Thread: Making Black Powder

Right, as a constant tinkerer, one of my follies next year is going to give casting bullets and making my own black powder a go. I'm kinda leaning towards purchasing a flintlock eventually so I can shoot home brewed projectiles and powder which will be neat.

I'm quite happy I can source all of the components at a reasonable price and I can make an unlimited amount of willow charcoal as it's not exactly scarce in NZ.

But I'm interested in what people are using to tumble/mill the powder in NZ. I know overseas a lot use a harbour freight sources rock tumbler which we obviously don't have here. Anyone got any good sources for such equipment. Would also like to try tumbling with ceramic balls rather than lead as a few sources have found this creates cleaner burning powder.

Also is any one compressing and corning their black powder? If so how are you doing it/ what are you using. I might need to find someone with a lathe to make a pucking die!

Anyway be interested in how others are doing it and general experience.

SF90 will be along soon to regale us all with exploits both good and not so good causing hospitalization!!!!
grinding charcoal can be as simple as the head off sledgehammer and an old meat dish tray....
I gave up on the seiving and simply kept chopping the powder pile up as it dried.

I compress and granulate as I load 45/70 and snider brass as well as muzzle load.
I made a compressing die using aluminium ends and two split plastic tubes I hose clamp closed - made that at work (when I was) and it's pretty generic.
I've forgotten how many grams per CC I compress, but it comes out just a tad lighter than equiv Goes powders as I can't quite fit 500gms 'homemade' in a 500gm Goex can.
I also made a press frame for compressing and used a ten ton hydraulic jack, then discovered I could compress in my workshop/garage vice.
To do that I slightly dampen my weighed 'mix', load it into the die and squeeze. After 15 seconds I squeeze again, then a third time - or until my die closes to a designated length, it won't do it all in one 'squeeze' - not even with the jack.
When done, I take the hose clamps off , remove the outer tube from the inner, then pry the inner tube apart and take out the pucks.
I make three pucks in one squeeze, separated by plastic milk jug spacers.
The pucks are about 1/4" thick, and I just lay them out and dry them where they won't get hurt. A solid puck is pretty hard to ignite - won't do it on its own.
When thoroughly dry I put them in a plastic bag and beat the shit out of them with a hammer, then I shove the smashed bits in a ceramic coffee grinder and make the equiv F, FF, FFF and a considerable amount of dust which gets re-milled when I do it next time.
I do it all in small quantities in case TSHTF.

When I'm doing it - I'll spend a few days as it's time consuming and tedious, but I'll end up with a useful amount for little cost.

I'm here M'Sieur Duck - can't help myself ............

And I should ought to point out - I only got one eye in my head that works, blew the other out with homemade powder when I was nineteen. That put me in hospital for 15 weeks and I was lucky to come out with one still working.
That 'bang' put me fifteen feet in the air (so I was told) and I still remember the impact when I touched down - there weren't nothing gentle about it.

You are warned.

I use a ball mill in my ancient Acorn lathe - which is just a plastic jar with a screw top lid, 1/4 full of .54 lead balls.

I also use the 'Double and double' method of mixing (it's on the net somewhere) then I hand blend through sieves until it's as mixed as I can be bothered.
The fines from 'last time' get milled as well - and I do them on the end of a long extension cord so I'm well clear when it starts spinning.
I give each 'mill load' about three hours running - then sieve the powder into jars until it's all ready to mix - and I put on safety glasses when I do that.
My 'mix' is 75/15/10 - and while the end result don't look like Goex, it shoots to the same point of impact with the same amount - I can't tell them apart.

Originally Posted by SF90

I'm here M'Sieur Duck - can't help myself ............

And I should ought to point out - I only got one eye in my head that works, blew the other out with homemade powder when I was nineteen. That put me in hospital for 15 weeks and I was lucky to come out with one still working.
That 'bang' put me fifteen feet in the air (so I was told) and I still remember the impact when I touched down - there weren't nothing gentle about it.

You are warned.

A friend of mine split his arm open but yours sounded much more dramatic!

I use willow sticks I collect and de-bark and let 'em dry for a year or so I always got some drying. Don't know what type willow it is ...........
I then cook it in a twenty litre metal drum inside a 44 gal drum I turned into a cooker - with lid, grate and bars to sit the retort on. It takes a while and I found you can get black smuts all over the neighbours washing - so it'll pay to look and see if they're home before you do it.
It's noisy too, the gases coming out of that retort sound like a jet engine - I used to redirect them under the retort to save fuel wood.
I never worried about cooking at a certain temperature, but last time I did it I rigged the retort so I could read the temperature and was able to control the heat moderately well by opening and closing the lid and bottom draught.
I used Italian Alder on that burn and cooked it as the Swiss Powder Co do - certain temperature for a certain period of time. (can't be buggered getting my notes)

I undercooked that wood - it was all charred but a lot of brown in there that turned to airflow when I milled it. I mlll all my charcoal and sieve out the hard bits - there weren't none in that lot.
And the result is that powder don't shoot worth a damn - it goes 'bang' alright, but it doesn't shoot consistently - so I just use willow.

