powerful black powder loads for 357?

[Driftwood Johnson]

With fire and scrap lead and a mould we can cast round ball.

We can make our own black powder from items found in the woods and with fire.

We can make caps from scrap metal with a small die and press and mix up the compound from items around the house or neighborhood or woods.

Finally, we can make the lubricant from natural tallow, beeswax and oils.

In closing, everything can be and was at one time made without electricity and with homemade tools.

I cannot imagine however, how much one would have to invest to produce brass into ingots and then into shells.

Howdy Again

You are romanticizing the past a little bit.

Yeah, lead for bullets is easy, you can do that at home. Same with bullet lube.

Black Powder was generally made in commercial powder mills, not made from components found in the forest. Indeed, the American revolution would not have been won without powder produced in commercial powder mills. Here in New England during the early part of the war most powder stores were 'liberated' from British stockpiles, that had been made overseas in Britain. Later, some came from our allies in France. The reason the British took Bunker Hill was because our side ran out of powder.

Not too sure where you would find the ingredients to make priming material either. That's what factories were set up to produce.

Brass, well, you will have to do some smelting to get copper and zinc from ore. Not something you can do at home. Then you will have to carefully alloy them in the right proportions to make cartridge brass. Then you will have to invest in a really good lathe and some forms to spin it into cartridges. Not sure how you are going to run the lathe without electricity unless you are willing to set up a water or steam powered mill, the way it was done before electricity.

My point is, each of these processes takes considerable resources, not something you are going to be able to do at home unless you have a stationary steam engine like this.




Of course if you have reliable water power, you could use that, but don't forget a lot of water powered mills used to shut down in the summer when the water was low. That's why they installed steam engines when the technology became available.

 

[RPRNY]

You'll not get 1100 fps with home made BP.

 

[Malamute]

How much would a decent flint gun cost?

Here is a list from Dixie Gun Works: ...

... You can get a nice shooter from just under $500 to over $1500 depending on what you desire or can afford. I have to warn you though, flint can be addictive.....

I was more thinking that for the amount a flint gun would cost, you could lay in what could be a literal lifetime supply of primers and smokeless to keep shooting if one was concerned that you wouldn't be able to acquire them in the future.

Having said that, I'm not the slightest bit opposed to buying more old style guns for their own sake. If one already owned such guns, and had occasion to use them for hunting or whatever if ammo supplies were low, that makes sense. To me, it doesn't make sense to plan on using inferior types of arms as a primary weapon because you didn't plan ahead and lay in some supplies. Primers are $30/1000. Pistol powder (which also works in many cast rifle loads) is $25-ish/lb, or $150/8 lbs. I can buy many years of not relying on a flint or percussion gun as a primary for a pretty reasonable amount,...assuming one isn't a serious reloader and already have plenty of supplies on hand as a general rule. I really like old style percussion guns. I'd prefer not to rely on them as primary defensive arms due to lack of foresight.

Driftwood makes some good points. Making some things like powder or priming material isn't something one would likely do on a Saturday afternoon as a project. The time and effort to do any of that would be better spent ahead of time in laying in some supplies so as not to run short and do all that heroic level of work to shoot outdated arms. Again, if faced with the choice, Id rather shoot black powder in a 45 auto than in a percussion or flint gun if it was a matter of defensive use.

 

[Branko_D]

What do you expect? Even if you prepare for some hypothetical SHTF scenario, primers, powder, brass and guns were produced just fine in the early 1800s, and the population back then was much, much less. The idea that decades would pass without industry making these is just unrealistic.

Of course there is a lot of enjoyment shooting these old guns, and they do serve well for hunting, sport shooting, and would serve, if nothing else was on hand, for defence. Plus, they are cheap to shoot. However, buying them for the case of "what if something happens and I run out of bullets" doesn't seem to make any sense, when you could just, well, stockpile some more bullets and reloading supplies for that cost if you want to insure yourself against temporary shortages.

As for reloading with BP, if you're stockpiling BP for reloading catridges in case of bad ammo availability, might as well stockpile smokeless instead. While home made BP will work, even approaching something the level of Goex (which isn't the best powder, but is solid enough) is going to be really hard even with some equipment, knowledge, and quality supplies. The ballistic performance isn't going to be anything to write home about even in the best homemade powder. I tried just to see if I could and I can, but the best what can be said about it is that it "works".

In the meantime I have commerical and good quality Czech powder for 25$ per kg, and also percussion caps which are 6$ per 100. That kilogram of powder is roughly 500 shots out of my .44 revolver per 25$, or 11 cents per shot for powder and caps. Don't see myself making weak gunpowder and unreliable percussion caps when the commercial stuff is available, and is priced reasonably.

 

[Malamute]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j84J7VQ02CQ


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfzQ4uKvE7c

 

[ofitg]

Malamute, I was impressed with those videos of the homemade Tau't Bato shotguns you posted in a different thread.

Most people are probably not aware that crumbled-up matchheads can be used as a firearm propellant powder.
Gotta be careful, though, that stuff is more powerful than BP.

 

[BCRider]

Even the old Mountain Men knew when to put their time into something and when to buy it. They would have gotten their year or half year supply of powder from the local town along with other iron and steel tools they needed to get by. And romantic as it might seem you can bet that they did NOT make their own guns. Even then that was a highly specialized trade. They would have bought their rifle... although they could well have carved their own stock from local wood in the event of an accident that resulted in breaking the original.

