Sweet weeping Jesus. I’ve been making videos on this topic for three damn years and you show up and watch one video and you’re mad because I didn’t go over everything from the very beginning to date? GTFO man. If I had done that I would have cheese d!cks like you bitching about it being a two hour long video.
Balsa is used as cores in those giant wind turbine blades. And apparently so much of it is used that its wiping out the plantations where it's grown. The blades are not recyclable so they are just buried or chopped up and buried. Perhaps the firms that dispose of these blades can be contacted to see if some of that balsa can be repurposed. Certainly would be cheaper than buying it from craft stores.
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS CHANNEL!!!!! For the following reasons...1 the man backs up what he says and proves it...2 he ACTUALLY answers viewers questions. 3 He is humble and wants to explore and test as much as the next person that is heavy into this and WANTS to share his findings...if any other Creator can top this channel on this subject ( which I highly doubt...) go for it.
A friend of mine, who used to shoot for T/C, and still holds several NMLRA records, would clean his guns as follows. With a mixture of water and Dawn detergent, he would saturate a number of correctly-sized patches, squeeze out as much liquid as possible in a tight fist, then store the patches in an airtight jar. At the range, he would shoot once, swab the bore with one patch, turn it over and swab once more, then load and shoot again. He could shoot all day with this routine and it was the most uniform with results. I have adopted his method with very good success.
I've owned a 58 double and I now own a 72 Cal double rifle. It's the same routine I use only I use a spit patch to swab the bores between rounds. I fire each barrel once, swab them and then reload and shoot another round from each barrel. I can shoot all day like that even with GOEX, my favoured powder. Having said that, I'm probably going to look into making some of my own powder now that I've seen this channel. 🙂
Just a thought…the balsa may be cleaner because it contains less “impurities” than many other woods. If I remember correctly, balsa is nearly pure cellulose, without a lot of sap and mineral residue. I haven’t made the plunge into homemade powder yet, but it’s looking like it’s time to make an investment in the equipment.
That makes me wonder if taking any of the other "good" woods (seasoned and chipped) and then boiling the snot out of it in a big kettle and re-drying them would improve performance. That would remove a large majority of the non-cellulose components. Or even taking chips while green and boil them, strain and dry, then do the seasoning. Anything to remove the sugars.
Balsa BP would make for really good pistol powder, I think. A few others on RUclips have made some and unlike the usual hiss or whoosh that other BP makes when burning in open air, balsa BP tends to go thump instead, which implies a faster burn rate.
Here is an interesting experiment. Weigh your patches before and after swabbing the barrel. that way you'll have a numerical measurement of the amount of residue left behind by the different powders.
Interesting results! Now I am even more curious about charcoal made from toilet paper or cotton (old denim jeans) etc.! Might be too click-baity for your viewers though!
I would like to thank you for doing this series and documenting your journey of making black powder. I am hoping someday to have the facilities and the room to make my own powder and your series is so far the most down to earth and approachable for a novice that I am confident when I start my own journey, your notes will provide an excellent jumping off point. Again thank you for the excellent content.
@@keithmoore5306 Seen it numerous times with smokeless with my own and a buddies. Put it in the sun, put it in the shade, put the tall rods on, put the short rods on. ERR2! &^&%^% I want a labradar someday.
There is a tree called Yaupon (technically it's a shrub, but it grows pretty tree-like) it's in the holly family and grows in the deep south from Texas to the Atlantic coast. It has a very light wood, not as light as Balsa, but if Balsa worked this well, it might be worth checking out. It's considered a nuisance in many areas by ranchers and farmers, so cost sure won't be an issue! And given how fast it grows and spreads, keeping a supply on hand if it works well won't be an issue either.
The difference between Swiss Powder and everyone else is they do not allow the charcoal to get as hot. By not heating the charcoal as much they retain more of the creosote, this makes the powder less hygroscopic , more powerful with less fouling, all be it slightly harder.
I think they actually char the wood to still keep some of the volatiles , at a perfect and consistent temperature, it still has a certain amount of resins , thats why its clean , is its soft fouling , almost a lube in of itself, read that in a article that actually was by a historian on old blackpowder
The balsa wood was recomended to me long ago by an old school pyrothechnic artisan from southern México, he passed away on early 90's, most of his sons and grandsons continúes with that tradition.
Excellent video! Just to complicate things: there are three categories of balsa wood - LD (low density), MD (mid density), and HD (guess). Balsa wood density (and characteristics) depend on the climate where the balsa was grown. Having said that, Pyro charcoal tests for fireworks used "flight time" to compare tree species and here are some top 5 reported results 1) paulownia, 9.67 seconds; 2) balsa, 9.14 seconds; 3) black willow, 8.575 s; 4) alianthus, 8.275 s; 5) wild grape, 7.464 s. For baseline: White Pine, 6.440 s; Maple, 6.439 s; weeping willow, 5.806 s; of course, no buckthorn alder flight time ... Point: wish that they had measured & cited their balsa density. They did note that balsa in their process had significant reactivity and variability, damaging the test set up on several runs. FWIW, their same day "burn time" paulowonia, .4 s; balsa, .434 s; black willow, .451; alianthus, .480 s; wild grape, .634 s. For baseline: White Pine, .768 s; Maple, .3 s!; weeping willow, N/A!; and (heh, heh) buckthorn alder, .274 s ... My impression is that pyros don't really care about cleanliness. Thought you might consider measuring the density of your balsa wood batch.
That’s very interesting. I can tell you that I didn’t notice the amount of volume it took to make 23 g by weight was almost triple what Alder Buckthorn takes.
I think Ned Gorski had an article about this. The balsa charcoal was described as extremely reactive because with some of the flight tests, the mortar to launch the baseballs was destroyed.
Congratulations, Jake! You're almost there - closing in on the Holy Grail of the perfect Holy Black!! Nice lock time on your flincher, too, by the way. 👍
Jake I am really glad to see your tests. I mentioned I lived in Costa Rica in my last comment and that I had been using balsa. It is easy fo me to get because I have a lot of balsa trees on my farm as well as other types I have been using. What I have found is that the older balsa trees char quicker and are softer than the young ones. Powder made with them also burns quicker than the younger trees. I am picking up a buddy at the airport tomorrow and he is bringing me chronograph we will be shooting tomorrow. Is there a way I download photos for you and your viewers to see . I think they might like to see how things are done in a third world country. I make my charcoal the same as you almost (no fireplace I stack some TEAK wood burns like coal let the fire die down through it in a hole and cover it wake up in the morning ready to use. The other ingredients are very easy to get buy the potassium nitrate in 100 pound bags and the sulfur at the pharmacy. My mill is a 8 inch pvc tube 8 inches long not counting the caps using brass balls I bought through Amazon. My workshop is under a old giant matapalo tree they are the best for shade .I use a 40 foot extension cord for power supply . If something goes wrong then nothing is harmed except for maybe a cow that is sharing the shade or I haven’t figured if they just like the clunking noise of my tumbler . OSHA WOULD LOVE IT. I will let you know what I am getting for speed .
Don't confuse yourself with questions how this clean example happen... The reason is how you charr your charcoal ... The low temperature of your finishing fire coals make all the work. Because of the pyrolysis of charcoal must be 435° Celsius and the end product must look like dark brown colour not complete black(complete black charcoal is waste) you just make it not exactly like this but by waiting! The results are great and perfect!👌👌 Also the balsa wood have more "clean" cellulose contents than other woods! Alder buckthorn in the other hand is monster in velocity but dirtier! The reason is balsa or ochroma pyramidale need plenty of water and drainage terrain that's why is a clean wood out of unwanted byproducts because the minerals recycling all the time in its life cycle Also it grows in neutral soil, while alder buckthorn is more like sunny Swamp soils and it like acidic conditions which balsa don't! Now acidic soil can effect the wood by produce byproduct enzymes that follow the the wood all the way down to charcoal and already chared particles consequently a little more dirty charcoal end product! A little help from the nature guy ! Nice work!!
