My first homemade powder

Status
Not open for further replies.
A

alemonkey

Member
Joined
Nov 22, 2007
Messages
1,678
Location
Lincoln, NE
Yesterday I started my first batch of homemade BP. I did a small batch of 100 grams using my Harbor Freight tumbler filled with lead balls.

I think I made a mistake by not crushing the charcoal first though. I just threw in enough chunks plus some scrapings to get 15 grams of charcoal. I milled for 6 hours and 90% of it looks really good, but there were maybe 8-10 marble sized chunks of charcoal that never broke up. I realize the Harbor Freight tumbler is far from an ideal mill, but I'm surprised it didn't break up the charcoal better than that. I crushed the remaining chunks by hand and added them back to the mix, and I'm going to mill it all day today.

Do you guys who make your own powder typically crush the charcoal? I really though it would just break up on its own. The pieces that didn't break up were pretty hard and took some effort to crush by hand. Going forward I guess I'll crush it before milling.
 
I'm not surprised that you found some lumps in your charcoal. Since charcoal is not an homogenous substance, it may contain bits of knots and incompletely reduced wood. Just sieve them out and go on with your milling. Whatever you do, keep safety foremost. Be sure of what you are doing and keep your wits about you as you work. Do not have any distractions around you that would take your attention away from what you are doing. 100 grams of black powder is enough to kill you if it blew up.
 
Yep, crush everything first by grinding the ingrendients individually to a fine dust. Congratulations!
 
Can BP ingredients be milled 'wet'?
Click to expand...

I've read both ways. For my first try I added a few drops of water, just enough to make it damp while milling. I figured it was safer that way. Other than the charcoal problem it seemed to still mix up well. It did tend to clump up and stick to the lead balls, but a little light shaking of the tumbler jar knocked it loose.

After some more milling today I still had a very small amount of charcoal particles that didn't crush. I just strained those out while screening my powder and I'll chalk it up to a learning experience. I'm not sure how much of an effect it will have on the end product, but there was very little that didn't get ground up, maybe 1/4 teaspoon or less. I'm guessing it will still go boom.

I have it drying now and it looks good, although not as pretty or uniform as swiss. It's quite a bit finer than I expected, probably FFF on average. I can tell it's definitely not very dense, because it looks like an awful lot of powder by volume for 100 grams. If it was commercial powder I would guess it was 1/2 pound just by looking at it. I'm pretty excited to try it out now. I might have to make a run to the range some night after work this week.
 
Maybe

we'll see ya , maybe we won't :what: :D

Good luck , sounds interesting , certainly dangerous , should we call the Medics before or after your on the way to the range ? :D

Good luck . :) Be safe :)

Das Jaeger
 
Hi alemonkey,



Any details on the ingredients?


What kind of Charcoal?

" Sulfur?

" Nitrate?
 
it can be mixed wet and as gary mentioned all the ingredients should be in powder form first. this makes it a lot better. what you may want to do is add some more lead balls. this will break everything down and mix it up good. But the more you add the noiser it gets. Everyone is going to love you. Yes and my question is what kind of charcoal are you using.
 
I might have to make a run to the range some night after work this week.
Click to expand...
You mean you're not going to make a little pile out back and put a match to it just to see if it burns cleanly? I think you'd be wise to do that first. If it burns poorly, you'll have a real mess to clean out of your firearms. Not to mention, you'll have to WAIT (unthinkable!) before you know what you've created! :)
 
You mean you're not going to make a little pile out back and put a match to it just to see if it burns cleanly? I think you'd be wise to do that first. If it burns poorly, you'll have a real mess to clean out of your firearms. Not to mention, you'll have to WAIT (unthinkable!) before you know what you've created!
Click to expand...

