DIY- Black Powder- CIA Method... Thinking for Myself...

Summary

In this video by Lame Beaver Trading Co., the host shares insights and experiments related to making black powder using the CIA method, emphasizing the use of acetone. By boiling potassium nitrate and integrating sulfur and acetone, a unique slurry is created. The video investigates the impact of using acetone, demonstrating its flammability and comparing different methods of water distillation in the process. Gunpowder properties like burn rate, cleanliness of residue, and final puck characteristics are discussed, offering practical insights into homemade explosive production.

Highlights

• The host discusses using acetone in the CIA method for making gunpowder and its impact on combustion. 🔥
• Experiments show that a mixture of acetone and distilled water can improve the burn rate of gunpowder. 💥
• Gunpowder pucked with acetone burns faster and cleaner, leaving less residue. 🚀
• The video includes a side-by-side comparison of burning gunpowder made with distilled water vs. acetone-mixed water. ⚖️
• Distilled water paired with acetone results in more efficient gunpowder, confirming acetone's additive value. 💡

Key Takeaways

• The CIA method of making gunpowder involves using acetone for a more combustible mixture. 🔥
• Acetone, a flammable substance, when added to gunpowder, increases its burning rate. 💥
• The video explores the effectiveness of distilled water versus standard groundwater in gunpowder production. 💧
• Pucking gunpowder with acetone results in quicker burning compared to only using water. ⏱️
• A 50/50 mix of water and acetone shows promise for fast and effective combustion. 🚀

Overview

This video by Lame Beaver Trading Co. explores the nuances of creating black powder using an alternative technique known as the CIA method. This method intrigues by integrating acetone into the mix, adding a layer of exploration into the flammability and burning efficiency of the final product.

The creator dives deep into the differences between water types and acetone-infused mixtures, performing tests to reveal how these elements affect gunpowder's performance. Comparing distilled water to groundwater and observing the outcomes of each in terms of residue and burning speed, the video offers practical insights and confirms the benefit of acetone in quicker combustion.

Through a series of hands-on experiments, the video showcases the process of milling, mixing, and pucking gunpowder to optimize burning characteristics. It’s an engaging look at how subtle changes in materials can lead to significant differences in homemade gunpowder effectiveness.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Welcome This chapter serves as an introduction and welcome segment where the speaker greets the audience, especially new subscribers. The speaker expresses gratitude for the comments left by viewers and shares enjoyment in reading them. There is also a mention of the community's efforts in making homemade P powder.
• 00:30 - 02:00: CIA Method and Acetone Thoughts This chapter titled 'CIA Method and Acetone Thoughts' discusses the process of making gunpowder using the CIA method. The narrator reflects on the nature of acetone and explains the process involving boiling water and dissolving potassium nitrate to integrate it into charcoal.
• 02:00 - 05:00: Gunpowder Preparation Process The chapter describes the process of preparing gunpowder by combining sulfur and then introducing subzero acetone. This creates a reaction that binds the components into a hard slurry. The mixture is stirred until it reaches the right consistency, after which it is wrapped in cloth to wring out any excess acetone and water.
• 05:00 - 09:00: Results of Water Types and Gunpowder Burn Test The chapter discusses observations related to gunpowder after a burn test involving water and acetone. The narrator notes a gap in existing tests where nobody has placed the gunpowder, after wringing out excess acetone and water, under pressure with a puck and jack. Typically, the gunpowder is allowed to dry after being pressed into a hard ball, screened, and sized. This method might have unexplored implications that have not been widely documented.
• 09:00 - 11:00: Acetone Flammability Test The chapter titled 'Acetone Flammability Test' discusses the concept of using acetone to enhance the burning properties of gunpowder. It mentions that acetone is flammable, promising a demonstration of this fact later in the video. Additionally, it touches on the process of making acetone at home using vinegar.
• 11:00 - 14:30: Pucking Gunpowder with Acetone and Water The chapter discusses the basics of acetone, including its natural production in the human body and its flammable properties. It explores the idea that potassium nitrate, a component often discussed in the context of chemistry and pyrotechnics, may share some elemental properties with acetone. This leads to further reflections and thinking about these chemical interactions.
• 14:30 - 19:00: Burn Test Comparison: Acetone vs. Water In this chapter, the speaker discusses the process of making gunpowder and the importance of achieving the right consistency for their purposes. They mention milling another 100 grams of gunpowder with a composition of 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal, and 10% sulfur. After 8 to 8.5 hours of milling, they noted that more than half of the mixture had already reached the desired reaction state, implying effective milling and readiness for testing or use. The focus of the chapter is on the milling process and its role in achieving optimal burn characteristics.
• 19:00 - 27:00: Conclusion and Personal Insights In this chapter titled 'Conclusion and Personal Insights,' the author describes a meticulous process of mixing and compacting materials in a Mill jar over a specific period of time. The detailed account highlights a repetitive task of stopping and mixing the contents every hour between the eighth and twelfth hour. This illustrates the author's attention to detail and persistence in ensuring a thorough and uniform mixture, offering a glimpse into the practical aspects and challenges involved in the process.