You realize that a more "sceintific" method of testing cleanliness of powder would be to very precisely weigh a sample and burn it and then weigh the residue. I realize there could be some residue missed due to condensation of vaporized impurities on a cold barrel that would not be accounted for, but it would give you a numerical idea of how much ash you had.
Fascinating as usual. If I was going to speculate than I would say it comes down to chemical composition of the wood from whatever species of tree is used for the charcoal. I can't say I have ever burned balsa to see how clean it burns but I would guess it does. Given it is part of the 'fuel' of black powder it would certainly explain why every type of charcoal changes the behavior of the powder.
Balsa even seemed expensive in the 60's to me as a kid. Now you got me wondering what kind of charcoal I could get out of bamboo. That's about the fastest growing stuff we have here in North America. There's also a fast growing weed here in Iowa that may produce charcoal. It grows by the creeks and gets 10 foot tall or so and probably averages an inch or so in diameter. We pulled it up and stripped the leafy bits off to make spears as kids in our fort battles with the other kids. The stems had a core that resembles styrofoam. I can't even find it locally anymore. They spray all my childhood areas with weed killer these days. It used to be so thick that we used machetes to make trails through those weeds.
The bamboo charcoal is not good for making black powder. Alder Buckthorn, Paulownia, white or pacific Willow, Poplar and Balsa charcoal are much better.
@@tenlittleindians in my area of the pnw we get really tall elderberry. Like 3-4" at the base, 20 ft tall, strong enough for a 150lb person to climb up. And yeah, the younger stuff can be beaten down with a stick.
Another awesome video! It doesn't surprise me that it is cleaner because balsa is the lightest wood on earth which means it is probably far more porous than other wood. This allows your ingredients to be more thoroughly incorporated and you get a more complete reaction (less residue). What surprises me is that you are getting a slightly lower velocity than Swiss! My guess is there are other components in the wood from the charcoal in Swiss that cause it to burn hotter or more gases are released while not giving as thorough a reaction.
I have an observation that sounds similar to your change in charcoal making. I make lots of charcoal for lighting my forge and getting the bituminous coal up to temperature fast, and one observation Ive had is that it is possible to “overcook” charcoal. Instead of being a hard, dense and brittle lump of carbon, it becomes light, is visibly cracked all over (moreso than regular charcoal) and almost crumbles at the touch. That (overcooked) stuff burns fast, (though not as hot I feel) and when fully consumed, the ashes float away on the air from the blower, whereas the harder, denser charcoal ash just sits there until I give the blower a hard crank, or it falls down into the fire to become a part of the clinker. Your change in making charcoal could have “overcooked” the balsa, giving it more surface area (or at least a more readily burnable surface area). I think this discovery warrants testing with other types of wood.
that is so awesome!! great share and excellent research. i wonder if Chinese Royal Empress (Pawlonia) sometimes known as dragon tree(huge leaves the first couple years) it grows super fast and could be another good source wood for clean burning fast charcoal.
Jake, in my previous comments I failed to mention a few things that might offer some insight... Maybe not to you but it might help some folks starting out... I shoot a Bedford County .45 flint. My load is 70 gr Swiss 3f under an .018 pillow ticking patch and .445 round ball that I cast myself. That powder charge is probably on the "hot" side but it groups very tight at 100 yards. Barrel is 42" long. I lube strips of pillow ticking with a 50/50 mix of Track's Mink tallow and Dr. Jackson's PURE neatsfoot oil, it contains absolutely no petroleum products like a lot of the neatsfoot "compounds" that are sold. I load by dumping powder down the barrel (duh 😊) and then lay the patch strip on the muzzle, place the ball on the strip and use the flat butt of my knife handle to start it down the bore. Then I cut the patch and just use my ramrod to seat the ball on the powder charge. Now I explained all of that technical mumbojumbo crap for a reason... And I'll get to the reason in a minute. I chronographed my loads and saw what we saw in the video... Velocity starts low and builds... My rifle builds velocity for the first 4 shots. Usually the 5th, 6th, 7th, etc, shots are all pretty close to the same. Usually about 2100 fps. I figure fouling builds in the barrel on shots 1-4 and when I load my 5th shot, my patch ball combo is tight enough that it "squeegees" some of that fouling off the bore as I seat the patch/ball... And then gets shot out. I haven't shot my rifle "all day." But that squeegee effect keeps the fouling manageable enough that I have fired 30-40 shots without having to swab my bore every X number of shots. I also attribute the lube keeping the fouling soft enough to allow the patch to "squeegee" the bore as I load my subsequent shots. If you have a hard time loading after 3,4, or 5 shots, try a tighter patch/ball combo and a good "greasy" lube. I also polished a radius in the crown of my rifle and it eases loading tight combos considerably... Its very easy to do but a lot of folks get a bit sketched out about trying it themselves. That ^^^ was a mouthful. And I know a lot of people might say I'm full of shit... I know, because I said the same thing when the info was presented to me. But it made a difference when I followed through on it.
Very interesting Jake, as usual. Will certainly try balsa if I can lay a hand on some. Now regarding your chronograph reading "errors", I myself found that I have to extend the muzzle-chrono distance further compared to smokeless. I don't know exactly why, I can only speculate for now. Maybe more particles than with smokeless are driven along the bullet which disturb the chrono, I don't know, but definitely more errors than with smokeless. Even my MagnetoSpeed have more troubles with black than with smokeless. I will let you know if I have some kind of a definitive answer. Thank's
I have read about the wood for charring need to be light and fast growing so there are less mineral remain in the wood during its growth, which goes into the powder and become residue
Nice to hear about making BP. Your patch lube is a major reason for how dirty your barrel gets. I have set down and shot a pound of 3x Goex through a Lyman trade rifle in 58 cal. made by Green River Rifle Works. It took 3 patches to clean, dry and out barrel. Wiped out side off and it went into the safe. Let me know if you want my patch lube.
@@Everythingblackpowder Dixie Gun Works rep about 35 or more years ago offered me $200 for my formula. I did not take his money. If you are a purist this will not work. It is 50% water and 50% Dawn soap. With a snug fitting ball and patch you clean each time you load.
@@Everythingblackpowder I soak them. Pillow ticking is what I use for patching. I also soak the fiber wads for shotgun use. The bad thing is it will freeze in your barrel when it is cold out. Tried sweet oil and dawn. Not quite as good but I don't think it freezes like water.
There was a guy on youtube about five years ago who suggested trying balsa wood charcoal for making BP.....The only problem he said was it was 'cost prohibitive' as to the charcoal yield per the cost of the balsa! As I've said before, you've become the 'go to guy' for making BP. Your 'suggestions' have improved my 'antique muzzleloading propellant' expotentially! Thanks and keep up the good work my friend!
