noise..just noise".

Powder and cardboard?

I did that with my BP shotgun many years ago. A guy in my house wanted to "shoot" it new years. I was in a place where I was okay with new years, but July was just too much fire danger. This was near Chico, CA.

I put in some powder, as I recall, I put a tiny piece of a cotton ball next, just to keep the powder in place. On top of that, I put some firecrackers, then a simple piece of cardboard to hold it all in. It worked as expected, the flash lit the shortened fuses and they went "pop" up in the air, he got a big kick out of it.

billy j miller said:

wanna know a good method of bp and wads to make my 51'navy go boom..no ball nir bullit..jus cap n powder i know its gunna be a mess but it's the 4th wth right"

Click to expand...

I would ball up some paper and ram it down hard enough onto the powder and wad to seal the chamber tight.
Ram 2 balls of paper into each chamber if needed.
Use newspaper, printer paper, paper bags, whatever paper that you've got.
Without a good seal, there won't be any bang.

I use folded/wadded up paper from magazines, junk mail, or newspaper. Doesn't have to be super super tight.

15-20 grains of powder, then Cream of Wheat on top. Ram home. Or use floral foam, just a bit.

Mr.Mike OTDP, ive heard of floral foam being used although ive never used it...does it work well? Ive heard of folks using it as a filler and that it combusts completely. Have you personally used it and whats your take on it?

The foam. Will deal enough to get good pop and will burn up.

The 4th is over but I use wasp nest for wads. I grab every one I see. I use it in rifles,shotguns and in revolvers to get the ball closer to the front. Just be sure its an old one unoccupied by wasp. Got one big as a dinner plate once and laid it down in the kitchen. Next morning a couple wasp were walking around on it so I put it out side....

I've used floral foam. Works fine. Remember that the idea is to simply hold the powder in the chamber, not compress it.