DIY- Black Powder- CIA Method... Thinking for Myself... Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 well hello there everybody thanks for clicking on this video and joining in in what is a continuing conversation first of all I'd like to welcome aboard all the new subscribers and also to thank everybody for the comments that you've been leaving behind I've en been enjoying reading them and been enjoying seeing what all of you are doing um in your endeavors to make homemade P powder um couple of the
• 00:30 - 01:00 comments got me to thinking about something and it has to do with making gunpowder using the CIA method okay and that got me to thinking about the nature of acetone because I understand how it all works you boil your water you um dissolve your potassium nitrate that helps move the pottassium nitrate into the charcoal when you mix it all
• 01:00 - 01:30 together along with the sulfur and then at that critical moment you introduce cold cold Subzero acetone and it kind of like shocks everything into that one unit then you keep stirring it until it becomes a very hard slurry and then you put it in some sort of cloth and ring it out you're ringing out the excess acetone in the water okay
• 01:30 - 02:00 and the one thing that occurred to me is I've yet to see anybody take that gun powder after they've rung out the excess acetone and water I've yet to see anybody Puck that underneath a with a pucking d and a jack okay I've yet to see that I'm not saying it's not out there I just have not seen it yet what I've seen is everybody take that hard ball Puck after ringing everything out and screening it and sizing it at that point and letting it dry and
• 02:00 - 02:30 everybody says yes you get a hotter burning gunpowder well you would because you've introduced A flammable acetone and acetone is a flammable and I'm going to demonstrate that a little later in this video okay but they got me to thinking about acetone okay calcium acetate now you can actually make your own acetone at home it's just vinegar
• 02:30 - 03:00 and eggshells that's just the basics and even your own body produces acetone you urinate that out so thus again potassium nitrates made from what okay you guys have got it so even the potassium nitrate in itself should have the elements of acetone the flammability of it okay but that got me to thinking about
• 03:00 - 03:30 making another batch of gunpowder now what I did is I milled up another 100 gam of my gunpowder 75151 I'm going to stick with that because I think it burns really well for my purposes now what I did is at about 8 8 and 1/2 hours I stopped the mill popped the lid and a little more than half of the 100 G was already acting in the
• 03:30 - 04:00 bottom of the uh jar the um container so I took a stick and mixed it all up ran it an additional hour opened the lid and once again it was already compacting the bottom of this uh Mill jar so up until 12 hours after about the eight8 and 1 half hour up to 12 hours every hour I stopped it and it all up
• 04:00 - 04:30 again okay because there seems to be a prevailing thought when it comes to CIA gunpowder that the components are mixed better than if you were to put them in a ball mill I don't know that that's necessarily true or if somebody is just throwing out some maybe perhaps wishful thinking but that's what I did okay and um depending on what portion of of the
• 04:30 - 05:00 video has already been pre-recorded um I did decide to go ahead and use a 50/50 mixture of acetone in my ground water and you'll see it in the video I distilled my own ground water to get the minerals out okay and I did do a test burn on those little square pieces of metal and you will see the results of that if you stick with this video to
• 05:00 - 05:30 those points up up to that point in the timeline so anyhow um without giving too much more of this all away um you'll see my first impression of the pucks with the 50% acetone and the 50% groundwater that I um you know um distilled myself and I still have a little bit more to do when I get it back here in the shoping after everything thoroughly
• 05:30 - 06:00 dries and I'll let you know just how hard they really are and you'll um so but the thought in mind is how is this gunpowder going to react not using the CIA method but putting a 5050 mixture and pucking it under a bottle jack that is what we all want to see and that's what we're all going to see and at this point I will see you sometime throughout
• 06:00 - 06:30 the video I know guys you probably wanted to see what the uh bare metal look like underneath that gunpowder with the different Waters well I did not use any cleaning solution all I did was take a dry rag and my thumb and cleaned off the metal let me give you a closeup