Something I have tinkered around with as far as fouling is concerned is using sugar and rust with potassium nitrate to make "white" or "red" powder. What got me interested in making this was the fact I heard there was a South African brand called Sannadex that is rumored to use this "rocket candy" recipe for their muzzleloading propellant and it supposedly burns fairly clean. When I did the research on what ratios to use and what to do to make it, I did so hastily with homemade rust and granulated sugar and out-of-the-bottle stump remover and I shot it and found that it worked well. (I don't have a chronograph but the charge kicked, felt and sounded much the same as my other homemade black powder with a bit less smoke.) I was able to easily load 8 or so shots, each as easily as the first, before I ran out of powder as I didn't make a ton for this experiment. When I removed the breach block to clean the gun (I have a Thompson Center in-line break action with a screw breach plug) I was shocked at the huge "globs" of fouling. I was baffled as to how I could have had such an easy time loading yet have so much fouling caked to the barrel. When I swabbed it with a patch I spit on, everything became clear. Literally. The globs of fouling were _incredibly_ soft and "sticky" in that it adhered to itself. It had the consistency of melted marshmallow which was understandable as it was made with sugar as a "carbon source". After readying another dry patch I looked down the barrel and I stopped. I couldn't believe it. The barrel was _entirely_ clean. I thought there was no way that could be so and that I must be seeing things so I ran the dry patch and it came out without hardly a thing. It looked like someone had gently taken a graphite pencil to the patch one or two times. I looked down the barrel again and it was as clean as I had *EVER* gotten my gun after firing black powder. Normally it took me a good 30 mins to get my gun _mostly_ *that* clean after 8 charges of black powder. This took me 5 minutes and that was just on account of my shock and disbelief. Now bear in mind, this was an incredibly crude powder that I had mixed together as dry particulate, there was no milling, grinding, pressing, corning or melting (as rocket candy can be literally mixed and homogenized via melting on a hot plate) when I made this test powder. Since then I haven't had time to experiment further but have always wanted to and have often wondered what would happen to fouling if this powder was mixed with traditional black powder.
@@segarzatrue, but it was incredibly easy to clean and completely clean after one or two patches. This removes worry about damage to the bore from hygroscopic fouling. Plus, if you were to cook the mixture via the above melting method you drive off the water and cause the components to bind together and limit the sugar's ability to bind with water.
Balsa wood is very low in resin or lignin and high in silica (Si) content, if that helps. It also has many sap channels that make it already porous before charring and this channels that go along the grain may help with the charring There are probably fewer oils or flammable compounds to expel and burn from deep inside the mass of the wood and this would leave less residue an burn cleaner in the powder mixture.
I could be wrong but, I'm noticing on the shots that are not being picked up by the chronograph there is quite a bit of smoke going though the screens. With less smoke due to the wind or your position, accurate reading are seen.
Right? This is the kind of blackpowder you could run an automatic with. Heavy greased bullets, full house loads, and a powder with some good balsa charcoal.
@0neDoomedSpaceMarine with powder that clean, you could probably do a round of trap without having to run a patch down the barrel. Thats pretty impressive! Im down to my last 1.5 lb of goex so... im gonna see what balsa i can get at this point.
@@davidjftooley Right? The fouling is described as soft already, so I wonder how long it could really run when paired with some good lubricant? Wonder if you could use little paper patches in the cartridges like on those old British large bore rifles which used brass foil cases? It seems that for autos, less complex actions appear to play better with blackpowder as well, so something like a transferable MAC M10 or M3A1 Greasegun, where the bolt is a weight and you don't need to recock any hammers or strikers, would perhaps run the longest. Or at least an old exempt open bolt M10 pistol. Something which is large bore and which provides as little mechanical resistance as possible.
Have you tried the polawana tree for making powder? It's very lite like balsa. They use it to make surf boards. I'm in south carolina and I have found them growing here. I have used poplar and sycamore. Decent results from both. Use a jointer with your logs. It makes nice shavings that cook easily and grind easily as well. Keep making the videos
I wonder how American Basswood (American Linden or Tilia Americana) would work? It is often used by modellers when a somewhat-stronger, somewhat-denser material is required compared to Balsa. I had a number of Basswood trees growing on my property when I had a farm. I used a couple of fallen branches for turning a couple of times, but it never occurred to me to use it for black-powder making--for that I had an ample supply of both willow and aspen/poplar. Plus the flowers when they're in bloom? Such a glorious smell....
In the past, Brazilian black powder factories, I think including Elephant, used the Embaúba tree, scientific name "Cecropia pachystachya" which is almost as light as balsawood. It is an equatorial tree, but I believe it exists in Florida and other hot and humid regions of the USA. It's just another option, as balsawood is very expensive.
Try burning your charcoal in a barbecue grill. When the charcoal is all burned up, the less ash you have, the less fouling you will have from your gunpowder. Ash=fouling. The less minerals a woody plant sucks up out of the soil, the less ash the wood will leave behind when it is burned. Thank you for another great video. I never thought about using balsa.
Youre making good progress with the powder. You got to remember that Swiss and Goex, along with the other powder makers are in the industry. They make powder based on economics as well as performance. I suspect that balsa wood might not be financially prudent for mass production. Its good that you are making yoyr own discoveries, and maybe you can come up with an advanced formula for a superior powder. All i can say is, i like the video, youre doing a good job of it and keep going.
Hi Jake. I’m thinking you’re ruled out a change due to the new milling set up. I have issues with the chronograph on sunny days, but if the wind isn’t too strong, seems that a sheet of cardboard that covers the top and shades both openings has solved that (at least till it blows off). Great work. The closest thing to balsa I have is basswood. Also have so rotten willow that is dry and about as light as balsa. Now “I gots to know “. Lots of work to do in Texas. O.R.
Have you tried basswood it's a soft hardwood great for kindling clean white wood no smell to it holds water but when dried lite as a feather much like balsa wood have some in my fence line. Started collecting things needed to try making it myself. Great channel the work and thought your channel put in is less for me. Thanks
Prehaps the density, or lack thereof, of the Balsa wood? From my model building days I recall that Balsa was seemingly more porous or absorbing than other woods. Which lead me to think that there is less sap remaining in the wood. Prehaps a conversation with a wood expert might shed some light. Good video, thanks for sharing.
I made my first batch from willow that I cut down at the river... I cut it in late winter/early spring before the buds came on. The point of my aimless rambling is that perhaps moisture content of the wood might play a part in how clean/dirty the powder burns... Has the sap ran yet? Is it going dormant for winter, etc... Perhaps time of year the wood is harvested is as important as the species. I remember hearing somewhere that Swiss collects their Buckthorn in the early spring before the sap runs. I have no way to verify that so so eone would gave to investigate it.
Thank you Good Sr! "This Is?" why I am turning Wheat, and Corn Flour into char, I just never bought into the "Willow" thing as I can Not get ANY. "I think" it is about the cellulous density and sugars or fructose? I may? cook up my mash and pitch amylase to convert cellulose into sugars using my still knowledge as "I think?" this art may relate to the BP dragon arts!
Put a notch on the post and date it. This is big. Now, what is the closest thing to balsa that is growing in your neighborhood ? Something that has the least amount of volatile oils or resins. I’ve wondered if bone dry wheat straw would char up well enough? The goal is finding high quality cellulose to char into the cleanest carbon possible. I make char in my anthracite burner. Things warming up are cramping my style too. It has a heavy fire pot with room on either side for ashes when your poking at it. It is set and forget, easy. I char bone for case hardening in it too. Works great.
Great video very informative. Food for thought, maybe a small amount of a different kind of wood mixed in with the Balsa wood might bring up the power/FPS. This has worked for me in the past maybe it could work for you and your pals.
Hello. In the factory preparation of smoke powder, the wood is first dispersed into bars (the bark of the tree is not used). Bars 20 to 40 millimeters (0.8 to 1.3 in) thick are stacked into a ventilated square multi-storey house. And left for two years or more in the open. Rains during this time wash out minerals from the tree. And the sun dries the wood. After charring, the resulting and crushed coal should have the appearance of black velvet. If it is kindled in air, good quality coal will burn with a blue fire with a geote border at the top. Chemically, the quality of coal was determined by dissolving coal in an aqueous solution of caustic potassium (potassium alkali). High-quality coal was completely dissolved when boiling in this solution. Pure charcoal can be obtained by heating, carbonizing sugar crystals. But such coal did not burn well in black powder. This is my personal opinion, maybe I didn’t completely char the sugar then. Then I was a young boy. There is an idea - when grinding sulfur with coal, spray them with detergent (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfactant) this will improve surface contact.