And something you said - my .54 lead balls are now about .38 cal balls - so my powder is probably full of lead ........... and that's got me thinking ............

Originally Posted by 300CALMAN

A friend of mine split his arm open but yours sounded much more dramatic!

Yeah - I walked into hospital with one eye ball out of it's socket, was like looking through a red milk bottle - then they gave me something really nice ............

My dad arrived and told me that though I was 'out of it' I wouldn't let them take my pants off. A rock had gone up my shorts and cut a groove in my bum before exiting the back of my shorts - effectively ruining them.

Funny the things you remember .......

I used an old lapidary tumbler with lead balls and milled overnight. I added1% water by weight of charcoal. Probably for no good reason as it comes out dry. I then wet the sieved powder with meths to make a stiff paste then pass it through a stainless and plastic mouli with a fine plate and allowed it to dry.
The grains were quite fine and fluffy and only about 75 percent of the weight of commercial goex volume for volume. You could crush it down somewhat when loading cartridge but I never bothered.
Haven't made any for years now but still have the readies and may just start again as my last kg if holy smoke cost $120.

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

I used an old lapidary tumbler with lead balls and milled overnight. I added1% water by weight of charcoal. Probably for no good reason as it comes out dry. I then wet the sieved powder with meths to make a stiff paste then pass it through a stainless and plastic mouli with a fine plate and allowed it to dry.
The grains were quite fine and fluffy and only about 75 percent of the weight of commercial goex volume for volume. You could crush it down somewhat when loading cartridge but I never bothered.
Haven't made any for years now but still have the readies and may just start again as my last kg if holy smoke cost $120.

My last kg of holy smoke cost $169...
My main BP rifle is a 45-70 so corning the powder might be necessary. A front stuffer you can just add 20% more or so to account for the weight/volume issue.

Originally Posted by Makros

My last kg of holy smoke cost $169...
My main BP rifle is a 45-70 so corning the powder might be necessary. A front stuffer you can just add 20% more or so to account for the weight/volume issue.

I get get 55grns home rolled under projectile easy...65 If really tamp it in with base of smaller case or poke it in through powder funnel with slender rod.

Santa just knocked on the door (well it was a bearded chap with a red van and red shirt,might not have been Santa as dont recal stories mentioning a turban before) dropped off a wee heavy parcel...some of the infamous 330grn gould projectiles....my excuses for not sorting out my hefalumpgun are deminishing daily.
THANKYOU ...you know who you are.

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

I used an old lapidary tumbler with lead balls and milled overnight. I added1% water by weight of charcoal. Probably for no good reason as it comes out dry. I then wet the sieved powder with meths to make a stiff paste then pass it through a stainless and plastic mouli with a fine plate and allowed it to dry.
The grains were quite fine and fluffy and only about 75 percent of the weight of commercial goex volume for volume. You could crush it down somewhat when loading cartridge but I never bothered.
Haven't made any for years now but still have the readies and may just start again as my last kg if holy smoke cost $120.

Got a suspicion they call that the CIA method - which is supposedly one of the safer ways to make it.
I do remember reading that compressing powder causes it to lose 'strength', but I never did it that way as I decided very early on I was gonna use the stuff in all my BP guns - they're all I shoot these days.
I even made some of them from scratch and another from a kit - and I've shot goats and deer with them.

My early BP making was shitty, used a mortar and pestle to grind it - and I still killed deer with the stuff out of a three band snider ............. I'm a 'tinkerer' like Makros - got an itch, it's gotta be scratched.

There's a guy I've seen on here 'Tasbay' who knows more about making it that way than I do - granulates damp powder through sieves I think - and he shoots animals with it.

BP has become really expensive now - hazardous shipping from the other side of the world I expect.
And when I was in my later teens there were times you couldn't even get the stuff - and that's why I started making it.
I used to buy it from the Sports Depot opposite Tisdals in Wellington - and they'd go out the back and come back with my pound of powder stapled up in brown paper bag. And I'd take that bag on the piss with me, it'd sit there on the table at the pub and nightclub while I 'primed' then tried to pick up Sheilas - used to smoke in those days too and how on earth one of those 'bag's never went up on me is something I'll never know.

I still got the first (?) pound can I bought from that shop - Curtis's & Harvey canister #4 - and the price on that tin is $2.15.

Considering the cost of components I would have imagined a NZ made powder to be somewhat cheaper, but maybe Martin is paying of some heavy set up costs ........... or something.

Never used his stuff, and haven't bought any other 'shop-stuff' for years - just use my own.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Santa just knocked on the door (well it was a bearded chap with a red van and red shirt,might not have been Santa as dont recal stories mentioning a turban before) dropped off a wee heavy parcel...some of the infamous 330grn gould projectiles....my excuses for not sorting out my hefalumpgun are deminishing daily.
THANKYOU ...you know who you are.

Cheers mate - am not sure what day the missus sent them and I was wondering today if you were gonna get them before Xmas - enjoy