• 06:30 - 07:00 there's the groundwater that's after cleaning it up with just a dry rag and my thumb pressure there's the city water I got to tell you right now
• 07:00 - 07:30 that's still the cleanest looking piece of metal and there's the metal with the distilled water here's the DW so it looks to me from right here right now that the distilled water and my ground water leave the most particulates behind
• 07:30 - 08:00 I know I said I was going to give it a rest but after thinking about it I thought about something that I could try for myself and I want to test this Theory I'm going to make a half a batch of gunpowder but this time what I'm going to do is this I'm going to take my groundw and I'm going to distill it
• 08:00 - 08:30 and I want to see for a fact if distilling my own groundwater leaves any minerals or any trace minerals behind I know when I did the previous burn with the distilled water they looked like there was some minerals or something left behind not wanting to completely trust
• 08:30 - 09:00 buying stuff from the grocery store I decided that I was going to distill my own water so stay tuned for the burn test so just to remain consistent here's 40 grains of my homemade gunpowder with juniper as a charcoal and this was uh pucked with my ground water okay minerals included
• 09:00 - 09:30 [Music] all right there's the burn and you can see the little white specks Left Behind which again I'm still of the mind it's some of the potassium nitrate and perhaps some of the minerals from the ground water so I'm going to get reset up and I'm going to do the same burn with
• 09:30 - 10:00 the gunpowder that I distilled my groundwater myself okay here we go well guys there's hardly any white specks Left Behind let me get resituated here and get you guys a side by side shot okay the metal plate on the left is the gunpowder that I made with the
• 10:00 - 10:30 groundwater and you can see there's quite a bit left behind and on the right is the gunpowder that I made with my groundwater that I took the time to distill and you saw that previously I think we can note there's a huge difference and the other thing that I want to note off of memory the gunpowder that I made previously with what I
• 10:30 - 11:00 thought was distilled water which was bought from the grocery store was not completely purified in my opinion now I'm going to do a simple little test here with acetone so I have a little bit of acetone in this cup I'm going to light a match and I'm going to hold the flame close and you watch what it does see
• 11:00 - 11:30 that's what your gunpowder is doing when you infuse it with acetone the fumes as your combustion begins to burn in the bottom of your gun barrel that acetone adds some flammability to it so yeah naturally it would burn faster and it would burn hotter so now I'm G to go ahead and Puck that 100 grams
• 11:30 - 12:00 of my homemade gunpowder with juniper just to stay consistent and then once that dries I'll turn the camera back on and then we'll see where we're at at that point whoops almost forgot I want to burn these two gunpowders in a straight line I have 40 grains stretched out you guys decide for yourself if one is faster burning the than the other this gunpowder is the gunpowder that I made made with my ground
• 12:00 - 12:30 water without distilling it let's see the burn rate compared to the gun powder I made with the ground water that I distilled myself so here's the gunpowder with my ground water that I distilled myself so judging for myself I think that's a little bit faster
• 12:30 - 13:00 okay just so that I have a record for myself this 100 G of gunpowder after Milling it about 8 hours maybe eight and a half I stopped the mill popped the lid off and about half of it was already compacting on the bottom okay so I took a stick stirred it all up run it for another hour same
• 13:00 - 13:30 thing so I did that every hour to 12 hours okay so from 8 and 1/2 to 12 hours or so I stopped the mill stirred it all back up so that I could get a really good mill on it okay so I want to show you what it looks like right now in the bottom of the container and I think the reason why it's a little loose and fluffy right now because I have to take you know a stick
• 13:30 - 14:00 and a hammer and drive that lid off but you friends should be able to determine for yourselves that that gunpowder is pretty well compacted on the bottom which you know we've all convinced ourselves this is when it's ready to be pucked and I have decided to use um a 50/50% mixture 50% my distilled groundwater with 50% acetone so I'm