I wish I could afford a Jim kibler rifle. I have just been able to get to the place where I can load my traditions Kentucky rifle in fire it with a little bit of accuracy. I have learned a trick to overcome the fact that the pan is not flush with the frison. I mix a little 2f with the 4f in the pan. This keeps the powder in the pan even if I turn it sideways. Unfortunately I have not been able to see if it works well yet as far as firing goes. But now that I've got my vehicle working more reliably now I intend to go out and have some fun. I hope that you can do a RUclips on your kibler rifle and tell us how it is with accuracy.
When you saw the chrono flash the number it probably captured it. I have the same one and sometimes it looks like it didn't read anything at all, then when I import the string into the computer via blue tooth, the "missing" shot is in the list of velocities as an actual reading.
at the end off all your testing on this quest you should write a book. I think the fact that balsa is a very soft and light wood is playing a factor in its burn characteristics. so other options worth testing might be poplar, basswood, and fir. It would also be interesting to see if the other end of the spectrum gives really bad results. oily hard tropical trees like cocobolo, rosewood, and purpleheart. not sure if it is the density of the wood that matters or its oil and resin content. keep up the great work. science is all about testing theories.
Balsa is expensive today. And getting scarce. However some wind generators blades use balsa inside them. And they do break or wear out. Maybe you could source some that way. Could be a lifetime supply.
I used some balsa from old life vests......brick sized chunks when retorted they seemed to not char well, I think to thick so they insulated themselves from the heat, so the centers didn't finish good .....should have sawed them to inch or less but life got in my way and stopped my research........hope to revisit that again sometime.
You've become my gunsmith blackpowder hack. Ill be bingeing your vids to learn how to make 3 fg of bulsom or buckthorn charcoal blackpowder. Love what Im seeing so far
I bet it has to do with the density of the balsa wood's structure. The very low density is likely leading to extremely extremely small particle size for the charcoal when it is milled down, which leads to better incorporation and more complete combustion.
Back around 2008 or so I experimented with a lot of powders. None homemade, but close enough. Swiss, Graf, Goex and... wait for it. All of the commercial FFFg were reasonable for OEM 3F. But I'm weird. I bought 25 lbs of fireworks grade "3F". It sucked... u til I ran it through a series of screens to remove the fines and chunks. I held the 3F, Set the 2F(-) aside, and double strained the 7F. On shoot testing (It's up on one or more gun forums of the era) I found that by biying cheap firewors powder and screening the fines, you can shoot with almost no fouling/residue. As in Negligible. A greanish smear from the groves on a TC Firestar flintlock (I used the 7F as prime). SD of velocity was good, but lower than unscreened Commercial. I really didn't have enough commercial to screen, but my supposition is that if hand screened, using a brass tumbler or a flat screen in a needlework hoop, the commercial would shoot every bit as clean.
Very interesting results. Two things Balsa seems to have a very low volatile content and is dried and prepared fairly carefully. Have you given any thought to doing something like dimensional milling and either air drying for a time or even force " kiln" drying some of your other woods? Also, I am getting ready to remove a big old cottonwood tree from my property and intend to chain saw mill and dry some of it. I plan to char and experiment with some of it as well. ( yeah cotton wood is trash wood and very wet. But it is also comparatively light when dry and very open grain, though stringy) to my mind it seems like it may be a good choice.
File a Patent and start selling this, I'll definitely buy it because when shooting my Brass Pietta 1851 Colt Navy .44, I don't use any grease or wads and shoot 30 ish times before I'm done. I don't really care about the accuracy or power but just firing the gun so the cleaner and weaker powder would fit my shooting style well.
Shout out to @Snapper for hooking you guys up with this Balsa to make the "Muzzle loading propellant" cleaner than Swiss and sharing it for us all here in YT land Jake... I appreciate this as in the future, I'll look to make my own BP for storage and for emergency here in case shtf scenario hits L.A. and I'll be ready for anything!...
Initial investigation- as far as I can surmise, is that the sodium content in the woods are rising over a longer period of time of growth (assuming, Sale Peter, ((salt of potassium) would therefore be elevated). Buckthorn Elder and Balsa is in the 5 year growing range, accumulating sodium. Something a LOT quicker... Sunflower or Hemp stalks. This is not my forte, BY A LONG SHOT, but if you are looking for cleaner, might do it. History has used hemp before.
I saw another youtuber making transparent wood. Wonder how that would work for black powder. Seems like they use balsa wood and dissolve out the lignin using some kind of chemicals.
I have heard that balsa is excellent, but unless you have access to scraps it's very expensive. Apparently pine cones are worth exploring....and they are free... Must try a batch with cones...
I dont know where you would get scrap balsa but one place you could look is a scrap yard for wind turbine blades as they are FULL of balsa ( for some reason they HALF to use balsa to fill those GIANT blades ( balsa is VERY expensive as 90% of the worlds supply of basa goes into those GIANT blades). A lot of them are damaged in transit and cant be repaired so are scraped. Dont know where you live but if get online you might find a turbine blade scrap yard where you can get all the balsa you would need probably realy cheap!!.
Interesting! We are told the super green wind turbine blades have to be changed every few years, but they cannot destroy them without cancelling the green energy they have produced so they heap them up in yards all over the country, if we could locate a yard then the balsa could be put to good use, (from our point of view).
@@453421abcdefg12345 Not only am I interested in firearms but I have been into model airplanes since I was 12 the balsa you get on line or at the hobby shop is grade A hobby and cut into VERY thin sheets and thus even MORE expensive , but what they use in those blades is ungraded. Balsa is very hard to find for sale ( I got a SMALL stack of balsa in Spokane WA. about one board foot and paid $180.00 for it, another place you might find cheap balsa is a army/ navy surpluse store ( balsa was used in ww2 life rafts!!😊😊
Try this again I thought about using balsa as a source of charcoal ( for about 10sec. BUT I figured about 2 cubic feet of balsa would give me about 1 cubic inch of charcoal ( as DRY balsa is about 85% AIR) thats what makes it so light so after cooking off the gasses wouldent be much left, guess I was wrong, THATS why I dont EVER miss one of your " damn vidios"!!!😆😆😆😆
Very cool! I've been wanting to try making some AMP with ailanthus "tree of heaven" it's an invasive species over here and is very prolific. Very light and soft wood, who knows, might work great.
I have heard that the peth from corn stalks make a great charcoal for black powder. I don't know this for sure but I think it would be worth a try if you have access to some. Hopefully you'll try some with a small batch.
Have you ever tried making powder with charred cotton balls? One of the other comments mentions that balsa is a really clean wood, so what if you take that to the extreme and just pure cotton?
Well done. Swiss ups the saltpetre to gain extra expansion from the extra heat even though it generates a touch less gas. ie more expansion. Economically I suspect that balsa by the several tons for Swiss scale manufacturing is way more expensive than Bourdain (Alder Buckthorn) and Swiss sells at a premium price for its premium quality. Also available balsa might not allow the same consistency in industrial quantities and Swiss is premium for consistency as well. But, if you can get scrap balsa, then it is a well tried quality wood for charring in black powder. I suspect that your charring method was fairly low for the task and would have left more creosotes in the end product which gives a softer fouling, hence easier to clean. nb not the creosote one used to paint on wooden fences. Black powder is a very complex item when looked at in academic level research and is still not fully understood. Bill Knight brought me up to speed on the detail and chemistry and pointed me at the academic research.
