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.

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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.

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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 ............

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Originally Posted by 300CALMAN

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 :)

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Originally Posted by SF90

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.

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Do you have a picture please of the puk-pressing tools you use, I can't quite visualise it.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

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.

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I can cram 80grs of mine in a Winchester 45/70 case using a 'drop tube' and a bit of compression - but I was out with my mate a few years back and watched him plonk two 330gr Gould's into two deer using only 50 gr of powder at 100 yards - lazered.
Both those deer (red stags from memory) just 'humped up', walked a few laboured paces and fell over.
Both shots were almost identical - range, animal behaviour, and both shots were pass-throughs.
They were both out on the grass and I was able to watch everything.

That was quite a lesson for me - as slow as those big bullets are, they take some stopping - so I'd say your 55grs are okay for bush hunting, as long as they go point first and are reasonably accurate.
One thing is, most of the bush deer I've shot with BP had some awareness I was there and took off at the shot. And that's where I like 'heavy' and 'pass-throughs' - you got something to follow :)

There is a very long thread on Cast boolits website about making blackpowder, Wellworth a read.

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Originally Posted by Cordite

Do you have a picture please of the puk-pressing tools you use, I can't quite visualise it.

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This is a new Computer my son gave me and it's not registered or licensed for 'Word' - so it won't read my 'old computer' I got on a disc - and that's where my pictures are.

My plastic cylinders are 97mm long, one inside the other and both split longitudinally.
The I.D. of the smaller one is just under 61mm and the O.D. of the outside one is just over 68mm.
Wall thickness of each tube is about 1.75mm - three hose clips hold them closed.
The short aluminium end cap is shaped like a 'top hat' and has barrel 10mm long that fits neatly in the pipe - the 'top hat' bit is a flange 10mm thick by 76mm diameter. This cap is in place when I load powder into the die.
The other cap has the same diameter barrel but is about 76mm long. It has the same flange as the other end, but is longer as this is the one that squeezes down.
I just squeeze 'em up until they can't go any further.

The two splits in the plastic barrels are offset to each other - so nothing comes out of them, and when I press I get almost zero free water, just a light dampness.
I use distilled water as I read Early American powders could be plagued by impure water which had a deleterious (bad) effect on the long storage of that powder - so I play it safe.
In the old days I used urine, fresh and stale because I'd read it made stronger powder, but reading up on the British powders of the time - and it's interesting reading too, they didn't bugger around with anything other than clean water.

All up, my die is 116mm long and remarkably pleasing to look at :)

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Originally Posted by Driverman

There is a very long thread on Cast boolits website about making blackpowder, Wellworth a read.

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Lots of guys across the ditch doing it - they helped me refine my processing.
Charcoal is the most important thing in making a good (fast) powder, and willow is rated.

I remember reading an answer someone asked the Guru's at Goex as to why their powder isn't as good (powerful) as Swiss - and the answer was ............... "We can make a much stronger powder - and that would screw up all those who use our powder and don't read labels."

And that's relevant.
I could probably make a faster powder, it's why I buggered around with the Alder - but truth is my powder operates the same as my Goex and that's all I need.

But .......... I am a tinkerer

Oh - and be a little careful with what you absorb from your readings, like anything there's some cowboys out there with advice I'm not totally onboard with .........

But if I had a front loader I think I'd just make it the way 'Marty Henry' did ............ quicker and likely a lot safer :)
I think they call that 'pulverone' ..............

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Originally Posted by GDMP

Surprising someone enterprising here has not set up a small powder mill and started producing black powder for sale.....especially with erratic supply from overseas sources.

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Van Tiel Pyrotechnics Ltd in the Waikato here makes good black powder called "Holy smoke". Therefore, surprisingly black powder isn't subject to the shortages we've experienced with other components.

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Originally Posted by 7mmwsm

Would any of you guys who know be interested in running a workshop type day on this?
I'd love to learn how to and how not to.
Don't really trust Internet recipes.

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I'm actually moderately antisocial - I don't really like people that much, so no - don't think that's something I'd do.

I spent 3 months trapping on my own up behind the Cobb Dam in the seventies and never saw a soul in that time - and it didn't worry me at all - just got a hankering for beer, fish 'n chips and chocolate. And that's why I live rural - there were bugger all people here when I arrived. Place is full of people now - three cars a minute.
I didn't even like girls that much, or not enough to bring them home - until one day I did, and that's why I got kids.

I do like to talk, you'll probably learn that - and I'll talk a lot of shit for no reason other than I like to talk - but you're over there and I'm here and that's okay.
That probably sounds really rude, and I'm sorry if it does and I'm a bit embarrassed about it - but running a workshop - I'd probably shit my pants ...........

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Originally Posted by GDMP

Surprising someone enterprising here has not set up a small powder mill and started producing black powder for sale.....especially with erratic supply from overseas sources.

