Thread: Ulrich Bretscher's SMOKELESS BLACK POWDER & HANDGONNE web page. Re-found!

Originally Posted by homebrew.357

I always thought the grains of the stuff you buy are very hard so at the damp stage it could be compressed into round pucks, then dried and then granulated, should give you nice hard grains with more oomp. I have found my case cleaner also is good for removing the spruce off my lead round balls, a ball mill!!!, nar. Have made a puck maker that fits in my reloading press, just for fun and giggles only you know.

Good point!

I'm dramatically out of my depth in that I haven't done it myself, but have read about compressing BP to get the an accepted standardized density so that true BP (Not substitutes) is equal for both weight and volume at whatever that given density is, which I thinnnnnnnnnk came about because traditionally volumetric powder measures are far more practical, affordable, and robust in day to day life when people were using BP guns for feeding themselves or fighting. There may also be a benefit that hard BP grains don't disintegrate over time from shaking until they end up as FFFFg dust.

Also have a vague memory of black powder grain burn rates decreasing as density increased(??I may be wrong??), which could explain why people making their own are getting faster, fluffier powders at the same gravimetric weight than the denser commercial manufacturers.

Two neat pages relating to density vs weight
BP Conversion Sheet (revised December 2012) - would have been neat to see a 5 or 10 shot median velocity with same projectile/firearm with each load/powder

https://www.chuckhawks.com/blackpowder_volumetric.htm


I'm curious if one were to make smokeless(sulphurless) black powder, whether it would behave similarly at the standardized black powder compressed volumetric/gravimetric grain weight..... probably not, but would be neat to find out, and would certainly make measuring it with the normal BP volumetric scales easier.