Very interesting, I'll need to try the balsa wood, what's the dims on that pvc setup for ball milling, Dia...etc....looking to make a container for milling
Making headway on a project like this is great. Any reason you suspect that Swiss doesn't use the same? All that comes to mind is maybe the overall cost for Balsa is too high for the quantities they need? For the Hobby shooters this is excellent!
I was experimenting with bp in high school back in the late 70 and had the same results with the balsa powder in my very small batches. Burned faster too.
How much smoke was there compared to other powders. Was there less because it burned cleaner? It’s always been said that it’s the charcoal that makes the biggest difference. Thanks for the video. Keep them coming..
Thank you for all the good information, although I’m old I’m new to black powder and have applied your knowledge to my process. I wonder if Bass wood would burn clean, it’s another very light weight wood
You said it was left over balsam just thought age ,kill dried wood , which in my mind theres no hint of sap left in wood ,its simply clean super dry before you char it so on so on , ?? Just thoughts
In my area that I have access to I have no alder buckhorn, little grape vine or willow with out trespassing. I do have an abundance of invasive honey suckle which when I cut it has very porous cell structure in the inner woody parts. I would like to try my hand at making antique muzzleloading propellant. The expense of start up only to find it's a failure keeps me from any attempt. Would there be any chance you would attempt a good at this in the future. Please let me know your thoughts. My woods behind my house is full of this stuff. Thanks. Oh like your videos have watched them all.
Jake, the lube we shoot, we can shoot all day long, and i really mean all day, with no swabbing at all! no matter the powder. we use dawn dish soap and water, about 30-70 mix. wet the patch with a spray bottle and load, also, the barrel is a snap to clean at the end of the day. a buddy of mine shoots 3 day matches Stright and never cleans or swabs at all until he gets home. try it you will like it! and the accuracy is great,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Hey wtf ?mixed with what?telling the base but what else .kinda fu#$@! Useless
Sweet weeping Jesus. I’ve been making videos on this topic for three damn years and you show up and watch one video and you’re mad because I didn’t go over everything from the very beginning to date? GTFO man. If I had done that I would have cheese d!cks like you bitching about it being a two hour long video.
@@Everythingblackpowder Fr
It's time to turn my old cork thongs into gunpowder.....😆
@@Everythingblackpowder It's time to recycle my old Swiss cork house shoe....😆
hell yeah get him! what an ass lol@@Everythingblackpowder
Balsa is used as cores in those giant wind turbine blades. And apparently so much of it is used that its wiping out the plantations where it's grown. The blades are not recyclable so they are just buried or chopped up and buried. Perhaps the firms that dispose of these blades can be contacted to see if some of that balsa can be repurposed. Certainly would be cheaper than buying it from craft stores.
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS CHANNEL!!!!! For the following reasons...1 the man backs up what he says and proves it...2 he ACTUALLY answers viewers questions. 3 He is humble and wants to explore and test as much as the next person that is heavy into this and WANTS to share his findings...if any other Creator can top this channel on this subject ( which I highly doubt...) go for it.
Thank you
Me to . Love that rifle
One small step for man, one giant leap for powder making kind! Well done Jake!
Thank you, Ben
yours's is Still my barometer for my speed with his entro!
A friend of mine, who used to shoot for T/C, and still holds several NMLRA records, would clean his guns as follows. With a mixture of water and Dawn detergent, he would saturate a number of correctly-sized patches, squeeze out as much liquid as possible in a tight fist, then store the patches in an airtight jar. At the range, he would shoot once, swab the bore with one patch, turn it over and swab once more, then load and shoot again. He could shoot all day with this routine and it was the most uniform with results. I have adopted his method with very good success.
I've owned a 58 double and I now own a 72 Cal double rifle. It's the same routine I use only I use a spit patch to swab the bores between rounds. I fire each barrel once, swab them and then reload and shoot another round from each barrel. I can shoot all day like that even with GOEX, my favoured powder.
Having said that, I'm probably going to look into making some of my own powder now that I've seen this channel. 🙂
Mixing the balsa ,willow and buckthorn charcoal in different ratios might give the velocity and clean burn also
Good idea
All I know, buckthorn is some crappy stinky trash that's always growing where you don't want it.
Ooo you beat me to it. I wrote my comment saying the same thing.😂
Took the words right out of my mouth.
Sounds really a great idea mixing charcoals to achieve a great balance between cleaner burn, higher speed, easy to clean, and more acurate shots
Just a thought…the balsa may be cleaner because it contains less “impurities” than many other woods. If I remember correctly, balsa is nearly pure cellulose, without a lot of sap and mineral residue. I haven’t made the plunge into homemade powder yet, but it’s looking like it’s time to make an investment in the equipment.
🤔 that makes sense. Good luck friend its a lot of fun
That makes me wonder if taking any of the other "good" woods (seasoned and chipped) and then boiling the snot out of it in a big kettle and re-drying them would improve performance. That would remove a large majority of the non-cellulose components. Or even taking chips while green and boil them, strain and dry, then do the seasoning. Anything to remove the sugars.
Perhaps Summer, Fall, Winter & Spring harvest time makes a difference too.
@@mattfleming86 things like this should definitely be experimented on.
I'm wondering if a non-wood material might be charred to a cleaner carbon, like using cornstarch.
Balsa BP would make for really good pistol powder, I think. A few others on RUclips have made some and unlike the usual hiss or whoosh that other BP makes when burning in open air, balsa BP tends to go thump instead, which implies a faster burn rate.
Here is an interesting experiment.
Weigh your patches before and after swabbing the barrel. that way you'll have a numerical measurement of the amount of residue left behind by the different powders.
Interesting idea
I like it!
Interesting results! Now I am even more curious about charcoal made from toilet paper or cotton (old denim jeans) etc.! Might be too click-baity for your viewers though!
Who knows? It’s hard to tell what will set people off. Like the feller who’s comment I pinned. This guy leaves me an angry comment on all my videos.
@@Everythingblackpowder You probably have a more-pleasant audience than I have despite Mr. Grouchy Old Dude.
@@taofledermaus I suppose the more audience you have the higher probability of more grouchy old dudes
@@Everythingblackpowder I'll take the old dudes over most of the post-teen millennial man children.
Lol! Pick your poison
I would like to thank you for doing this series and documenting your journey of making black powder. I am hoping someday to have the facilities and the room to make my own powder and your series is so far the most down to earth and approachable for a novice that I am confident when I start my own journey, your notes will provide an excellent jumping off point. Again thank you for the excellent content.
Glad to hear it. Thank you
Very good! Lol, people who don't shoot muzzleloaders don't know the frustration of a chronograph miss read
I wish I could say I’m used to it…
trust me it's more than muzzleloader shooters!! i've had more than one outing shooting smokeless where that's happened!
@@keithmoore5306 Seen it numerous times with smokeless with my own and a buddies. Put it in the sun, put it in the shade, put the tall rods on, put the short rods on. ERR2! &^&%^% I want a labradar someday.
Lab radar is life changing. I know, I know, its expensive. And worth every penny(went in with friends)
@@emoryzakin2576 not everyone is a toy junkie!!! a chrony is good enough 95% of the time!!
🤣"dirty rotten...", "You mother..." Love watching you guys and the knowledge.....
Glad to hear it
There is a tree called Yaupon (technically it's a shrub, but it grows pretty tree-like) it's in the holly family and grows in the deep south from Texas to the Atlantic coast. It has a very light wood, not as light as Balsa, but if Balsa worked this well, it might be worth checking out. It's considered a nuisance in many areas by ranchers and farmers, so cost sure won't be an issue! And given how fast it grows and spreads, keeping a supply on hand if it works well won't be an issue either.
