Cons about making homemade blackpowder

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I got to talk to my buddy about it. He was aware that it was labor intensive and he knew about wet mixing. He said he and his Sergeant were talking about mixing up a few pounds of it to see if they could do it. He asked me if I was interested in helping and I said I was in. I told him about some of the stuff I read on here and in my research online about the different methods. I advised him we needed to do it in small batches, but his NG unit is coming back home for good in March or April and there's no telling when we'll actually try to do it.

We're just doing it so we know how to do it and that we actually did it and know we can do it in case something really stupid happens in the future.
 
Stupid things like vote in every gun hating politician in office and let the UN dictate our personal freedoms..or let the US economy weaken so our stuff gets repo'd by the world bank..that sort of stupid thing.

I don't do stupid things, I create object lessons so people know what NOT to do. :) Besides, if you never make mistakes or break anything, how are you going to learn how to fix anything when it does break? :)
 
Quite so wittzo, quite so...



I made BP when I was 10...worked alright for goofing around...would do a good 'whooosh!'...probably would have worked in a Firearm, if less well than 'good', made-right, better ingredients/blending/particle-size BP.


Anymore, I barely have any stolen hours to even go Plinking...let alone making my own BP...but, if I needed to, I'm confident I could make it alright, especially for having read up on how-to.
 
Yeah, Big O..You could make it with no problem.With all the equipment and knowledge you probably have available to you now as compared to when you were just a child you could sail right on through. All these formulas, ball mills, screens, alcohol and what not, there's nothing to it. Not dangerous either. Just use common sense and think a little. I mean, you wouldn't strike a match checking for a propane leak would you? Hell, I could make Nitroglycerin if I wanted to. I don't want to and I certainly don't have any need for it but hell yeah. I could boil it up right over here on my stove and then run it through my small distilling machine and BRAVO! What drips out of that distilling machine is pure undiluted nitro. Easy to do and not a problem. When it get's through boiling and right before it goes through the distiller it has about the consistency of high octane gasoline.... It's just like anything else. Just need to be careful. I'm not off into making powder or whatnot but like I said, I did make a little powder here while back and it shot real good....
 
Hi Gentleman of the Charcoal,



Yes indeedy.


In fact, some while ago, by accident, I stumbled upon some entertaining Articles, period Articles and retrospective ones also, about the many Cottage Industries who were making NitroGlycerine here in the Yew-Ess, in the late 1840s/1850s.


Lotsa Boys and Girls were into it, and, it had a ready Market for early Oil Wells, Stone Quarries, Mines and getting rid of pesky Tree Stumps.


Of course, misadventures occurred, and the attitude of people generally about inadvertant detonations, was so charming, humane, and accepting.


I so love the America, and it's people, and the character and mood and emotional maturity of the Antibellum time.


But anyway...


The labilitiy of NitroGlycerine, especially when warm, is to be respected.


Lots of old stories about 'empty' discarded Nitro Cans detonating for a kid throwing a rock at it...Yipes!


Thank goodness BP is so darned friendly!
 
just ringin' in....I've made all my own BP for about 5 years now....had to when the nearest dealer became 2hrs away and sold it for $20 a pound+tax...... That's one reason I started, but mostly cause I figure why pay someone for something I can do myself, have fun doing and save money in the process?
It seems some people tend to condemn or fear that which they don't understand or are too lazy to do correctly....Making blackpowder safely can be done if you're detail oriented and not an idiot....so yes, not for everyone.... There's no more risk involved than reloading, or shooting...or driving a car, or walking outside....you just have to do it right and pay attention.
Someone seemed to imply that BP plants magically blow up for no reason...I doubt that. And in all the years, research and talking with others that make BP, I know of no one that had any accidents , hand mixing or ball milling as I do.
 
It was mentioned BP will not explode unless confined but that is incorrect. BP has a critical mass of just over 500 pounds which means it will explode and create a shock wave with a tremendous BOOM with no confinement at all!
I won't get into the pros and cons of making BP...suffice to say I've made hundreds of pounds safely for rocket fuel and fireworks over the years...it's relatively safe if you follow the simple safety rules required.
Tip: do NOT use flowers of sulfur...it's too acidic and will cause accidents...use sulfur FLOUR...be sure to specify that when purchasing!
Tip: Ball mills are not necessary...contact me if you wish to know the procedure useing boiling hot water.
 
