Rod, I really don't have any way to compare since I killed my Chrony. About all I can say is, "It does go bang!" It takes more volume of mine to equal commercial, as I don't compress it. The Army had 2.3 cc, which nearly fills the chambers, and the Navy had 1.6 cc, which again nearly fills the chamber. I can load the same volumes of commercial, but it is harder to seat the bullet below the rim of the chambers.
One of the first batches I ever made, I filled a chamber of my brass framed .44 and fired it over my still living Chrony. I got somewhere around 1050fps, and thought, "That's a bit much for a brasser!" Never tried it again. Now I fully understand that one shot over a Chrony is not a scientific endeavor, so believe the number or not, your choice. Even I'm a bit skeptical.
As far as safety goes, if you can safely follow the rules of reloading, then you can safely make your own. I make mine in 2000 grain (roughly 4 ounce) batches, so if I did have a mishap, it's not going to take down the neighborhood. I use 1500 grains of KNO3, 350 grains of charcoal, and 150 grains of sulfur. Ordered the KNO3 and S from Phil's Country store, and made my own charcoal from local willow. It goes into a rock tumbler along with lead balls for about 6 hours. Opening the tumbler is probably the most dangerous thing, make absolutely sure you are no where near any source of ignition, as the powder is very fine and will float in the air. A breeze could possibly carry some to a fire, and backflash back to you. Then I wet it and screen it. That's as far as I go.
One time I tried compressing by pouring some into PVC pipe, and pushing with a dowel rod that matched the ID of the PVC, then removing the cap and pushing the powder on out. I could get about 1/3 volume compression. But the dried cakes were too hard to granulate with the tools I had available. I suppose a person could find pipe with an ID the same as the chamber of a .44 and make sticks for loading instead of loose powder, but I didn't try it, just thought about it.