The difference between Swiss Powder and everyone else is they do not allow the charcoal to get as hot. By not heating the charcoal as much they retain more of the creosote, this makes the powder less hygroscopic , more powerful with less fouling, all be it slightly harder.
So.. cook it in an oven? Or.. a grill that has temperature control?
*albeit
I think they actually char the wood to still keep some of the volatiles , at a perfect and consistent temperature, it still has a certain amount of resins , thats why its clean , is its soft fouling , almost a lube in of itself, read that in a article that actually was by a historian on old blackpowder
The balsa wood was recomended to me long ago by an old school pyrothechnic artisan from southern México, he passed away on early 90's, most of his sons and grandsons continúes with that tradition.
As an mature chemist I find this channel to be fascinating and addictive in a way that I should not.
Excellent video!
Just to complicate things: there are three categories of balsa wood - LD (low density), MD (mid density), and HD (guess). Balsa wood density (and characteristics) depend on the climate where the balsa was grown. Having said that, Pyro charcoal tests for fireworks used "flight time" to compare tree species and here are some top 5 reported results 1) paulownia, 9.67 seconds; 2) balsa, 9.14 seconds; 3) black willow, 8.575 s; 4) alianthus, 8.275 s; 5) wild grape, 7.464 s. For baseline: White Pine, 6.440 s; Maple, 6.439 s; weeping willow, 5.806 s; of course, no buckthorn alder flight time ...
Point: wish that they had measured & cited their balsa density. They did note that balsa in their process had significant reactivity and variability, damaging the test set up on several runs.
FWIW, their same day "burn time" paulowonia, .4 s; balsa, .434 s; black willow, .451; alianthus, .480 s; wild grape, .634 s. For baseline: White Pine, .768 s; Maple, .3 s!; weeping willow, N/A!; and (heh, heh) buckthorn alder, .274 s ...
My impression is that pyros don't really care about cleanliness.
Thought you might consider measuring the density of your balsa wood batch.
That’s very interesting. I can tell you that I didn’t notice the amount of volume it took to make 23 g by weight was almost triple what Alder Buckthorn takes.
I think Ned Gorski had an article about this. The balsa charcoal was described as extremely reactive because with some of the flight tests, the mortar to launch the baseballs was destroyed.
Might I suggest carbonizing a cotton t-shirt. It's amazing how fine it pulverizes, I'm not even working with a ball mill, and I'm impressed.
Congratulations, Jake! You're almost there - closing in on the Holy Grail of the perfect Holy Black!!
Nice lock time on your flincher, too, by the way. 👍
Thank you
You know, in other circumstances, this comment would be really funny 😅😅😅
Jake I am really glad to see your tests. I mentioned I lived in Costa Rica in my last comment and that I had been using balsa. It is easy fo me to get because I have a lot of balsa trees on my farm as well as other types I have been using. What I have found is that the older balsa trees char quicker and are softer than the young ones. Powder made with them also burns quicker than the younger trees. I am picking up a buddy at the airport tomorrow and he is bringing me chronograph we will be shooting tomorrow. Is there a way I download photos for you and your viewers to see . I think they might like to see how things are done in a third world country. I make my charcoal the same as you almost (no fireplace I stack some TEAK wood burns like coal let the fire die down through it in a hole and cover it wake up in the morning ready to use. The other ingredients are very easy to get buy the potassium nitrate in 100 pound bags and the sulfur at the pharmacy. My mill is a 8 inch pvc tube 8 inches long not counting the caps using brass balls I bought through Amazon. My workshop is under a old giant matapalo tree they are the best for shade .I use a 40 foot extension cord for power supply . If something goes wrong then nothing is harmed except for maybe a cow that is sharing the shade or I haven’t figured if they just like the clunking noise of my tumbler . OSHA WOULD LOVE IT. I will let you know what I am getting for speed .
Sounds great. You can email me the pictures. Everythingblackpowder@gmail.com
Don't confuse yourself with questions how this clean example happen... The reason is how you charr your charcoal ... The low temperature of your finishing fire coals make all the work. Because of the pyrolysis of charcoal must be 435° Celsius and the end product must look like dark brown colour not complete black(complete black charcoal is waste) you just make it not exactly like this but by waiting! The results are great and perfect!👌👌 Also the balsa wood have more "clean" cellulose contents than other woods! Alder buckthorn in the other hand is monster in velocity but dirtier! The reason is balsa or ochroma pyramidale need plenty of water and drainage terrain that's why is a clean wood out of unwanted byproducts because the minerals recycling all the time in its life cycle Also it grows in neutral soil, while alder buckthorn is more like sunny Swamp soils and it like acidic conditions which balsa don't! Now acidic soil can effect the wood by produce byproduct enzymes that follow the the wood all the way down to charcoal and already chared particles consequently a little more dirty charcoal end product! A little help from the nature guy ! Nice work!!
You realize that a more "sceintific" method of testing cleanliness of powder would be to very precisely weigh a sample and burn it and then weigh the residue. I realize there could be some residue missed due to condensation of vaporized impurities on a cold barrel that would not be accounted for, but it would give you a numerical idea of how much ash you had.
Could try burning it on a scale
Fascinating as usual. If I was going to speculate than I would say it comes down to chemical composition of the wood from whatever species of tree is used for the charcoal. I can't say I have ever burned balsa to see how clean it burns but I would guess it does.
Given it is part of the 'fuel' of black powder it would certainly explain why every type of charcoal changes the behavior of the powder.
Cleaner is very good especially with the velocities you got.
Yeah, it's really impressive, the loss in velocity is not that big either.
Thank you. I know sometimes I get hung up on the numbers.
Balsa even seemed expensive in the 60's to me as a kid.
Now you got me wondering what kind of charcoal I could get out of bamboo. That's about the fastest growing stuff we have here in North America.
There's also a fast growing weed here in Iowa that may produce charcoal. It grows by the creeks and gets 10 foot tall or so and probably averages an inch or so in diameter. We pulled it up and stripped the leafy bits off to make spears as kids in our fort battles with the other kids. The stems had a core that resembles styrofoam.
I can't even find it locally anymore. They spray all my childhood areas with weed killer these days. It used to be so thick that we used machetes to make trails through those weeds.
The bamboo charcoal is not good for making black powder.
Alder Buckthorn, Paulownia, white or pacific Willow, Poplar and Balsa charcoal are much better.
somebody on you tube tried bamboo with poor results but its worth a try
Sounds like the neighborhood ragweed wars of my youth!
👍👍
@@kirahund6711 Not elderberry. We have lots of that and it's much smaller in height and diameter than what I'm talking about.
@@tenlittleindians in my area of the pnw we get really tall elderberry. Like 3-4" at the base, 20 ft tall, strong enough for a 150lb person to climb up.
And yeah, the younger stuff can be beaten down with a stick.
Another awesome video! It doesn't surprise me that it is cleaner because balsa is the lightest wood on earth which means it is probably far more porous than other wood. This allows your ingredients to be more thoroughly incorporated and you get a more complete reaction (less residue). What surprises me is that you are getting a slightly lower velocity than Swiss! My guess is there are other components in the wood from the charcoal in Swiss that cause it to burn hotter or more gases are released while not giving as thorough a reaction.
I have an observation that sounds similar to your change in charcoal making. I make lots of charcoal for lighting my forge and getting the bituminous coal up to temperature fast, and one observation Ive had is that it is possible to “overcook” charcoal. Instead of being a hard, dense and brittle lump of carbon, it becomes light, is visibly cracked all over (moreso than regular charcoal) and almost crumbles at the touch. That (overcooked) stuff burns fast, (though not as hot I feel) and when fully consumed, the ashes float away on the air from the blower, whereas the harder, denser charcoal ash just sits there until I give the blower a hard crank, or it falls down into the fire to become a part of the clinker.