• 14:00 - 14:30 going to get busy doing that and um we'll just see you here in just a moment or two cuz I want to give you my first impressions of what the pucks look like compared to just using Straight water and or compared to using that 91% alcohol uh in a previous video so like the CIA method when you get the slurry made and you put it in a cloth and you ring all the excess water and acetone out I'm accomplishing the same thing right
• 14:30 - 15:00 here the excess water and acetone is coming out through the bottom of my pucking D so for those that think I'm losing the value of the pottassium nitrate by doing this ask yourself the same question regarding the method used for the CIA when you ring it out are you not losing the value of the water and or excuse EXC me the value of the potassium
• 15:00 - 15:30 nitrate I would think so but you make up your own mind friends okay there's my piston and I know that it's got enough liquid in it to push through the puck cuz I generally do not have this much slurry that's coming back up from the you know between the walls of the piston and um the pucking Dy so I know that I've got more than enough liquid in what
• 15:30 - 16:00 I'm doing and I'm also mixing up smaller batches recognizing the evaporative value of the acetone but I want to try one thing here before I continue on now this is my stirring stick and I cleaned this off before I started mixing everything CU I want to try this um with a match now remember or keep in mind this is still moist it's not completely
• 16:00 - 16:30 dry come on all right hopefully you caught that as I was moving it away it went off pretty damn quick even wet so am I on the right track you decide for yourself
• 16:30 - 17:00 I'm going to continue pucking some more and I'll interrupt when I get enough pucks to show you um what they look like and give you my first impressions on those well guys I got some good news and I got some bad news what do you want first here's the good news I got drawn for deer this year even better news my brother got drawn for Elk that's two years in a row he got drawn for Elk that was his first choice my dear hunt was my
• 17:00 - 17:30 third choice but here's the bad news the dates overlap so I'm not going elone with my brother this year go figure right okay here's the plate that I use in the bottom of my pucking Dy and as you can see there's a slurry left behind I'm going to let this dry and then I'm going to scrape it off and then I'll do a burn test as far as the the pucks well give me just a moment and I'll get them
• 17:30 - 18:00 okay here's the pucks 1-in pucks varying sizes varying depths and I typically get 18 pucks I got 17 one of them is really really really thin I've got another one here that's you know maybe about twice as thick as that first one um the
• 18:00 - 18:30 color is what I normally get when I Puck with water only so that didn't change so I guess what I'm going to do now is set these in the Sun for the day let them dry and um do another burn test and see if we can determine if this is actually a good way of going I will tell you give me another moment so this is my spray bottle that I use to wet my
• 18:30 - 19:00 gunpowder um every time I start I start with a full bottle cuz I kind of want to see how much liquid I use and to see if I can remain consistent uh in my water usage now as I mentioned earlier 50% acetone 50% my groundwater that I actually distilled myself and as you saw earlier in the video I even showed it to my wife without telling her which one was which to pick out which one was the clean or burning and obviously it was
• 19:00 - 19:30 the the um the piece of metal that I had done to burn with the dis with my distilled groundwater so I think that question settled from here on out I'm using my own distilled groundwater now I will tell you from past experience I did use a little bit more liquid and wetting down the gunpowder as I mentioned earlier keeping in mind the evaporative nature of acetone if you were to put a
• 19:30 - 20:00 ruler on here and bring this up say like another quter of an inch that's how much water Al acetone that I used about a qu of an inch more than what I normally use and as you could see it produced a pretty good slurry in the pucking process so I'm going to go get this stuff dried off and uh break it up and grind it and we'll do some more tests so
