Thread: Home Brew Black Powder........Craft Powder?

them red gobules....yip I know about them...its a sulphur lump in the powder,got them in the first batch...not so much in 2nd batch.
I found the pushing through seive bit was painful with powder mixed...but may have found better option...seive the charcoal BEFORE mixing to eliminate any larger bits.

Originally Posted by SF90

Oh - I'm still here ...... been rattling on about BRNO's.

Another thing about charcoal, is if you cook it in an oxygen deprived environment and grind it small and add it to soil - it'll enhance the growth of pine tree seedlings roughly two to threefold.

Why would anyone want to do that. Bloody pine trees.

It 's called 'char' and and is the carbonised wood that is created in the 'oxidisation zone' of a wood gasifier when generating gas to run yer car ........ or generator ............ or just to flare gas.

Some people do it just to get char - it's good shit

Apparently ................

Originally Posted by SF90

Oh - I'm still here ...... been rattling on about BRNO's.

Another thing about charcoal, is if you cook it in an oxygen deprived environment and grind it small and add it to soil - it'll enhance the growth of pine tree seedlings roughly two to threefold.

Ya could have told me that 6 years ago!!!

Didn't know about it six years ago - looked into 'wood gasifying' after listening to all the gas being liberated when making willow charcoal for BP.
And one thing led to another and now the neighbourhood thinks I'm a fuckin nutter

The world wouldn’t be what it is today without nutters. Y’all keep doing what you’re doing.

I could do with you as a neighbour

Originally Posted by SF90

Didn't know about it six years ago - looked into 'wood gasifying' after listening to all the gas being liberated when making willow charcoal for BP.
And one thing led to another and now the neighbourhood thinks I'm a fuckin nutter

Perhaps but still good to see you are still about Good to see your still making powder. Was up at the range a couple of days ago getting rid of some homemade powder through a Pedersoli Kentucky .50cal, No issues hitting the 4 inch steel plate at 100mts with just screened powder. Had always hated that gun until I just recently relented and took off the flint lock and replaced it with the Percussion lock. Had always had issues with the lock.

I hoped you would show up and chime in...

My "ball mill" is a 6" pvc pipe about a foot long, heated and crimped in a bit (to promote tumbling rather than rolling). Driven by an old vat-stirring motor. Half full of various lead ball sinkers. Can do +/-1.5lb of BP at a go. Run on a stension lead, round the back of shed incase of bangs, but never had one yet.

You can also skip the sulfur, if you want. Straight KNO3 and charcoal.
Any charcoal works, I'm fortunate enough to have crack-willow local, which apparently has the highest calorific bang-for-buck.

I've tried pucking and corning and not noticed any difference from .303 to .45-70 to 12ga to golf-ball cannon. So it gets used straigh out of the mill.