Making Fast, Shootable Black Powder; Part 2

Summary

In this detailed tutorial, Hoffman Reproductions continues to guide viewers through the process of making fast, shootable black powder. The video highlights the importance of carefully milled ingredients, necessary safety precautions, and the benefits of homemade black powder. The creator emphasizes the cost-effectiveness and accessibility of making black powder at home amidst rising commercial prices and limited availability. The tutorial concludes with tips for grain sizing, testing, and the pros and cons of homemade powder versus commercial alternatives.

Highlights

• Ball milling results in consistency needed for effective black powder. ⚙️
• Respirators and gloves are recommended for safety during the process. 😷🧤
• Grained black powder ignites more reliably and safely. 🚀
• Homemade powder is cheaper to produce but requires larger charges. 💲
• Grain sizes affect powder performance and safety. 🎯

Key Takeaways

• Ball milling is crucial for finely meshing ingredients. 🤓
• Homemade black powder can be safer and cost-effective. 💰
• Graining improves ignition and safety. 🧯
• Homemade powder requires a larger charge for similar performance to commercial powder. 💥
• Safety first: use respirators, gloves, and mix in small batches. 🛡️

Overview

This video by Hoffman Reproductions is dedicated to exploring the meticulous process of making fast, shootable black powder at home. The creator explains the importance of achieving the right consistency during ball milling, emphasizing the safety gear required to avoid inhaling the fine particles – remember those respirators and rubber gloves! You're also walked through the graining process, which is essential for igniting the powder effectively, making it extremely safe for use.

The tutorial underscores the cost-saving aspect of DIY black powder. With commercial black powder becoming both scarce and expensive, creating your own powder at home emerges as a viable, economic alternative. The creator guides you through the process of mixing the powder with water and alcohol, then forming it into a clay-like consistency, which is key to its effectiveness. There's an entertaining hands-on approach to learning how to grain the powder, crucial for its performance and safety when used.

In wrapping up, Hoffman Reproductions discusses testing homemade black powder against commercial varieties. Despite needing more powder to achieve similar results, the homemade version is financially appealing and performs well. This educational piece leaves you armed with the knowledge to potentially craft your own black powder safely and efficiently. A great watch for history buffs, craftsmen, and hobbyists interested in the traditional art of black powder making.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Ball Milling Process The chapter begins with an overview of the ball milling process, which involves breaking down raw ingredients into a fine consistency using a milling machine. This process is crucial for ensuring the ingredients mesh together at a very fine level, contributing to the quality of the final product. The chapter narrates a practical session where the milling ran for about 18 hours to achieve the desired consistency, highlighting the importance of patience and precision in the milling process.
• 03:00 - 09:00: Mixing and Graining Process The chapter discusses the properties and handling of a fine powder with a consistency similar to talcum powder. This powder does not burn well and contains heavy sulfur fouling, leading to poor ignition. When dealing with this powder, one should wear protective equipment such as a respirator and rubber gloves due to the fine particles that can become airborne. The chapter sets the stage for the next process, which is mixing and graining.
• 09:00 - 17:00: Drying and Comparison with Commercial Powder In this chapter titled 'Drying and Comparison with Commercial Powder', the process of determining when a powder is ready for the next step is described. The key indication of readiness is when the lead mixing balls are no longer covered by the powder but instead sit on top of it. The powder itself becomes fine, starts to thicken and clump, indicating it is ready for the next step. This process serves as a comparison to commercial powders, suggesting a level of standard or completion similar to them.
• 17:00 - 21:00: Practical Testing with Cannon The chapter titled 'Practical Testing with Cannon' focuses on the materials and tools needed for practical testing with a cannon. It describes using a simple piece of wood as a mixing tool and emphasizes the necessity of a ceramic or plastic bowl for mixing purposes. A screen mesh, described as a crude frame made from window screen material, is used to grade the powder. Different sizes of mesh can be used to control the powder's grain size, which is an important step in preparing black powder, acknowledging its potential to ignite.
• 21:00 - 30:00: Common Questions and Answers The chapter titled 'Common Questions and Answers' provides a detailed explanation of handling and using milled powder safely. It emphasizes the importance of keeping the powder away from heat sources or sparks to prevent accidents. The chapter advises against using the powder in its current fine form for gunpowder applications, as it is ineffective. Instead, the powder must be mixed with liquid to be usable. There is also a caution against using it in firearms such as cap and ball revolvers without proper preparation.
• 30:00 - 40:00: Conclusion and Safety Advice The chapter discusses the potential dangers of handling fine powder due to its propensity to disperse before ignition. This can lead to hazardous situations, such as being engulfed in a fireball. To mitigate this risk, it stresses the importance of properly 'graining' the powder as a precautionary step. Additionally, the text mentions the materials required for a safer preparation process, including cookie sheets and a mixing method that involves a wet mixture, likely for safety and control. This involves using readily available store-bought products, emphasizing the importance of careful handling and preparation to ensure safety.