Your change in making charcoal could have “overcooked” the balsa, giving it more surface area (or at least a more readily burnable surface area). I think this discovery warrants testing with other types of wood.
Very possible
That’s an interesting notion, in regard to the *function and mechanism targeted!
that is so awesome!! great share and excellent research. i wonder if Chinese Royal Empress (Pawlonia) sometimes known as dragon tree(huge leaves the first couple years) it grows super fast and could be another good source wood for clean burning fast charcoal.
Thank you. I’ve heard it makes great powder
It does make excellent powder. The pyro guys have been using it for years to make lift and burst powder for thier shells. Pawlonia grows fast too.
Jake, in my previous comments I failed to mention a few things that might offer some insight... Maybe not to you but it might help some folks starting out...
I shoot a Bedford County .45 flint. My load is 70 gr Swiss 3f under an .018 pillow ticking patch and .445 round ball that I cast myself. That powder charge is probably on the "hot" side but it groups very tight at 100 yards. Barrel is 42" long.
I lube strips of pillow ticking with a 50/50 mix of Track's Mink tallow and Dr. Jackson's PURE neatsfoot oil, it contains absolutely no petroleum products like a lot of the neatsfoot "compounds" that are sold.
I load by dumping powder down the barrel (duh 😊) and then lay the patch strip on the muzzle, place the ball on the strip and use the flat butt of my knife handle to start it down the bore. Then I cut the patch and just use my ramrod to seat the ball on the powder charge.
Now I explained all of that technical mumbojumbo crap for a reason... And I'll get to the reason in a minute.
I chronographed my loads and saw what we saw in the video... Velocity starts low and builds... My rifle builds velocity for the first 4 shots. Usually the 5th, 6th, 7th, etc, shots are all pretty close to the same. Usually about 2100 fps.
I figure fouling builds in the barrel on shots 1-4 and when I load my 5th shot, my patch ball combo is tight enough that it "squeegees" some of that fouling off the bore as I seat the patch/ball... And then gets shot out. I haven't shot my rifle "all day." But that squeegee effect keeps the fouling manageable enough that I have fired 30-40 shots without having to swab my bore every X number of shots. I also attribute the lube keeping the fouling soft enough to allow the patch to "squeegee" the bore as I load my subsequent shots.
If you have a hard time loading after 3,4, or 5 shots, try a tighter patch/ball combo and a good "greasy" lube.
I also polished a radius in the crown of my rifle and it eases loading tight combos considerably... Its very easy to do but a lot of folks get a bit sketched out about trying it themselves.
That ^^^ was a mouthful. And I know a lot of people might say I'm full of shit... I know, because I said the same thing when the info was presented to me. But it made a difference when I followed through on it.
Very interesting Jake, as usual. Will certainly try balsa if I can lay a hand on some. Now regarding your chronograph reading "errors", I myself found that I have to extend the muzzle-chrono distance further compared to smokeless. I don't know exactly why, I can only speculate for now. Maybe more particles than with smokeless are driven along the bullet which disturb the chrono, I don't know, but definitely more errors than with smokeless. Even my MagnetoSpeed have more troubles with black than with smokeless. I will let you know if I have some kind of a definitive answer. Thank's
I have read about the wood for charring need to be light and fast growing so there are less mineral remain in the wood during its growth, which goes into the powder and become residue
Nice to hear about making BP. Your patch lube is a major reason for how dirty your barrel gets. I have set down and shot a pound of 3x Goex through a Lyman trade rifle in 58 cal. made by Green River Rifle Works. It took 3 patches to clean, dry and out barrel. Wiped out side off and it went into the safe. Let me know if you want my patch lube.
Let’s hear it
@@Everythingblackpowder Dixie Gun Works rep about 35 or more years ago offered me $200 for my formula. I did not take his money. If you are a purist this will not work. It is 50% water and 50% Dawn soap. With a snug fitting ball and patch you clean each time you load.
@@stevejorgensen5274 do you soak your patch in in or spray it on the patch with a spray bottle?
@@Everythingblackpowder I soak them. Pillow ticking is what I use for patching. I also soak the fiber wads for shotgun use. The bad thing is it will freeze in your barrel when it is cold out. Tried sweet oil and dawn. Not quite as good but I don't think it freezes like water.
@@stevejorgensen5274 I will give it a try
Congrats on another step forward!! and Thanks Trapper!
There was a guy on youtube about five years ago who suggested trying balsa wood charcoal for making BP.....The only problem he said was it was 'cost prohibitive' as to the charcoal yield per the cost of the balsa! As I've said before, you've become the 'go to guy' for making BP. Your 'suggestions' have improved my 'antique muzzleloading propellant' expotentially! Thanks and keep up the good work my friend!
Thank you
Something I have tinkered around with as far as fouling is concerned is using sugar and rust with potassium nitrate to make "white" or "red" powder. What got me interested in making this was the fact I heard there was a South African brand called Sannadex that is rumored to use this "rocket candy" recipe for their muzzleloading propellant and it supposedly burns fairly clean.
When I did the research on what ratios to use and what to do to make it, I did so hastily with homemade rust and granulated sugar and out-of-the-bottle stump remover and I shot it and found that it worked well. (I don't have a chronograph but the charge kicked, felt and sounded much the same as my other homemade black powder with a bit less smoke.) I was able to easily load 8 or so shots, each as easily as the first, before I ran out of powder as I didn't make a ton for this experiment.
When I removed the breach block to clean the gun (I have a Thompson Center in-line break action with a screw breach plug) I was shocked at the huge "globs" of fouling. I was baffled as to how I could have had such an easy time loading yet have so much fouling caked to the barrel. When I swabbed it with a patch I spit on, everything became clear. Literally.
The globs of fouling were _incredibly_ soft and "sticky" in that it adhered to itself. It had the consistency of melted marshmallow which was understandable as it was made with sugar as a "carbon source". After readying another dry patch I looked down the barrel and I stopped. I couldn't believe it. The barrel was _entirely_ clean. I thought there was no way that could be so and that I must be seeing things so I ran the dry patch and it came out without hardly a thing. It looked like someone had gently taken a graphite pencil to the patch one or two times. I looked down the barrel again and it was as clean as I had *EVER* gotten my gun after firing black powder. Normally it took me a good 30 mins to get my gun _mostly_ *that* clean after 8 charges of black powder. This took me 5 minutes and that was just on account of my shock and disbelief.
Now bear in mind, this was an incredibly crude powder that I had mixed together as dry particulate, there was no milling, grinding, pressing, corning or melting (as rocket candy can be literally mixed and homogenized via melting on a hot plate) when I made this test powder. Since then I haven't had time to experiment further but have always wanted to and have often wondered what would happen to fouling if this powder was mixed with traditional black powder.
Interesting
A problem with using sugar in the mix may be it's hygroscopic nature.
@@segarzatrue, but it was incredibly easy to clean and completely clean after one or two patches. This removes worry about damage to the bore from hygroscopic fouling. Plus, if you were to cook the mixture via the above melting method you drive off the water and cause the components to bind together and limit the sugar's ability to bind with water.
@@the_great_tigorian_channel I wonder if the 777 brand of black powder substitute uses some type of sugar in the mix. It smells like it to me.
Balsa wood is very low in resin or lignin and high in silica (Si) content, if that helps. It also has many sap channels that make it already porous before charring and this channels that go along the grain may help with the charring There are probably fewer oils or flammable compounds to expel and burn from deep inside the mass of the wood and this would leave less residue an burn cleaner in the powder mixture.
