Buy blackpowder in bulk?

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If you purchase 25# (of any powder and mixed grades) from Maine Powder House, the shipping and Hazmat is free.
 
Flintlock Snob said:
The price of 1 pound from Grafs is 19.99 plus a $12.00 Hazard ship fee. so your now at 32 dollars. The hazmat fee is the same for 25 pounds as it is for 1 pound. So divide the 12 dollars by 25 pounds so now your at $20.47 per pound if you buy 25. This is true from all suppliers I buy from. Is why we all buy 5 or 10 pounds at a time.
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yes that is very true.

it is why when I buy any powder, and primers, I usually order everything I need at one time. Up until I have reached my max for the $12. There is a maximum per order. So I order all my 4lb and 8lb bottles of smokeless and all my primers at the same time.

I can also do the same by buying 25 1lb bottles. But what I would like is to see the same as you see with smokeless powders. 4lb bottle, or 8lb bottles. Not buying 4 or 8 or 25 1 lb bottles. The more packaging you have the more increased weight you have as well the more increased cost of bottles.

So take away the hazmat fee, and it’s still the same when your looking at cost. Especially if your ordering other powder or primers as well.

So since I have yet to see 4 or 8lb bottles, etc... am I to assume that it’s legally not allowed to package in that size? Or people just don’t go through enough blackpowder to warrant packaging in 4lb or 8lb bottles?

which leads me to another question. Is it not safe to store in a prior used and cleaned out properly marked 4lb or 8lb plastic smokeless powder bottle?
 
Texasgrillchef said:
how does it come though? 25 1lb bottles, or???? I don’t want a box with 25 1lb bottles!
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I always get the 1# bottles so I never asked if it came in any other sizes. I don't recall seeing any other size bottles of powder on their web site. I sometimes sell some of the powder I buy to guys in my club who don't want to order a large quantity. Real black powder is hard to find here in CT. There are a few places that have it but not always.
 
TheOutlawKid said:
I think olde eyensford is always the best option in my opinion price to quality wise. I always have a stash of about 10 pounds of OE and keep enough raw material to make about a hundred pounds of homemade black powder. I always have felt that investing in a small set up to make your own powder is always a good move considering you can make your own powder at around $1.40-$2.00 a pound. The raw material is very inexpensive. I can now make powder that is faster and cleaner than swiss and it costs me $1.40 a pound to make. But if that option isnt an avenue that you want to take i would just look for a good deal on OE powder, the price is only a little more than goex but its performance is closer to that of swiss. I think buying regular GOEX is a waste when OE is only 2-3 bux more a pound. Id say buy now because the price of powder will just keep going up. Hmm...its almost a guaranteed investment. I wonder if they sell stock?
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Why aren’t you my neighbor?
 
Powder Inc is who I got mine from but been a few years since I bought any and no one has the deals you could get just a few years ago.
 
TheOutlawKid said:
See my first post on the first page. I think its post #8 ;-)
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I did miss it, I thought you were into the more expensive Goex brand only.

I found that using black willow charcoal and the normal ingredients by weight, using a ball tumbler with 1/2" diameter brass balls, a pound of mix with a table spoon of water tumbling for 24 hours made an incredibly fine mix. I could scarcely detect the water but it would clump with pressure, so I used my press to press round pucks using about 5 tons pressure, the pucks came out pretty hard.
Set out in a dry place the moisture dried out and a test against Goex showed me my powder was at least as fast and clean. Note, I'm not advising anyone to do this! Done in 1 lb lots remote from people or property I've proven to myself that it can be done safely. Finally, I need to make a roll crusher using 7075 aluminum corncob type rolls to break the dried pucks into powder with screens below for grading. Any powder grade larger than 2,3 and 4 to be recycled.
Storing in 2-5 lb lots isolated from other batches should be an equally safe achievement. Most of these ideas I stole from fireworks guys. :)
 
I use red alder and paulownia for my charcoal. I can beat swiss numbers and its waaaay clean. I use a ball mill as well but i use copper pipe filled with lead and cut into .75 inches to a whole inch lengths. This keeps lead out of my powder and milla the powder better. We did extensive tests on castboolits which in my opinion has the best write up on the net. Ive used different types of willow and other charcoals but now have since stuck with red alder and paulownia since it gives a far morw powerful powder. After milling i compress using my die made by "fly", hes a tool and die maker on the castboolots forum and makes the best billet aluminum dies for making black powder pucks. I compress using a 20 ton jack. No water needed especially at those presures and also make very thin pucks...im talking 1/8 inch or so. They are way easier to break and grade. After its broken its graded i sometimes will "polish" my powder to break up the grains rough edges...makes for easier pour out but also for more even grain size. I polish by placing the powder in the ball mill with no media.
 
Thinking back I remembered that the balls I used are brass and 5/8" diameter, not 1/2". I've been away from programming a long while but wrote a quick program to make the balls out of 5/8" round bar. No lead involved. The best balls would be tungsten, but now we are talking some real money, also, a lot of machinable tungsten has iron in it, as it's sintered from powder, I believe this to be true because machinable tungsten attracts a magnet, but I may look into that further to see if there is some that has no iron. I add water to my mix to lower the potential for explosions, but I do feel they help the powder stick together at least initially.
My pucks are 1/2" thick and very tough and hard, they are about 2 1/2" in diameter. Black willow charcoal comes in 20 lb. bags for $44 I think.
From what I've read there are as many secret formulas as there are guys making it, but at any rate my main thrust is always safety, it must never explode until I want it to. :)

There is a video where the guys run their 6-8" pucks through a powered set of corncob rolls, they must be making 10 lbs batches. The main goal for me is just to not have to depend on a commercial resource that the anti gunners can someday shut down. Same with caps.
 
SlowFuse said:
Would you (or anyone else) be willing to share your source of charcoal? I made a small batch out of alder chips but would be willing to pay for it. Not my favorite part of the process.
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Mr.slowfuse i make my own charcoal and i have some willow and red alder and id be willing to give you some if u pay shipping. As far as customcharcoal.com is concerned i have purchased from him and got no response and no shipment. Took my money and i had to wait weeks to get my money back. Had to dispute with my bank. I had read somewhete that the person who runs it has health issues and sometimes will only do it when conveniet. I understand the health issues but if you see someone sends you money atleast contact them to let them know theres a delay or you cant fulfill the order. One reliable person to get charcoal from is Rick from realmontanacharcoal.net and i have ordered willow and red alder from him. In expensive too and great customer service. Mainly deals with charcoal for bbq and smoking but he fulfills orders for firework makers as well. Great guy to deal with
 
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I love using paulownia wood...probably makes the fastest cleanest burning. But ive found red alder works great too. Im able to match or beat swiss using both those charcoals. Also tree of heaven...had someone send me some and it was great too. I was a firm believer in only using black willow until i tried all the woods mentioned above. Also the Wichita buggy site that tests all the charcoals performance in black powder showed that red alder beat black willow...thats what led me to try it and since then i have been hooked.
 
I first got my red alder through Amazon. Its used for smoking fish and i guess its quite tasty, so i got some and made it into charcoal in a home made retort. Then i met rick from real montana charcoal and started getting from him along with willow. Great quality too.
 
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