Black Powder Video

[ThomasT]

This video was posted over on thefiringline forum and while its a long watch it has some interesting information on real BP. The two guys are sort of goof balls but one is actually an Ordinance Officer for the military and does know what he is talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yjepTZ-lH4

 

[whughett]

Watching it now. Informative.
Thanks

Well worth the 1:11 minutes of viewing time.
Dispels a lot of myths about energy between the “Fs”.
Explains the F system of granulation.
Swiss is superior to any because of the charcoal used.
The US military uses a million pounds of Goex a year.
Goex is manufactured to military burn rate specifications.
18th 19th century black powder was more energetic than modern black powder. Swiss comes the closest.
And much more.

 

[ThomasT]

It really starts to get interesting around the 17 minute mark. And some of the details on how its used in modern military rounds is also interesting. I liked the part about how different woods improved the performance of BP. The charcoal can make or break a powder. I have thought about making my own BP and Willow wood makes good charcoal. I can find that. Dogwood is even better. Only problem is I don't know what a Dogwood tree looks like. My bud said you can tell a Dogwood by it's bark.

Let me know if you don't get the joke.

 

[whughett]

I was somewhat confused about the “dogwood” reference the flowering dog wood tree in my back yard is a completely different genius then the Buckthorn he’s calling dogwood.

 

[ThomasT]

I was somewhat confused about the “dogwood” reference the flowering dog wood tree in my back yard is a completely different genius then the Buckthorn he’s calling dogwood.

I have no idea. I know very little about trees. I know some of the big ones like Oaks and Pecans and a few others like Mulberry, Sycamore and Willow but not a whole lot more past that. I have read that some of the top wood for BP charcoal is Balsa Wood. But I'm not about to burn my supply of it, it has too much value for building the RC Models I like to fly.

In the Video they also mentioned Alder wood for charcoal and IIRC thats what Swiss uses in their powder. Thats another tree I can't identify and it may not even grow around here.

 

[whughett]

Alder Blackthorn charcoal is what he showed the Swiss powder is composed.

 

[Malachi Leviticus Blue]

Grape vine and poplar are supposed to be good woods, and they are both growing everywhere on my property.

 

[ThomasT]

Never heard that about grapevine. I know where lots of wild Mustang grapes are growing. And I use Poplar for spars and other parts in the RC model planes I mentioned above. And I can buy all or that I want at Lowes and Orange Depot.

 

[whughett]

Been tempted to try making black powder, but I got enough hobbies going with out the risk.
Watched a few more of the videos with those two but seems to be mostly military muzz loaders.

 

[TheOutlawKid]

The best fastest and cleanest burning is paulownia tree charcoal. It beats swiss by a long shot. Its a fast growing light weight wood from china but is an invasive species here in the states. I use red alder and it exceeds swiss speeds...but only by about 15-30 feet per second with all things being equal.

 

[gtrgy888]

I kind of suspected Goex had a military application unrelated to small arms shooting. How else could a muzzle loading product suck so badly for so long and outcompete all competitors without a military contract?

 

[whughett]

Perhaps sucks is a subjective term. I’ve only used Goex and Schutzen in my revolvers, single shot pistols and occasional shotgun 12 gage shells, so I’m not qualified to say. Both suit my purpose go bang and put the lead down range on target. Dirty is dirty so that’s irrelevant to me.

 

[whughett]

The best fastest and cleanest burning is paulownia tree charcoal. It beats swiss by a long shot. Its a fast growing light weight wood from china but is an invasive species here in the states. I use red alder and it exceeds swiss speeds...but only by about 15-30 feet per second with all things being equal.

The video narration shows how the charcoals importance is to how much gas it produces in combustion. The Swiss black thorn out gases any other wood, or so the scientists claim.
Goex powder meets the military requirement for speed of burn rate.

 

[ThomasT]

They mentioned Curtis&Harvey powder and what a great powder it is but I have never seen it. It is used in the load data in the Lyman Blackpowder manual and compared to Goex it sometimes takes almost twice as much to achieve the same velocity. So by comparison Goex is a better powder but apparently it was a popular powder at one time.

 

[woodnbow]

I kind of suspected Goex had a military application unrelated to small arms shooting. How else could a muzzle loading product suck so badly for so long and outcompete all competitors without a military contract?

There are better sporting powders certainly, but as mentioned, it does do the job and with load development is as accurate as anything out there. Dirtier than others? Sure. But every blackpowder shooter I know has solvent (water) and cleaning tools available everywhere. I prefer Swiss and now Olde Eynsford, but if I GOEX was all that was available (as was the case for many years) I’d shoot it without a single regret.

 

[arcticap]

The video narration shows how the charcoals importance is to how much gas it produces in combustion. The Swiss black thorn out gases any other wood, or so the scientists claim.
Goex powder meets the military requirement for speed of burn rate.

They mentioned Curtis&Harvey powder and what a great powder it is but I have never seen it. It is used in the load data in the Lyman Blackpowder manual and compared to Goex it sometimes takes almost twice as much to achieve the same velocity. So by comparison Goex is a better powder but apparently it was a popular powder at one time.

There's a couple of ALR threads with info. by Mad Monk with some relevant info. about both of these issues.

One is that Swiss contains more potassium nitrate than other powders which contributes to it burning hotter.
Another is that different woods have different chemicals and have different structures, which can also lead to charcoal having smaller particle sizes.

He also mentions what happened with Curtis & Harvey powder in both threads.
They lost their wood supplier in Southern France about 1970, which led them to obtain different woods from another supplier in Scandinavia which ended up being a disaster.
Their powder was so bad they decided not to rebuilt after a plant explosion.

See posts #15 & #16 in this thread for links to more details: --->>> https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...owder-company-1836-1913.868889/#post-11612479