Making Fast, Shootable Black Powder; Part 2 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] all right so our ball milling is complete at this point it ran about 18 hours to get it to the consistency i needed it to and again what you're trying to do with the ball milling is break down all of the raw ingredients and get them essentially to mesh together on a very very fine level and if you stop prior to that till it's the
• 00:30 - 01:00 consistency of a like a talcum powder the powder will not burn very well it has a lot of uh heavy sulfur fouling and what not and just ignites very very poorly peek inside here the ball mill you may want to have a respirator on when you open this up because the particles are so fine they will float in here so not a bad idea also i'm wearing rubber gloves which we're going to need for the next step the mixing and graining but
• 01:00 - 01:30 you can see rather than being covered in the powder now the lead mixing balls or lead media are now sitting on top and the powder is kind of caked around and on the bottom and it's so fine it's starting to uh almost thicken and clump together and that is when you know it's done when the balls are sitting on top and the powder is not on top of the balls you know that it is complete and ready to go on the next step so what you will need for this next step
• 01:30 - 02:00 is a spoon and something to mix this is just a piece of wood whittled down uh you'll need a ceramic or plastic mixing bowl this is just a screen mesh with a crude frame this is just window screen that we're going to use to grain it with you can get different sizes of this and that's what's going to control the size of the grain of your powder we essentially have black powder now this stuff will ignite
• 02:00 - 02:30 now that it's been milled and you do need to be careful with it again don't have it around a heat source or sparks or anything of that nature but uh in order to be used for gun powder it needs to be mixed together with liquid and green don't try and use it in this form now because it this uh very very fine powder form it doesn't work very well and if you fire it out of something like a revolver or whatnot a cap and ball revolver it
• 02:30 - 03:00 can be actually a bit dangerous because it's so fine some of the powder can blow out before it has the chance to ignite and then ignite after the gun has been detonated and surround you in a fireball so important that you grain it which is uh this next step so you'll need the things i mentioned you'll need some cookie sheets and what i am going to mix it with we mix it wet this is uh just general store-bought
• 03:00 - 03:30 rubbing alcohol isopropyl alcohol it says 91 percent i have this diluted it's a 50 50 mix of water and alcohol some people prefer just using straight alcohol or denatured alcohol they feel that it further helps break down the chemicals and get them to mesh well uh still other people feel that if you mix it with straight water it helps it grain better i'm kind of experimenting between the two i'm kind of on the fence so some people
• 03:30 - 04:00 go with a 50 50 mix which is what this is 50 alcohol 50 water and we're going to go about mixing this into sort of like a lump of bread dough but the very first thing we're going to do is put our screen over our bowl and we need to filter or screen out the mixing balls from the powder the loose
• 04:00 - 04:30 powder so i just take a little spoonful put it on there and then just gently push it back and forth and the powder we'll go down through the screen and the lead mixing balls will remain on top okay so just to show the effectiveness of this stuff that we have indeed achieved black powder this is uh
• 04:30 - 05:00 some of the dry dust prior to milling but even at this stage it works just like black powder as i will demonstrate now that's a little slow by black powder standards but after we grain it it will uh vastly improve so once it's dried out i'll show you the finished product all right so now that we've got the powder and the lead media separated out from the actual powder you might have a clump or two of some of
• 05:00 - 05:30 the raw ingredients that were solid or a little piece of charcoal that's why you use the screen you can filter those out and now we have black powder that's the consistency of talcum powder it's very very fine be careful with it at this stage again it's uh gunpowder now and you can't ignite black powder obviously but we're getting ready to mix it with alcohol and water so that will reduce uh the danger scale down a bit but when you are mixing this
• 05:30 - 06:00 up it's sort of like mixing up concrete or joint compound for drywall a little bit at a time you don't want to turn this into a slurry you were looking for something that's sort of the consistency of wet clay that's what we're going for because that's further helping mesh these ingredients together and it's necessary for the graining which we're going to do next so i am wearing goggles not a bad idea when
• 06:00 - 06:30 doing this and we'll just take dump a little bit in at a time okay and you can use your gloves or a spoon or a spatula and just kind of like you're making a cake see we're kind of clumping up there so it's way too dry at this stage
