Stupid question from someone with no expericen with blackpowder.

[SwordRapier]

As the title says this is a dumb question.

I am doing research for a game and for a book. I don't own any black powder or back powder shooters. I've nothing against them I just don't own any.

My question is, if black powder gets wet can it be dried out and become usable again?

If so, what do you have to do to make it usable?

 

[Oyeboten]

...if wet from plain Water...it can be spread out on something, air dried or sun dried, and be good as new.

 

[SwordRapier]

I'm guessing salt water would be more of a problem correct?

 

[zoom6zoom]

...if wet from plain Water...it can be spread out on something, air dried or sun dried, and be good as new.

Just don't dry it over the camp fire.

 

[SwordRapier]

Just don't dry it over the camp fire.

Now I wonder why you wouldn't want to dry it over the camp fire....

 

[scrat]

This is one of the problems with not knowing about black powder. Throughout history people that have found old war relics of black powder have thought that the powder was not good. People have found old revolvers cannon balls all sorts and have made the fatal mistake of thinking the powder is no good. Black powder can get wet. When its wet it will not work. This is where the old saying "keep your powder dry" came. however once it dries up its good to go again. Regardless of the age of black powder if its in a can or something its still good. powder from 150 years plus will still fire like its brand new. Now on the other hand. Smokeless powder will become useless. Same time powder contamination can happen very easily with smokeless powder turning to sludge or smelling. when this happens you might as well spread it on your yard and water it down. As it will be just fertilizer then.

 

[bellyup039]

Intresting, I did not know that.

thanks gang!

 

[sonier]

well yes but as in a game is the question if the loaded gun gets wet can it dry out and fire? itd take a VERY long time to dry out in a gun loaded. wet powder drys quick in open adn cookie sheet.

 

[arcticap]

I do have some doubt about just how good the black powder will be if it gets really drenched, as in rinsed out?
Is it possible that the potassium nitrate could get washed out of it rendering it less potent, to the point to where it was actually much less potent, or many times less potent?
I never happen to read any disclaimer that it's potency could depend on just how wet it gets and/or the nature of the wetting.
I wouldn't expect that if it went through a flood while being stored inside of a porous container or a cloth or leather sack that it would be just as good as new.
Yet that's what it sounds like is being claimed.
Would its potency really be just as good as new or not?

 

[SwordRapier]

What about salt water contamination?

How well would black powder survive in a wooden cask in the hold of a wrecked wooden sailing ship. With some possible salt water contamination. Lets also assume that said ship wrecked on the beach less than a decade ago.

Remember this is for a game, and possibly for a scene in a novel. I know it's fiction I just would like at least a little basis in reality.

 

[Oyeboten]

I would imagine that if Black Powder were to be exposed to slowly passing Water circulation, where Soluables could be dissolved and carried off, then it could suffer in quality even when dried out...sure, makes sense.

If it merely gets 'wet', then may dry or be dried, it is understood Historically, to be no worse for wear.


Far as whether Saltwater - as in seeping into a Cask of Powder - would degrade the Black Powder, for leaving a residu once all is dry again, or effecting the Chemistry Chemically or Mechanically, I would guess probably, to some extent...but, in my guess, the extent might be pretty minor, or, be limited to some light Salt Crystals being formed from combustion Gasses condensing, merely...thus contributing to fouling or subsequent corrosion for the Arm if not cleaned reasonably soon after shooting...but might not effect the Powder very much otherwise.

Just a guess...

 

[Pulp]

"How well would black powder survive in a wooden cask in the hold of a wrecked wooden sailing ship."

It worked quite well in two movies, "Sahara" and "National Treasure".

And anything in the movies is true, isn't it??

 

[[email protected]]

My wife refuses to let me dry out my wet powder on a cookie sheet in
her oven. She says something about putting it where there is no sun.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

...if wet from plain Water...it can be spread out on something, air dried or sun dried, and be good as new.

Well perhaps if you were in the desert, but if you were on a island or had high humidity like an East Coast Southern State, you would be sore pressed to make it work by simply air or sun drying.

