn't go off but then I got the hang of it with a short smart rap. Black burns from the out side in. The rate is in relation to surface area. If in the barrel the pressure cracks the grains the surface area increases. You can imagine how fast we are talking. Smokeless is single or double base. Nitrocellulose or nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. It delegates , burns from the outside in unless confined where it will detonate. That's a shockwave propagation. This is inhibited by shape and coatings. I have disposed of old cans by burning in the past with a long skinny trail to the pile. Black goes woof with a little mushroom cloud. Smokeless burns like a spitting smoke filled flare that builds in intensity. My grandfather had the place to do this safely. I don't reccomended it today. In a rocket motor it is controlled as to the exposed surface area. In granular form it's a whole nuther beast.