• 06:30 - 07:00 a little bit at a time and it's starting to look better starting to look like clay which is what we want i'm going to keep mixing this for a few minutes and i'll show you the end result so you can see now at this point it kind of has a slight shine to it and it has kind of the consistency of clay which is perfect so what i'm going to do now if you recall log wood a thickening
• 07:00 - 07:30 agent i just lightly dust it and sort of just like again i'm baking a cake or some bread dough and gently knead it in all right so i got this just a little bit wet but it'll dry out okay i've divided it into two pieces so you can see it's sort of just a lump of clay i've got our mesh screen
• 07:30 - 08:00 over a cookie pan and what you're going to do to grain it is you're not going to really push it through you're just going to kind of drag it like so just drag it rub it through with your fingers in a dragging motion and that's making little granules as it pushes through the screen and it'll kind of stick in the screen but don't worry about it just push it back and forth you can do little pieces at a time if
• 08:00 - 08:30 you want a little easier if it's a little dryer like i said i got this batch just a hair wet but it'll work again keeping the mindset of small batches so we separate the full amount of powder as it's drying so continue on with that until you've got it all fully drained all right guys so this is what the powder looks like as it's drying out this is half of the batch that i made
• 08:30 - 09:00 uh you can see all the little granules as it's drying it's a little coarse this is like it'd be a kindle one f with some 3f mixed in and because i got it wet it's kind of wanting to clump together in larger granules so as it dries i'll probably just take a knife and gently chop it it's not hard to do it doesn't take very long to further break it up but as far as drying goes put it in a warm again nowhere near heat source but a warm dry place
• 09:00 - 09:30 and if you've used water it'll probably take a day or two to dry out alcohol usually by the end of one day it's fully dry if it's sunny out which today the day that i made this stuff it's not it's gray and raining here you can just set these out in the sun obviously make sure that it's not around where any children could get to it but if you stick it out in the sun it dries really fast a few hours and it's done so we'll go ahead and let it dry and i'll
• 09:30 - 10:00 show you the finished product this procedure this graining commercially made black powder utilizes what some people call pressed black powder or a method called corning and you take the wet black powder and you place it in a die and you exert many tons of force on it and you press it into little pucks and that process generates gun powder that is stronger
• 10:00 - 10:30 provides more lift it's not necessary it will make stuff that's more akin to commercial powder but as far as function and ignition and just being slightly below commercial powder as far as strength which i'll talk about more later this stuff does a pretty darn good job so corning is dangerous and involves more specialized equipment it's not 100 necessary to make good quality black powder so not necessary and just in case you've
• 10:30 - 11:00 ever heard of it and wondering what it is but anyway we'll continue to let this dry and i'll show you how it performs here next okay so at this stage i've let the powder dry now for 24 hours and it's thoroughly dry now it will take on sort of a dark gray color as opposed to a jet black of what you see with commercially made powders but it came out really well it granulated really nice the grains are nice and
• 11:00 - 11:30 tough which is good and uh ignition on this which i'll demonstrate in a second is right on par with commercially made powder it flashes instantly which is what you want you don't want it a slow burn on it you want to flash so ignition will be instantaneous and uh hopefully it went well for you and we'll go ahead and demonstrate not only its flash but i have a little can in here that i'll demonstrate uh it actually
• 11:30 - 12:00 detonating so that's next so for a little flash test and comparison over here on the right we have a pile of commercially made goex and over here on the left we have a little pile of our homemade black powder so i'll go ahead and demonstrate the goex first
• 12:00 - 12:30 and you can see that was pretty much on par with the commercial stuff it flashed every bit as quick and one thing you can do and test make sure your powder is burning right is put it on a piece of paper or tin foil and if you light it and it burns holes through it it's probably hasn't been milled long enough because powder that hasn't been milled long enough will take longer to ignite and
• 12:30 - 13:00 consequently generate more heat which is bad for several different reasons makes more fouling and whatnot so that's a good way that you're to indicate that your powder is flashing instantly it doesn't have time to generate a huge amount of heat so that's one thing you can do alright so next i'll go ahead and demonstrate this stuff actually being detonated out of a little black powder cannon so that's next all right guys so i've got a little
• 13:00 - 13:30 miniature cannon here that's actually can be live fired it's built for it and we have this cannon loaded with about 35 grains of our homemade powder and some wadding along with a little cannon fuse so we'll go ahead and light it and see if we can generate some smoke fire noise
