Making smoke with homemade black powder - POV video

[Bibbyman]

October 3 I shot a Cowboy Action Shooting match with three 44WCF loaded with black powder that I made. Not as powerful as store bought but it got the job done.

The Marlin 1894 was a pre-safety that was a 44 Magnum. I swapped the barrel out for one in 44WCF. The Colt Frontier Six Shooter was made in 1881. The S&W #3 American is a Uberti through Cimarron. Left one tombstone up that cost me a clean match.

 

[Armored farmer]

Great fun.
Congrats on the good powder! Well done pard!

 

[Blackpowderwarrior]

Great shooting brother! Thanks for the upload sir! Did you press the home-made Bp with a pucking die?

 

[windini]

I see that homemade smoke likes to stay close to Daddy Bibbyman! Congrats on the successful powder.

Great video, looks like a lot of fun.

 

[Bibbyman]

Great shooting brother! Thanks for the upload sir! Did you press the home-made Bp with a pucking die?

An improvised die made of a section of PVC and two lead ingots. I used a big honkin' bench vise and cheater pipe to compress. I'm still searching for a better puck die. Will rig up a hydraulic jack.

 

[Blackpowderwarrior]

Good job brother. It would be interesting to Chrono your home grown to see how fast it is

 

[Bibbyman]

Good job brother. It would be interesting to Chrono your home grown to see how fast it is

That may be an off season experiment. I have a chronograph. I can test against Grafs FFg, FFFg and BlackMZ.

I loaded these with a heavy compression. I'm sure they are lighter than commercial powder. Another shortcoming is my crude sorting method - resulting in more like Reenactor grade.

It all went boom!

 

[Boomholzer]

Fantastic! You 'all know how to have fun. The port coal on the lever action cycling made my evening. Thank you.

 

[Miguel Loco]

Awesome! What "Cowboy" action shooting should should be...... and the powder looks like it turned out well! I'm going to try it myself one of these days when I have some time. I appreciate all the info you can post on your experiment!

 

[Bibbyman]

Thanks guys!

Please note that I'm a rank amateur at making black powder. I'm not one to take instructions from. The powder I made worked ok. But is inferior to commercial in most every way - except cost (if you don't value your time).

I bought a Harbor Freight mill but the rest of my equipment was what I scrounged around the house. The KNO3 was stump remover. I made my own charcoal from willow. The Outlaw Kid helped me along the way.

I look at this as a primitive skill that may come in handy some day - like when Jesse James rides again and stops in for suplies.

The iVUE camera glasses do a fantastic job at recording sound.

 

[mmb617]

Assuming my potassium nitrate arrives today as scheduled I'll be working on my first batch of black powder this weekend. I've been researching and accumulating equipment and supplies of a couple weeks. I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I'm quite excited to start this project.

That video was shot with camera glasses? It turned out great!

 

[Bibbyman]

That video was shot with camera glasses? It turned out great!

iVUE is the brand. This "Horizons" model and has been discontinued for some time - replaced by new models.

Just the POV clips and maybe the last gatling gun were shot with glasses. The still shots a the couple of others were shot with Samsung Galaxy smartphone.