making black powder, and primers?

You don't make sulphur. Sulphur is a mineral. It occurs naturally. You find it at certain hot springs and mineral springs, active geothermal sites and geysers, and around some active volcanic areas. It also occurs, in some cases, in conjunction with larger copper deposits and sometimes with larger silver and gold deposits. There are also large deposits of sulphur by itself, left as a deposit from ancient geothermal activity. Sulphur appears as a crumbly stone or as crystals.

That said, making your own black powder is dangerous. The slightest static spark can set it off because fine dust from the powder occurs once it's dry. Even commercial plants have explosions, that tells you how dangerous it is. GOEX has had a few explosions, though the last one involved Clear-Shot substitute BP. If you want total self-sufficiency, better to set your sights to a traditional bow. You can't blow up your house making arrows from scratch.

Sulphur is also an element, which means that unlike charcoal or saltpeter, you can't make it via some other means.

The kitchen matches deal MIGHT work if you used the "strike anywhere" matches, but they're becoming harder and harder to find.

Making fulminate of mercury is possible with some pretty elementary chemistry, but it's UNGODLY foul smelling and quite dangerous, as well.

Regarding making your own caps...

There was an article about 1-2 years ago in The Backwoodsman magazine about making your own #11 caps. I don't remember the specifics, but paper roll cap pistol caps were part of the recipe.

IMO, if you need to be that self-sufficient, a bow or flintlock would be better.

Chris

You can usually order sulfur from any drugstore or lab chemical supply company.

Dixie and other suppliers sell the "Tap-A-Cap device for making caps.

Making your own primer mixture, ESPECIALLY fulminate of mercury, is the fastest way known to "tour the moon". It'll blow you sky high.
Companies that make even MODERN primer mixture, treat it like nitro with a bad attitude.

Making your own blackpowder is not legal in many locales due to the danger.

Some years ago a local "buckskinner" was going so far as to make his own rifled barrels, and tan his own clothes.

He and a daughter were killed while he was making black powder in his back yard. His house was mostly destroyed and a neighbor's house was damaged, and his son injured.

NOT worth it.

"Making your own primer mixture, ESPECIALLY fulminate of mercury, is the fastest way known to "tour the moon"."

I'm still here...

Handling the acids made me more nervous than the end product.

The foxfire book, i don't know what number, tells how to make BP. Good for reading only as far as I'm concerned. Never made my own caps, but for 10 years I was working for the National Park service in Vicksburg MS as Living history. We fired a cannon and rifles and would make our own friction primers and charges. Felt cool to be 18 years old mixing the goop for the primers and making the cannon charges. We used 1 lb of BP and peet moss. Nice big boom......

YOU MIX WET INGREDIENTS

I am not telling everyone to run out and make their own BP. The truth is that the ingredients are mixed wet, and will not explode that way. Commercial mills use dryers to speed process. This is where trouble is likely to enter. If the mixture is wet, stale urine works best, along with a bit of mucilage, and you sun dry the grains, it is just exactly as dangerous as handling a can of commercial powder. Prolonged drying time will weaken powder, but a 1/4 inch layer in the sun dries nicely.
Expressing fear over things like this, with all due respect, just provides fuel to the anti-gun fire. We engage in a potentially dangerous activity. We should stress knowledge and responsibility, not avoidance. I will never be heard to say that I am so stupid and inept that I can not learn to handle any aspect of my responsibillity. This is just what the antis want to believe.
Knowledge may save you someday. Absorb as much of it as you are able.

How to obtain natural sulphur

I really don't know if it is considered surphur or not or if it has the same chemical compound but I do know that flower pollen burns similar and when decomposed in water over a period of time reacts like a wead surphuric acid. If anyone wants to experiment with the challenge of finding out the key principles of pollen next spring. Post the results and let me know. How I crossed this discovery was I was trying to figure out a way to make Black Powder from scratch without money, just nature. Just so happened it was around spring and Pollen was on everything. Looked just like pollen, so I collected some up and experimented with it. Black Powder purposes only. Pollen also is an absorbent.

Home made primer

I have read a topic on the make of matches. Matches are no more than phosphorus and potassium chlorate. White Phosphorus highly flammable and can be ignited by common air. Red phoshorus more stable and used more likely in matches for safety. When red phosphorus and potassium is mixed the mixture can be ignited by a smash of pressure when dry. Common red phosphorus is the strike strip on the match box and potassium chlorate the match head itself.

Maybe this will be helpful to some one!

Me personally I am trying to find a way to obtain phosphorus naturally for survivor purposes and cost effectiveness. If some one knows please do post!

Pollen?

BP, when processed properly, becomes more than just a mixture of dry materials, pollen isn't going to have any value, unless you want to roast it, and make charcoal. Sulphur is mineral, and an element.
Don't get to messing around thinking you are an alchemist, there have already been a lot of those who put themselves in orbit!

Grow up!

"Maybe this will be helpful to some one"!
==============================
What will be "helpful" is actual basic knowledge. Sure, you can make stuff out of match heads, if you have too. I can make better primers, however, running around on the net giving out details is likely to get someone hurt, and you in trouble.
As gun owners and shooters we owe our Freedom the responsibility that goes along with it.
I'm not a moderator here, but I don't think this is where most of us go to find "mad bomber" recipes.