• 13:30 - 14:00 all right so in closing i thought perhaps you might have a few questions about some of the particulars of this gun powder as far as uh how it's made why i make it how it's used and what not so just a few that i wrote down here uh one question probably a lot of people have is uh
• 14:00 - 14:30 why not just buy it and go through all the hassle of making it well around here black powder genuine black powder not piradex is getting harder and harder to find and the stores that do carry it they're wanting more and more money for it not that i'm trying to put people out of business but one particular black powder supply company that's online most of their powder right now is back ordered so it's hard to get and to just buy one pound of powder
• 14:30 - 15:00 i went ahead and added the cart and ran through all the shipping and everything and with all the hazardous fees and shipping it was gonna cost over fifty dollars to just get one pound of powder you can get a little bit of a price break if you buy multiples but that's pretty darn expensive so for a product it's getting harder and harder to find for me it made sense to go ahead and get into making it another big question how much does it cost okay so this is something that's uh
• 15:00 - 15:30 you'll be pleased to hear for one pound of powder um it depends a little bit on how you go about getting your ingredients you know do you get a good deal on one or many of those ingredients i talked about are you going to make your own charcoal but i've got my powder cost to make one pound of powder down to under three dollars a pound so that's dirt cheap shooting you can just burn it for fun if you want
• 15:30 - 16:00 to at that price but again it depends on how much you pay for your ingredients if you look around and get good deals on things right now since a lot of these products are fertilizers you can get them at a good price because they're very plentiful and garden supply stores and whatnot so this is very economical to make and shoot dirt cheap so that's one other reason another question is is this power powder as powerful as store-bought black powder
• 16:00 - 16:30 no it is not you have to up your powder charge a bit to get the same performance so i test fired some of this a few weeks ago and found that i typically shoot 50 grains of 3f out of one of my rifles i always happen to put about 70 grains in it to get roughly the same performance now because this gunpowder is so cheap that really doesn't bother me i don't mind adding just a little bit more to get the
• 16:30 - 17:00 same performance so for me that was no problem and on historical note which is kind of cool this type of powder is the way that it was produced prior to the war of 1812 as far as the way it's mixed and grained and whatnot and consequently the performance i've read about uh powder charges that were used in the revolutionary war and they were pretty darn big in some cases it called for 160 grains of powder
• 17:00 - 17:30 for a brown best musket but if you think about it in terms of this type of powder that makes a lot of sense because it's not as powerful as commercially made gunpowder that you get today it's every bit as fast it's lightning fast you get the same effect all across the board you just have to up your powder charge a bit another question you might have is how is it on fouling you know is it like glue after a few shots so far the testing that i've done is
• 17:30 - 18:00 it's on par with goex it's not quite as clean obviously as swiss powders the premium powders but it's no better and it's no worse than goex you know you go to clean this stuff out the first few patches are pretty messy but no better or worse than go x on the fouling another question might be can it be used as priming and a flintlock and yes absolutely it can i tested it and ignition is instantaneous out of the
• 18:00 - 18:30 lock of a gun so yeah you can prime with the stuff absolutely one last question can reenactors use this powder is it good for just dumping a load down and blowing it out in the air for the smoke the fire and the noise uh yes it is i dumped the charge down one of my rifles that was nothing but powder i didn't use a water a ramrod just dumped it down there tapped the butt of the gun on the ground a little bit and it went
• 18:30 - 19:00 right off with plenty of noise smoke and fire so yes this is a great choice for reenactors because as gunpowder becomes more difficult and more expensive to get this is a great option for you so that's some of the questions i thought you might have if you have others please feel free to post them this is an ongoing experiment i may even tune it slightly one way or the other in our next video we're going to actually be doing a lot of testing and firing live rounds with this
• 19:00 - 19:30 gunpowder to see how it works maybe a couple of different guns do some ballistics tests some accuracy tests and just really put it through its paces and see uh how it matches up to commercial powder so once again everybody thank you so much for tuning in we really appreciate your support uh if you are going to attempt this please be very careful at the end of the day very doable and it is safe but you need to take precaution and use common sense and just
• 19:30 - 20:00 really watch it and make small batches like we talked about so thanks again for tuning in and until next time take care you