One of the standard techniques was to take a piece of tinned iron, heat it over a fire, until hot but not so hot it would burn flesh on instant contact, just hot enough so that you didn't want to hold it very long in your hand..., remove the tinned iron a good distance from the fire, then spread out the powder in a thin layer on top of the tinned iron to drive out the moisture.

There is documentation of several Indians trying to do this very thing, but omitted removing the tinned iron from the heat source and moving off a distance, plus doing a small test batch..., it ended in a tragedy.

If your powder was open in a powder magazine on a ship..., and water entered from the top, but did not escape out the bottom or sides washing away the nitrate, the potassium nitrate would be concentrated in the bottom of the keg. You could remove the powder, after it had dried a bit to the consistency of clay, remix it by hand adding some urine if it got too dry while mixing..., and then dry it, screen it, dry it some more, and it would probably work.

Sea water contamination might give it funny colors when firing due to the salts, or it might not work at all.

Could powder in a wrecked ship survive? Sure if it stayed dry, but I doubt it would if it was submerged for any length of time.

LD

 

[4v50 Gary]

I'm no chemist, but I would hazard to guess that once the salt water evaporated, leaving salt crystals embedded with the black powder, that the black powder, once dried, will still be hazardous but be reduced in potency. One of these days, I'm going to the Pacific Ocean with an empty water bottle.

 

[StrawHat]

One of the powder companies (DuPont perhaps) kept samples of black powder in water and periodically dried them out to test potency of new batches compared to the old. So if it worked for them why wouldn't it work for us?

 

[wittzo]

What kind of game? Tabletop RPG or a console/computer game?

I sort of got into blackpowder because of the Pathfinder RPG, there's one country that uses firearms, but their technology level doesn't permit cartridge ammo. It stops at Cap and Ball and BP Breechloaders.

 

[Oyeboten]

Lol...


I am in the Desert...

I am in the Southern Mojave, where, ambient Humidity used to be about 4 percent I think, if likely higher anymore...and I tend to forget not everywhere is like that.

So yes, drying wet Powder in some localles, would need air circulation and probably artificial warmth of some sort to accomplish.


Here, you can dry anything out, just by letting it sit there on a Table...Oranges or Apples or a Loaf of Bread merely shrink and become small and hard if left sitting out.

Traditionally, Black Powder was processed and Ground 'wet' anyway...so, water as such should not harm it...and all should be well once dried.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Black powder has a remarkably long shelf life properly stored.

You still see reports of a civil war relic hunter finding a cannon shell from the Civil War and blowing himself up cleaning it, or a Revolutionary War musket found with a live charge, fired by just cleaning the touch hole and primimg the pan with a little fresh FFFg.

And since it was mixed and ground wet and then dried to begin with, it can be redried if moist.

 

[SwordRapier]

What kind of game? Tabletop RPG or a console/computer game?

I sort of got into blackpowder because of the Pathfinder RPG, there's one country that uses firearms, but their technology level doesn't permit cartridge ammo. It stops at Cap and Ball and BP Breechloaders.

Savage worlds, its a table top RPG. I'm also attempting to write a book set just after the American Civil War.

I haven't played Pathfinder, it's based on the D20 system isn't it?

 

[Mike OTDP]

Wreck the ship, but have the powder in a hanging magazine - a compartment below the waterline but not all the way in the hold. The ship is hard aground, a massive hole in the bottom...but the powder is high and dry.

 

[floridaboy]

When I lived in Virginia, I sold construction machinery. A customer was digging in the bank of the Rapidan river, for a bridge replacement. They dug up an old artillery shell and turned it over to the Culpeper Police dept for disposal. Who took it out of town a ways and proceded to shoot it with a rifle. While I didn't see all this, it did make the local newspaper. The blast was said to be, quite impressive. That shell had been sitting in the mud and water for something in the 130 years range. I don't know that the powder ever got wet, seems like it certainly could have. But the powder certainly fired just fine.