Mostly the early settlers and mountain men crafted wood to meet their needs, not metal. They may well have bought lead and cast their own round ball. But that's pretty easy to do over the cooking fire.

 

[Malamute]

Even the old Mountain Men knew when to put their time into something and when to buy it. They would have gotten their year or half year supply of powder from the local town along with other iron and steel tools they needed to get by.

A local town would be a later luxury. In the early days they rode the 1000 miles back to St Louis to trade furs for supplies. Someone then had the idea to take trade goods out to them and rendezvous at a selected location each year. Prices were much higher, but it saved 2000 miles of riding and weeks of travel.

I don't recall reading of any western Mt Men making powder or other major parts or supplies. It may be possible with the availability of things today, but they didn't do it that I've ever heard.

FWIW, I recall that the average supplies they laid in were good for about 100 rounds of shooting per year with their rifle. Doesn't sound like much, but they had to carry it on them and their horse or pack animal, along with traps (6) and other basics, including their fur catch when heading to St Louis or to rendezvous.

 

[RPRNY]

A local town would be a later luxury. In the early days they rode the 1000 miles back to St Louis to trade furs for supplies. Someone then had the idea to take trade goods out to them and rendezvous at a selected location each year. Prices were much higher, but it saved 2000 miles of riding and weeks of travel.



I don't recall reading of any western Mt Men making powder or other major parts or supplies. It may be possible with the availability of things today, but they didn't do it that I've ever heard.



FWIW, I recall that the average supplies they laid in were good for about 100 rounds of shooting per year with their rifle. Doesn't sound like much, but they had to carry it on them and their horse or pack animal, along with traps (6) and other basics, including their fur catch when heading to St Louis or to rendezvous.

This is nonsense! I saw The Revenant. Those guys were armed to the teeth. They had cannons. And they "dropped" RB into their "rifles".

;-)

Hollywood...

 

[Malamute]

This is nonsense! I saw The Revenant. Those guys were armed to the teeth. They had cannons. And they "dropped" RB into their "rifles".

;-)

Hollywood...

Hollywood, yeah, like Jeremiah Johnsons 30 cal Hawken. Hilarious!

Johnson actually had a 56 cal Hawken, which was probably specially made for his very large frame, as the gun is noticeably larger than those next to it in the display.

I have seen tales that they sometimes loaded without patch when in a hurry, especially when running buffalo off a horse. A couple slaps of the butt on the saddle was all it got for seating the ball.

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

Even Lewis and Clark carried finished materials rather than making their own, although their method of encasing powder in enough lead to cast an equivalent number of balls was ingenious....

 

[Crawdad1]

Here's a good write up on a recently built Henry Derringer trade rifle that was probably the most numerous rifle used by the mountain men. "Factories" back east similar to the Derringer 'factory' like Henry Leman and J.J. Henry produced the "Lancaster' pattern rifles as the term was coined for the trading posts.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=36499.0

 

[Crawdad1]

Here's another 'Trade' rifle purchased by the fur trading companies and probably the predominate rifle carried and used by the mountain men built by the J.J. Henry 'factory' this time.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=20669.0

 

[Malamute]

Here's a good write up on a recently built Henry Derringer trade rifle that was probably the most numerous rifle used by the mountain men. "Factories" back east similar to the Derringer 'factory' like Henry Leman and J.J. Henry produced the "Lancaster' pattern rifles as the term was coined for the trading posts.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/...?topic=36499.0

Nice. Thanks.

 

[swathdiver]

Howdy Again

You are romanticizing the past a little bit.

Black Powder was generally made in commercial powder mills, not made from components found in the forest.

Not too sure where you would find the ingredients to make priming material either. That's what factories were set up to produce.

...make cartridge brass.

Yes I am, isn't that what this thread is about?

Sulfur occurs naturally in nature, I used to be up to my chest in that stinky stuff in swamps. Epsom salts and gypsum in Florida. Charcoal can be made at home and just about any tree will do but certain ones make for more powerful powders. Finally, saltpeter also occurs naturally and could be made at home from animal's or people's urine. Not a mile from my house is an enormous "bat cave", one could scrape the walls and leave with plenty from there too.

Same with the priming materials though recipes vary. Would not be making brass cartridges, as the topic I'm addressing is muzzleloaders and cap and ball pistols. Percussion caps would be made from scrap aluminum, tin, copper, etc.

 

[Branko_D]

Assuming you have a ball mill (anything you make with a mortar and pestle is just going to be really weak and unfit for using in a gun) and some practice and learn how to make black powder, the home made powder still isn't going to be exactly as good as even the lower-end commercial stuff. You can compensate for that by loading more in a rifle, or even a single or double shot pistol by just loading more, but a revolver has limited room in the cylinder and the result would be rather underwhelming unless you got really proficient at making powder.

Fun and educational as a project to see if it can be done, sure. Probably there's someone somewhere who can make stuff as good as, say, Goex and knows the tricks of the trade. Flintlock or wheel-lock would be ideal for trying to use your homemade powder.

Reliable caps are going to be a little more problematic to make. While making black powder isn't all that dangerous if you have a place to do it which is out of the way and adhere to safety precautions, making primary explosives is just dangerous, period, and the ingredients are a bit harder to obtain and are as a rule highly toxic to add to the explosion hazard. Not a "do it at home" project.

 

[swathdiver]

...the home made powder still isn't going to be exactly as good as even the lower-end commercial stuff.

There's fellas on these here forums that would take issue with that statement. Their chronographs have proven otherwise.