Making blackpowder.

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Sugartown Products Inc, Gladwin MI makes charcoal from mixed hardwoods with no additives. A 10 lb bag costs around $9 the last time I bought some. REally great for grilling, which is the market. Looks like the chunks of wood it was formed from. Wonder if it would be of any use? Considering the trees in this area, it is probably made mostly from maple and oak, with some poplar, cottonwood, etc thrown in.
 
yep emailed him twice have not heard from him so far.. Ok so now try the google group recreational pyrotechnics. How da heck do i find them. ok searching google.
 
Instead of charcoal, has anyone tried plain old coal?

My father-in-law used to get coal delivered by the truckload in central TN; he used it for heat. I always meant to get a piece or two as a souvenir when I was visiting, but never remembered when I was there.
 
for making bp i had a coffee grinder that worked very well to mill the kno3 in but only a mortar an pestle for mixing all ingredients together..... but yes i tried a very VERY small batch of coal based powder, it did not work very great but it would move a bullet with deadly force no doubt. i think charcoal works better because it has so many pores that the actual surface area is really very huge... i think united nuclear stated something about this on there site.but coal is very hard(hard enough to break my coffee grinder blades sadly:() and smooth so the sulphur and kno3 would have a problem reacting with this..... little bit more info, you dont need coal or charcoal you can use confectioners sugar, regular sugar for smoke bombs lol, graphite or any other readily avilable source of carbon, maybe powdered milk or creamer too:scrutiny:? sugar is messy an makes things get wet too fast and i think charcoal is pretty easy to make, put some willow or grape vine in a coffee can with lots of tin foil on top and a match stick sized hole, an chuck it in the fire till smoke stops coming out the little hole... umm... dont take off the tin foil till it cools off either or it will catch on fire an burn up lol:D
 
Okay, I'm making progress. I have my digital scale and a precision Ohaus balance scale, stump remover ($5 at Lowe's), 90% sulfur ($7 at the local ACE Hardware), a bag of ordinary Kingsford charcoal, a bag of cedar chips, a box of thoroughly dried pine board scraps, a bag of confectioner's sugar, and a box of coal. There's no coal here, but a 'net buddy said he would send me some. He sent 32 pounds of it. I guess when you're heating with it, "a little bit of coal" is a somewhat larger amount than when experimenting with gunpowder... I also have a homemade ball mill and a couple of cans of commercial black powder to use for comparison testing. I still have to acquire a gun to use for experimentation; I don't want to use any of the ones currently own.

The plan is to build a spreadsheet of powder mixtures and preparation types, then load a small batch of each to get a quickie idea of smoke and fouling, then refine the cleaner ones down by bullet weight, primer type, etc. At this time I'm more interested in getting a clean burn than muzzle velocity.

I'll be testing all the usual BP formulations, including the sulfurless ones, coal, different charcoals, sucrose, fructose, corn syrup, molasses, etc. I've probably been reading way too much rocket motor stuff, but the idea of simply casting cylindrical propellant charges, dropping them into the cases, and seating the bullets appeals to me more than making powder.
 
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I hadn't seen that one, but it's the same basic process I've seen elsewhere. However, it's one of the very few that doesn't start with "first you get a 55 gallon drum..."
 
ok first of all i would scrap the materials and start all over. been there done that. you need black willow charcoal powder. re read what was in the pages a few back. a good source for NOX potasium nitrate is ebay or amazon. same with sulfur. you need to get pure ingrediants. charcoal briquetes wont work you will make black powder that will fizzle but not be good for anything else. re read everything. pure ingrediants and a ball rotary tumbler are the best to use. there are several methods of making it some work better than ever and some dont.
 
Something I might be able to add to this...

Here's some information you may find useful or interesting. I suggest you actually buy the Von Maltitz and Sponenburgh books as these are living authors who deserve something for their efforts. If you're broke or don't care, you can download these from the net for free- Tenney Davis has passed on (and is out of copyright), the US Gov't. will be happy you bothered to download (and follow!) the federal explosives laws.