Actually, I just walked back in the door after doing that (lighting it out back, not cleaning a mess out of my gun :) ). When I set the main batch out to dry I reserved about 1/2 tablespoon on a piece of tin foil by itself so it would dry faster. I just lit it out in the driveway, and to the naked eye it seemed to burn just as fast as Swiss. It was pretty much an instantaneous POOF. It burned hot enough to melt a hole through the tin foil. It seems a little more sooty, though. Swiss leaves behind a white and black residue, while the homemade stuff is black and brown. I wouldn't call it dirty as there doesn't seem to be any more residue and it's not sticky or anything, but it's different. I'm guessing it might need to dry more, though. I'll try it again tomorrow when it's fully dry.

It was very satisfying seeing it burn and knowing I made it myself. So now I cast my own bullets, make my own lube, and also my own powder. Now I just need to build my own rifle.
 
Wow, cool! Seems you are well onto you way to making good BP. Milling seems to be the big thing, once you have good components (and it seems you do). The longer the better. It'd be kind of neat to see the scorch marks left from from each test burn, if you have the inclination to photograph them. :D
 
Here it is...

Upper left mark is Pyrodex....nasty dirty stuff. Center and right top are homemade, and bottom is Swiss. The Swiss burn mark looks a lot smaller than it really is because the camera didn't pick up the white color very well.

IMG_0843.gif
 
Alemonkey, I'd say there's an excellent chance you've probably got some pretty decent BP there. Let us know how it shoots at the range. Got a chronograph by any chance?

Nice job btw, looks pretty clean over all, no huge nasty pearls of unburnt KNO3 or sulfur lying about. I'd certainly be proud of it.
 
I don't remember off the top of my head, but I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 a pound. Pretty cheap, and it gets cheaper if you buy ingredients in bigger quantities. That really appeals to me. My wife calls me cheap but I say I'm frugal.
 
That's the one. I just use one jar at a time though as the drive belt likes to break. If you get one make sure you order plenty of extra belts.

I use it to clean my 45-70 cases also. Dry media in my regular case vibrator doesn't seem to get the black powder stains off nearly as well as soapy water with just a little lemon juice. Going forward I think I'll reserve one jar for case cleaning and one for making powder to avoid contamination.
 
How do you know if that particular tumbler is safe for combustible materials?

Have to admit, the idea of manufacturing powder is intriguing, but all the stories of old time factories blowing up worry me about even trying.

Tumbling strikes me as a place where heat and/or static can build up. Or the tumbler itself, likely having an electric motor, seems like a source of sparks.
 
@Shotgun Willy - Oh yeah, I'm aware of that precaution. But still any of those ingredients are flammable, and even flour can explode when it's a fine dust. Like those grain elevator explosions.

And... at some point you have to mix the ingredients.

I'm wondering if there are specific tumblers used in the industry that have some safety features built in?
 
I'm with "Das Jaeger" thats a VERY RISKY thing to do. Black powder ain't cheap (no more cost than pretend stuff) but my heath is worth so very much more. Oh and please tell me that you don't live in Louisiana. I would hate to move.
 
As far as risk is concerned, there have been several threads here on the topic and many members make their own powder. With the appropriate precautions it's not overly dangerous. Black powder needs heat to ignite, simple static electricity isn't enough - see the Black Powder Essentials thread for more information.
 
Commercial black powder is coated with graphite which is said to prevent static electricity from creating enough heat to ignite it.
And many people who mill powder do it outside with the tumbler placed behind a protective bunker. Maybe due to the potential for sparks or heat from the motor?
I think that making black powder is relatively safe too but folks chose to employ more or less precautions.
For instance, some folks don't mix their powder by milling it at all but only use the wet mix method.
Congratulations & good luck shooting your home made powder! :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Z
  • Locked
First batch of BP is in the ball mill
2 3
Replies
69
Views
6K
Dithsoer
D
A
  • Locked
Homemade BP
Replies
21
Views
1K
DuncanSA
D
C
  • Locked
OK, Why is my new BP different?
Replies
5
Views
825
TheOutlawKid
TheOutlawKid
P
  • Locked
Made my first batch yesterday.
Replies
3
Views
688
Perk
P
S
  • Locked
Delving into homemade BP
Replies
8
Views
670
Loyalist Dave
Loyalist Dave
Back
Top