Black powder

[logibear1daddy]

I have a question maybe off topic, my apologies is it illegal to make homemade black powder in ca.if not can it be used in place of commercial powders for reloading

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[Bumslie]

RIP Blitzburgh

[CSACANNONEER]

AFAIK, making your own BP is perfectly legal. BP is not a substitute for smokeless powder and smokeless powder is not a substitute for black powder. Yes, you can use black powder in handloading cartridges. In fact, many modern cartridges were designed for BP. 30-30, 32-20, 44-40, 25-20, 45-70, 38 S&W, .38 Special, 45 Colt, etc. were all designed for BP. I would strongly advise against trying to use BP in cartridges that you do not have published load data for BP though.

[AlienHobo]

Wow, what timing! I was just looking into making my own Black Powder. I've been using Pyrodex because it's tough finding real BP. Looks easy enough.

[Paul_R]

AFAIK, making your own BP is perfectly legal. BP is not a substitute for smokeless powder and smokeless powder is not a substitute for black powder. Yes, you can use black powder in handloading cartridges. In fact, many modern cartridges were designed for BP. 30-30, 32-20, 44-40, 25-20, 45-70, 38 S&W, .38 Special, 45 Colt, etc. were all designed for BP. I would strongly advise against trying to use BP in cartridges that you do not have published load data for BP though.

Point of order

30-30 was never a black powder cartridge. It's parent cartridge, 38-55, was a black powder cartridge.

[zouaveherb]

There are how-to articles on making it on fireworks sites. BP is mixed, pressed into cakes, and the cakes are broken up into granules. The granules are then screened to sort by size. The process makes dust. L Keep in mind that unlike smokeless powder, the burn rate does not change with confinement. Burn rate is controlled only by granule size. The smaller the grain, the more surface area per given weight, the faster the burn. That means that BP dust (finer than the stuff used for flash pans) is really dangerous and must be kept to an absolute minimum. Any dust should be hosed off.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CSACANNONEER]

Point of order

30-30 was never a black powder cartridge. It's parent cartridge, 38-55, was a black powder cartridge.

I stand corrected.

[ironhorse1]

What he said. ^^^^^^^

On the other hand the .32 Winchester Special was designed for reloaders who still wanted to use BP.

While it is the ballistic twin of the 30-30 when loaded with smokeless

the slightly larger bore and slower twist met the requirements for BP loads.

Per Ken Waters in Pet Loads.

irh

[MarkInFolsom]

Has anyone here actually tried to make black powder? I ask because, many moons ago in my youth, I tried every which way to make this stuff and make it go boom. This was way before the days of internet. Finally just gave up and went to Simms hardware in Sac and bought some FFF. Way easier to use in my .50 cal Hawken.

[rsrocket1]

Not black powder per se, but the proper mixture of KNO3, Sulfur and Carbon is very easy to make and burn in open air. I've only made it as a kid and for my son's science class experiment. This was super low grade stuff that was to demonstrate burn rates based on mixture ratios. Not the ice water/strain through cloth/high quality stuff.

For stuff to shoot, BP subs are cheap, easy to get and easy to clean plus there isn't the 1 pound restriction.

[CSACANNONEER]

Not black powder per se, but the proper mixture of KNO3, Sulfur and Carbon is very easy to make and burn in open air. I've only made it as a kid and for my son's science class experiment. This was super low grade stuff that was to demonstrate burn rates based on mixture ratios. Not the ice water/strain through cloth/high quality stuff.

For stuff to shoot, BP subs are cheap, easy to get and easy to clean plus there isn't the 1 pound restriction.

BLASPHEMY! There's no substitute for real black powder.

[Paul_R]

BLASPHEMY! There's no substitute for real black powder.

And there's no damn one pound restriction either!

[PM720]

Making black powder is easy, I saw Capt Kirk do it on Star Trek!

[RestrictedColt]

[rsrocket1]

Making black powder is easy, I saw Capt Kirk do it on Star Trek!

Again, it's easy to mix the chemicals to make it burn but it's not easy to make it work like shooting grade BP. I just saw that episode "Arena" again a month or two ago and laughed when I saw Kirk "measuring" the proportions with his hands and stuffing diamonds into a plant tube as a barrel to use against the Gorn. Then when the projectiles hit the Gorn they didn't seem to affect the rubber suit at all.

Oh well, it seemed pretty good when it was first aired. The mortar they used was the coolest thing I remembered when I first saw it.