Getting Legal:

http://www.accelix.com/atf/

BATFE "Orange Book" (Federal Explosives Laws & Regulations):

http://www.atf.gov/files/publications/download/p/atf-p-5400-7.pdf

Ian Von Maltitz, Black Powder Manufacturing, Testing & Optimizing:

http://pyrotechnic.narod.ru/Black_Powder.pdf

Sponenburgh, Ball Milling Theory and Practice:

http://www.rocketsaway.com/pyrotechnics_ball_mill_theory_sponenburgh.pdf

Tenney Davis, Chemistry of Powder and Explosives:*

http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/the_chemistry_of_powder_and_explosives.pdf

Look at the history of the DuPont family. Notice all the dead (mangement level!) people, and blown up mills?

http://www.historypin.com/attach/ui...ions in the DuPont Company Black Powder Yards

Google the names of any black powder maker, historical or modern along with "explosion", "deaths", etc. You will find plenty.

After Du Pont sold the last powder mill in the USA to GOEX, there were a series of problems. A lot of you know about the GOEX production moving out of PA, then moving again- The meaty part starts at page 10.

http://www.laflinandrand.com/madmonk/history.pdf


The below is a re post of some BP information I put up elsewhere-

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...emade-black-powder-quot&p=2614115#post2614115

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...emade-black-powder-quot&p=2615845#post2615845

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...emade-black-powder-quot&p=2652062#post2652062
 
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In my research regarding powder mills in the Texas hillcountry and Bexar that supplied the Confederacy, it is interesting to note that they made powder using cedar charcoal, nitre from bat guano, and sulfur imported from Mexico, kinda like John Glanton and the Judge did in "Blood Meridian" in the cave they were hiding in.
 
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I am a novice and have nothing to offer at this point but I find this all very enlightening. I want to extend thanks to those whose wisdom I will pilfer as often as possible.
 
Being a nube, I feel somewhat intimidated by posting this here; but, after looking around a while, this is the best site I've found on how to make diy bp. Almost forgot, but this page lists the best charcoals to use (some way too fast for our use, more like flash powder without dark german aluminum - makes one wonder how fast they'd be if the alum was added). The chemicals could be picked up at Lowes or Homo Depot (Gardening sections, just "Dusting" sulfur [check the purity, 98% or better is what you'd want], and ol' reliable "Stump-Out" [again, check chemical purity for 98% or better].). Most of the time (as far as home maker's are concerned,) it's the type of charcoal (not the chemical purity-) as well as the fineness of that charcoal (i.e., ballmilled for 76 hours v/s. being pulled out of your bbq pit 10 minutes ago-) that determines the quality of your home-made bp. Also, (I could be wrong, not a lawyer but rather what little sense God gave me, you'd need to check it out for yourself-) as long as you've less than 50 lbs. of small arms propellant bp (rather than a "commercial" 51 lbs.; or 30 lbs. of aluminized bp or something equally dumb,) you'd be fine in Texas (be sure to check your local laws and ordinances, however - your mileage may vary)! Just be sure it's all stored and handled responsibly!
 
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TRX said:
I hadn't seen that one, but it's the same basic process I've seen elsewhere. However, it's one of the very few that doesn't start with "first you get a 55 gallon drum..."
Click to expand...
Oddly enough my hubby has come up with something a bit different. He's taken the flighting (auger part) from an unloading auger put it in a heavier pipe that acts as the "chimney" of a furnace of sorts. He's feeding wood chips into the pipe with are heated as the flighting pulls them through the length of the pipe. So far he hasn't been able to get complete char but it looks promising.

My "batch" coker is a 12 in piece of steel pipe that was left over when my Dad drilled an irrigation well. I had my brother cut & weld it to a 90 degree angle then built a brick furnace around it, much like a brick barbeque. Willow is put in, an end cap made from sheet metal clamped on the lower and a fire started in the furnace. My brother collects the by-products and I keep the charcoal. It's an interesting trade off.
 
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