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Oh - I thought about it, but got dragged into making parchment from possum skins instead and it was ten years before I surfaced.
Martin (Van Tiel) had set up his business by that time - and I weren't getting any younger .............

But I would like to see someone else competing, might help bring down price to a more affordable level ........... maybe.

I'm no businessman - went bust with my last business.

Martin's powder is quite highly rated from what I've heard - the blokes down the BP club like it, and they shoot distances I can't even see - just clearing that up :)

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Originally Posted by SF90

Martin's powder is quite highly rated from what I've heard - the blokes down the BP club like it, and they shoot distances I can't even see - just clearing that up :)

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I have used most brands available in NZ, Goex, Schutzen, Swiss, Curtis & Harvey, Elephant with Swiss having the reputation of being cleanest & fastest but Van Tiel's Holy Smoke is right up there, comparable to Swiss easily. It's very good powder and NZ made so readily available. At some point BP will stop coming into NZ as prohibitive pricing for shipping explosives will have an effect on such a small market. I am also very keen to try his new BP Cartridge formulation, I'm hearing good things.

I substituted out the willow for totara and my powder got denser...if lived in north island tawa would be interesting to try as its rather similar to willow... I tried totara as have tree on front lawn and wee branch had blown off and was dry
looking at burning characteristics of willow burns fast/burns clean with little ash/sparks if burnt green/is light in weight/easy to ignite....then thought about our native timbers and both tawa and totara met same criteria.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110520...r/bp_menu.html here is the place to get your knowledge.....

There's an internet bloke by the monicker 'Mad Monk' who did a lot of research into modern and historic powders - and wrote about it in a series of articles. Some of those are quite old now - but you might be able to dredge them up.

His take is - Swiss is the best powder made today - and Goex used a 'special' charcoal they bought from a supplier who'd extracted whatever they wanted from the wood and dumped the 'char' to the Goex company.
Swiss used Buckthorn Alder - which is currently the Rolls Royce wood for Black Powder charcoal.
Goex used whatever they could get cheap, their primary client being the military - us gun enthusiasts being just a sideline.
I see Goex has different offerings on the market now - I think 'Swiss' has made them think about pulling their sox up.

There's been good and bad powders through history, but concensus usually points to the Brits making some of the best powders ever made. The Govt mills at Waltham Abbey made a lot of these powders in the nineteenth Century and they used different formulations for different guns. The Brits put a lot of investment into gunpowder - they had an Empire to rule.

Curtis's $ Harvey made an extremely good commercial canister powder they sold across the world under different guises - we knew it as 'Curtis's & Harvey #6'
Sometime in the mid/later twentieth Century they sold the powder making equipment to Wano (Germany) and they continued the C&H #6, but using a different charcoal - and it was shit.

The charcoal is the guts of any black powder - and buckthorn alder was King.
And cooking it was all important ........... improper 'cooking' could turn the best wood into something incredibly average - I've done it.

They have a competition over in the States where people fire golf balls out of mortars. Some of the homemade powders that are made today in the 'enthusiasts' garage blow any of the commercial makers into the sidelines - they're getting 'hang-times' no one's ever seen before.

So - lot of experimentation to go yet, there will be formulations (not all powders are 75/15/10) and new charcoal woods that will exceed current knowledge - so, an interesting one to pursue :)

Quite a few years ago the Rotorua Deerstalkers Club challenged the Blackpowder shooters from the club next door to a 'shoot'.
I don't what the rules were, nor the ranges - all I did know was the NZDS chaps could use scopes .........

And the BP boys cleaned them up :)

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

https://web.archive.org/web/20110520...r/bp_menu.html here is the place to get your knowledge.....

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That's an interesting page, been around for years - good place to start any research you might want to do.

Be warned - it can become addictive ...................

golf balls....amatures ...real men use blacksmiths anvils LMFAO....

I'd like to see the 'hang time' for an anvil ...............

Thirty years ago I was at an informal black powder shoot on a farm above one of the smaller Rotorua lakes - one guy had brought a beer can mortar that fired beer cans full of concrete. At the end of the 'shoot' we were standing around and half a mile away and considerably lower than us was a swan floating around minding its own business.

"I got one can left, reckon I could hit it ?"
"Sod off, you haven't a shit show."

And that beer can went straight through the middle of that swan, just left the outspread wings and a bit of wreckage floating.

"You rotten bastard, what'd you do that for ......."

And thats what that anvil comment made me think of.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

golf balls....amatures ...real men use blacksmiths anvils LMFAO....

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Like this?

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

golf balls....amatures ...real men use blacksmiths anvils LMFAO....

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And that's why the average sale time for an anvil on here is about 4.5 minutes....

And I thought 'the Duck' was joking ............ :wtfsmilie:

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Originally Posted by Makros

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.

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Any of the Harbour Freight stuff can be sourced from Aliexpress, I got the same cutoff saw that they sell for cutting .223 to .300 blackout in 230 Volt
I would say the rock tumbler would be available, American no longer make small cheap tools the import what ever they can,