• 20:00 - 20:30 stay tuned for that all righty it's been a day and a night this piece of metal sat on the dashboard of my truck all day yesterday to dry out what is the slurry so I'm going to take a moment scrape it off and then we're going to do a burn and we'll just see how potent the slurry is stay tuned so there's that PO of slurry so let's put a
• 20:30 - 21:00 match to it so as you probably observed for yourself it was a little slow burning but it did burn but what was left behind on the board well judge for yourselves let the camera focus in on it and I'll tell you from right here
• 21:00 - 21:30 it's little yellow in color which would indicate to me it would be more sulur than potassium nitrate but it's still burnt and it still produced a flame so anyhow just judge for yourself guys not going to tell you how to interpret this but just interpret it any way you want really doesn't matter so what I'm going to do now is go into my shop and
• 21:30 - 22:00 I'm going to start breaking up the pucks and I'll let you know then my impression as to whether they're really compacted really tight or not using the acetone combined with the water so at this point probably like you I'm curious to see if they break up um the way they normally do when I use just straight water again 50% water 50% acetone so let's see if
• 22:00 - 22:30 they break up like they do when it's just straight water first impression yes
• 22:30 - 23:00 okay they seem to break up as they normally would when I just use straight water so I'm going to go to town get all these pucks broken up run a few of them through the coffee grinder so I can begin sizing them and when I get enough 3F to do a burn test we'll do a burn test so stay tuned so there's 40 grains of the gun powder I just made that was pucked with 50% water 50%
• 23:00 - 23:30 acetone and bear in mind that I expect this to burn a whole lot cleaner than that slurry um gunpowder did so let me get a match lit and we'll see what happens well you guys as surprised as I am that stuff went up pre pretty damn quick but how did it fa on the piece of
• 23:30 - 24:00 metal judge for yourselves kind of smoky a lot of uh smoke in my opinion left behind on the piece of metal but I don't see any any white chunks um there are darker chunks on it I don't think the camera can pick it up but what I'm going to do is I'm going to do the same Tas on the board and see how that 40 grain Burns in a
• 24:00 - 24:30 straight line and then I'll do a side by side comparison with this piece of metal and the one I did the other day with just my groundwater that I distilled myself and bear in mind this is using my groundwater that's been distilled so let me get reset up and U we'll see if it burns just as quick stay tuned okay there's the same 40 grains in a straight line let's see how quick this can go
• 24:30 - 25:00 up well guys judge for yourselves I think you went up pretty quick um what does the board look like well judge for yourselves it's pretty clean isn't it I don't see any particles left behind per se it's Smoky yeah there's a lot of smoke
• 25:00 - 25:30 left behind but um that's pretty clean so just maybe maybe the way to go is 50% my distilled groundwater and acetone but let me get the camera repositioned and we'll look at those two uh metal pieces side by side and we'll wrap this up okay this piece right here on the left that is the burn 40 grains of the gunpowder that I pucked with
• 25:30 - 26:00 50% my groundw distilled and 50% acetone this piece right here on the right that is the gunpowder that I pucked with the groundw only that I distilled myself looking at both of these side by side the U piece on the left that has the acetone in
• 26:00 - 26:30 it left a lot more smoke behind a smoky film as opposed to the gunpowder that had just the distilled water but either way guys um both these pieces are clean the only difference is that one the gunpowder that I pucked with the 50% water 50% acetone left a little bit more smoke behind so in either case um I would be just as satisfied using both but for the
• 26:30 - 27:00 sake of quick and fast burning definitely the uh gunpowder that was plucked with the 50% water and the acetone burnt in my opinion a lot quicker and obviously I'll have to go back and watch this whole thing and uh you know make a better judgment but as of right now I'm of the mind that the 50% acetone to the water seems to be a lot quicker burning gunpowder so anyhow friends um you know decide for
• 27:00 - 27:30 yourselves um I hope that you've enjoyed what I presented here and I certainly hope that you'll take a moment or two to give it a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed already please consider subscribing and please share this with the bestus of buds so long for now bye