Making black powder safely is possible. I gave it a try a few times many years ago. I won't give the formula, as it's available elsewhere, but the secret is keep the ingredients wet after mixing. Each ingredient is ground seperately. It's safe to grind the ingredients dry, but to be safe, they're wetted then mixed. You corn this wet mix into granules and size them. Anything too small is re-corned until you have all granules and no dust. Then it's allowed to dry.

That said, you'll have a very hard time making GOOD black powder. Not only does the sulphur need to be very pure, but the type of wood used to make the charcoal matters more than you might believe. I don't remember offhand what the best wood is, but there's information about that one one of the black powder manufacturers sites. I ran into it a few weeks ago, but I don't remember which one. Goex maybe, or Swiss?

I don't think there's a safe way to make proper percussion caps at home. I'm sure there are field expedient methods, but I haven't tried any.

There were in the day, several formulations of powder that did not contain sulfur. The proportions of charcoal and potassium nitrate were adjusted for best burnup. It was harder to ignite, but it shot.

Swampsniper

Thanks jim watson. Swampsniper for you to know your stuff I'm suprised you haven't seariously hurt your self yet. For your knowledge, sulphur in gun powder is just used to retain moisture. Study more before talking. The posted message was for those who were looking for aternate ways to mix ratio formula;
75:15:10, soft wood muzzle loading-hard wood pyrotechnics.
Just for your info I am in no way affiliated with terrisms, But I do know it takes a terrist to know a terrist am I not right. Or are you some type of supernatural being with perfect actions. Imtimidation is terrisms. I served my country for four years right after high school so don't tell me about terrism.

You don't make sulfur, as stated above. But it's also not just a 'mineral.' It's an element!

You can buy 95% pure sulfur for dusting crops, roses, &c. at your local garden shop. You can also buy bulk potassium nitrate (NPK designation 14-5-33, I think...) but you're probably likely to get flagged because the rubes (especially the ones at Homeland Security) don't know the difference between poassium nitrate and ammonium nitrate.

You can also make your own potassium nitrate, but it's tricky to get the purity you need and time consuming, not to mention expensive compared to just buying a 50 pound bag of the stuff.

Making charcoal is very simple. I prefer willow, but other hardwoods will work - Don't try to use the stuff that you burn in your grill! Bust up the willow into 6" long or so thin sticks and cook it in a vented retort (a crab cooker with a buncha holes knocked in it works well) over an open fire until it quits smoking. That's your cue that it's all converted to charcoal.

Milling the stuff is the best way to do it. Don't use the "wet" or precipitation methods because they don't work nearly as well. I've found a big rock tumbler with a handful of musketballs does a fine job of milling and mixing the ingredients. The proportions are about 65-25-10, but feel free to experiment... Once the stuff is milled you have what's called "green powder." You can use this, but I don't recommend it in a firearm. After this you have to "corn" the powder, which involves pressing it (a 3 ton bottle jack, some big bolts, and creative application of PVC pipe is recommended) and finally grind the pressed powder into the grain sizes you want.

Some sifting screens are helpful, here.

Words to the wise: Set up your mill to run outside, or at the very least in your garage. Don't use steel media (shot) in your mill, because it can spark. Stick with lead. Even if the mill does go up (I've never seen it happen) it won't cause too much damage with the negligible confinement of the plastic rock tumbler, but your wife probably won't be too happy about you smoking up the whole house for a week.

There are oodles of priming compounds out there but all of them are by nature highly unstable and not something you'd want to trifle with synthesizing until you have some good pyro experience under your belt. Commercial caps are lead azide, if I remember right. You can get away with Armstrong's Mix (red phosphorous and potassium chlorate, very dangerous to work with in quantity) or any number of other shock sensitive mixtures.

A serious question

I must be a newbie, because I just don't understand the following:

To make BP, you mix wet ingredients. If you get smokeless wet, it turns to snot. Can anyone explain this in dumb-dumb terms so that I will understand it?

Thanks.

Black powder and smokeless are not made from the same ingredients, the best way I can explain.

Black Powder is:
Potassium Nitrate
Sulfur
Charcoal

Wikipedia says that smokeless is:
"Smokeless powder consists of nitrocellulose (single-base powders), frequently combined with up to 50 percent nitroglycerin (double-base powders), and sometimes nitroglycerin and nitroguanidine (triple-base), corned into small spherical balls or extruded into cylinders or flakes using solvents such as ether. Other minor ingredients, such as stabilizers and ballistic modifiers, are also added."

Smokeless generally shouldn't turn to snot in water - it's insoluble. It's soluble in many nitrate esters, though (that's why your Hoppe's #9 gives you a splitting nitro headache) and also in acetone.

If you get really bored you can actually use acetone to plasticize smokeless powder and cast it into shapes. It doesn't burn worth beans afterwards because you've eliminated all the surface area, but you can use it as solid rocket fuel for bottle rockets. Just add some paper drinking straws (plastic ones melt) and some bamboo skewers... But I digress.

You actually can wet black powder to a certain extent, but the potassium nitrate in it is water soluble and will eventually leech out. That's why powder that gets damp doesn't work well, even after you dry it out.

In controlled environments (that is, you're not letting the potassium nitrate go anywhere because you've got it drying in a vessel or similar) you can slightly moisten your powder-to-be to make it press better, or to make it harder to set off in your mill.

Contrary to popular belief, wet powder can burn, but the heat propogation throughout it is reduced. Get enough of it in one place and that point becomes moot, though, even if it's wet.