Black powder is relatively easy and safe to make. Nitroglycerine...not so much. Let us not allow our alligator mouths to blow up our hummingbird ***es.
As I noted in a recent thread about "reactivating" primers, if you think you might need to do this in the future when all has gone to smash, the time to practice doing it is now when there is still good medical care available. In the end, this kind of thing is just chemistry. Chemistry, done right, involves careful, accurate measurements of reagents of known purity and good lab techniques that follow the correct protocols for what you are trying to produce. Fouling up on that can give you useless results, waste your stockpiles of reagents, and/or have results that involve you being injured/disfigured/killed.
If you can't make the desired product now under controlled conditions and with lab-grade reagents without screwing up, I (frankly) don't see you producing anything useful when everything is all Mad Max. Field expedient equipment and reagents make things harder, not easier, you see.
I'm not against people experimenting along these lines. I am against Johnny Jack-Off injuring himself (and others) because he only thinks he knows what he is doing.
If you can't do a chemistry 101 experiment and get the expected results, you have no business doing something like this. Read first. Read deeply. Then start considering roll yer own explosives.
 
Pefect BP would have a molecule of KNO3 adjacent to every atom of C and S in the mix (potassium nitrate, carbon (charcoal) and sulfur). That takes mixing and grinding a loooong time. Mythbusters tested the Star Trek episode where Captn Kirk mixed up nitre (natural nitrate deposits) and sulfur to make a cannon to defeat an alien in an outdoors arena duel situation. Their mixes fizzled simply because they were not mixed well. If you value your time at $10.00 an hour and do it right, homemade gun powder can end up at $100.00 a pound easily. It may become a useful skill to know, and the Foxfire books I believe contain a chapter on manufacture of gunpowder in the Southern Appalachians in colonial days by my hillbilly ancestors (yeah, I know Michael Bellesiles "Arming America" claimed making gun powder in colonial America was an effort the size of the Manhatten Project, har har.) Nitrates from farmyard urine or bat guano, sulfur from sulfur springs, charcoal from willow trees, aint exactly nuclear physics, and making gun powder in rifle or fowling piece quanities was marketable trade in those days. (Making gunpowder in cannon quantities was the problem in the period of the Revolution.)

KNO3 Potassium Nitrate (or Sodium Nitrate if you don't like your barrel), pure charcoal from willow branches, pure sulfur, in the correct proportions wetted with water and alcohol (or the urine of a wino according to myth), mix mix mix mix, dry into cakes, break into grains, sift according to size. So easy a hillbilly could do it. But you're talking hours of labor when standard grade commercial product is available. Its kinda like growing your own tobacco and rolling your own cigars, or homebrewing your house brand of beer or ale. It may be cool, but is it cost effective?
 
If one has 600 lbs or more of Black Powder on hand, possibly it'd be a good idea for it to be kept safe and secure? In small, or smaller, sealed, containers?

You know, not in an open-top Barrel next to the Ash Tray.


As for the misfortunate ex Trooper and others who were there - the Article reveals nothing as to any understandig of what happened, or why...merely, allowing us to know, something happened, and the 'something' was not definitely determined to have originated with BP, even if BP was involved subsequently/incidentally.


Far as that goes...


No better than a bad short cursory regard about an Automobile
'accident', Car-hit-Pole at over 250 mph, with no investigation/reconstruction or details as for it's reason, where, the reader may say, "Oh! I'll never drive! Look what happened to him!"


Oye...
 
Carl N. Brown said:
"If you value your time at $10.00 an hour and do it right, homemade gun powder can end up at $100.00 a pound easily."

Not true at all...if you are ballmilling, the ball mill does 95% of the work. The operator simply wets it down after milling and either screens it or compacts it then breaks it up and screens it.
If useing the boiling, hot water method it can be done in an hour!
Before BP was "corned" (wet mixed and granulated all into one) the ingredients were simply dry mixed together and used in pistols, muskets, cannons, etc. Unfortunatly, over time, the 3 ingredients would settle out of the mix making it necessary to mix it up again until the corning process was invented. Corning made it far more stable, easier to ignite, and much more powerful to the extent cannons had to be either reinforced or newer ones made to withstand the pressures of the new powder!
Concerning the Star Trek episode...without charcoal you won't have the power needed...it's the charcoal that gives BP it's explosive nature/force! (source: Dr. T. Shimizu, The Art, Science, and Technique of Fireworks)
 
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