I could be wrong but, I'm noticing on the shots that are not being picked up by the chronograph there is quite a bit of smoke going though the screens. With less smoke due to the wind or your position, accurate reading are seen.
Im on the school of thought that 50fps is not enough difference to make a difference especially at 1700s.
Congratulations on the success!
Right? This is the kind of blackpowder you could run an automatic with. Heavy greased bullets, full house loads, and a powder with some good balsa charcoal.
@0neDoomedSpaceMarine with powder that clean, you could probably do a round of trap without having to run a patch down the barrel. Thats pretty impressive!
Im down to my last 1.5 lb of goex so... im gonna see what balsa i can get at this point.
@@davidjftooley Right? The fouling is described as soft already, so I wonder how long it could really run when paired with some good lubricant? Wonder if you could use little paper patches in the cartridges like on those old British large bore rifles which used brass foil cases?
It seems that for autos, less complex actions appear to play better with blackpowder as well, so something like a transferable MAC M10 or M3A1 Greasegun, where the bolt is a weight and you don't need to recock any hammers or strikers, would perhaps run the longest. Or at least an old exempt open bolt M10 pistol.
Something which is large bore and which provides as little mechanical resistance as possible.
Have you tried the polawana tree for making powder? It's very lite like balsa. They use it to make surf boards. I'm in south carolina and I have found them growing here.
I have used poplar and sycamore. Decent results from both. Use a jointer with your logs. It makes nice shavings that cook easily and grind easily as well.
Keep making the videos
I have not tried it. I haven’t been able to locate any
@WillardMcBain
I may have some at my sawmill. If you are interested I can send you a piece. It will be green
I wonder how American Basswood (American Linden or Tilia Americana) would work? It is often used by modellers when a somewhat-stronger, somewhat-denser material is required compared to Balsa. I had a number of Basswood trees growing on my property when I had a farm. I used a couple of fallen branches for turning a couple of times, but it never occurred to me to use it for black-powder making--for that I had an ample supply of both willow and aspen/poplar. Plus the flowers when they're in bloom? Such a glorious smell....
In the past, Brazilian black powder factories, I think including Elephant, used the Embaúba tree, scientific name "Cecropia pachystachya" which is almost as light as balsawood.
It is an equatorial tree, but I believe it exists in Florida and other hot and humid regions of the USA.
It's just another option, as balsawood is very expensive.
Try burning your charcoal in a barbecue grill. When the charcoal is all burned up, the less ash you have, the less fouling you will have from your gunpowder. Ash=fouling. The less minerals a woody plant sucks up out of the soil, the less ash the wood will leave behind when it is burned. Thank you for another great video. I never thought about using balsa.
Great video. It is remarkable how much residue is left when shooting black powder. Thank you for putting this video together.
Thank you
Youre making good progress with the powder. You got to remember that Swiss and Goex, along with the other powder makers are in the industry. They make powder based on economics as well as performance. I suspect that balsa wood might not be financially prudent for mass production. Its good that you are making yoyr own discoveries, and maybe you can come up with an advanced formula for a superior powder. All i can say is, i like the video, youre doing a good job of it and keep going.
Thank you
@@Everythingblackpowder Welcome bud. Lots of crap on youtube these days. Everything black powder is not one of them!
@@blueduck9409 glad to hear it!
Hi Jake. I’m thinking you’re ruled out a change due to the new milling set up. I have issues with the chronograph on sunny days, but if the wind isn’t too strong, seems that a sheet of cardboard that covers the top and shades both openings has solved that (at least till it blows off). Great work. The closest thing to balsa I have is basswood. Also have so rotten willow that is dry and about as light as balsa. Now “I gots to know “. Lots of work to do in Texas. O.R.
I have balsa in my mill now and it's so light it seems like there's so much of it. It's so light that it's like graphite
Have you tried basswood it's a soft hardwood great for kindling clean white wood no smell to it holds water but when dried lite as a feather much like balsa wood have some in my fence line. Started collecting things needed to try making it myself. Great channel the work and thought your channel put in is less for me. Thanks
Not yet.
Prehaps the density, or lack thereof, of the Balsa wood? From my model building days I recall that Balsa was seemingly more porous or absorbing than other woods. Which lead me to think that there is less sap remaining in the wood.
Prehaps a conversation with a wood expert might shed some light.
Good video, thanks for sharing.
I’ve only shot one once, but have this flintlock itch. It’s been a joy binge watching your journey through this powder making process.
I just read this article about using old coffee grounds as biochar in concrete. I wonder what kind of BP this would make? It'd keep your gun awake!
I made my first batch from willow that I cut down at the river... I cut it in late winter/early spring before the buds came on.
The point of my aimless rambling is that perhaps moisture content of the wood might play a part in how clean/dirty the powder burns... Has the sap ran yet? Is it going dormant for winter, etc... Perhaps time of year the wood is harvested is as important as the species.
I remember hearing somewhere that Swiss collects their Buckthorn in the early spring before the sap runs. I have no way to verify that so so eone would gave to investigate it.
Thank you Good Sr!
"This Is?" why I am turning Wheat, and Corn Flour into char, I just never bought into the "Willow" thing as I can Not get ANY.
"I think" it is about the cellulous density and sugars or fructose? I may? cook up my mash and pitch amylase to convert cellulose into sugars using my still knowledge as "I think?" this art may relate to the BP dragon arts!
Put a notch on the post and date it. This is big.
Now, what is the closest thing to balsa that is growing in your neighborhood ?
Something that has the least amount of volatile oils or resins.
I’ve wondered if bone dry wheat straw would char up well enough?
The goal is finding high quality cellulose to char into the cleanest carbon possible.
I make char in my anthracite burner. Things warming up are cramping my style too.
It has a heavy fire pot with room on either side for ashes when your poking at it.
It is set and forget, easy. I char bone for case hardening in it too. Works great.
Great video very informative. Food for thought, maybe a small amount of a different kind of wood mixed in with the Balsa wood might bring up the power/FPS. This has worked for me in the past maybe it could work for you and your pals.
Hello. In the factory preparation of smoke powder, the wood is first dispersed into bars (the bark of the tree is not used). Bars 20 to 40 millimeters (0.8 to 1.3 in) thick are stacked into a ventilated square multi-storey house. And left for two years or more in the open. Rains during this time wash out minerals from the tree. And the sun dries the wood. After charring, the resulting and crushed coal should have the appearance of black velvet. If it is kindled in air, good quality coal will burn with a blue fire with a geote border at the top. Chemically, the quality of coal was determined by dissolving coal in an aqueous solution of caustic potassium (potassium alkali). High-quality coal was completely dissolved when boiling in this solution.
Pure charcoal can be obtained by heating, carbonizing sugar crystals. But such coal did not burn well in black powder. This is my personal opinion, maybe I didn’t completely char the sugar then. Then I was a young boy.
There is an idea - when grinding sulfur with coal, spray them with detergent (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfactant) this will improve surface contact.
So I know balsa wood is expansive and basswood is almost as soft still expansive not as bad as balsa just a though And another wonderfully done video
I wish I could afford a Jim kibler rifle. I have just been able to get to the place where I can load my traditions Kentucky rifle in fire it with a little bit of accuracy. I have learned a trick to overcome the fact that the pan is not flush with the frison. I mix a little 2f with the 4f in the pan. This keeps the powder in the pan even if I turn it sideways. Unfortunately I have not been able to see if it works well yet as far as firing goes. But now that I've got my vehicle working more reliably now I intend to go out and have some fun. I hope that you can do a RUclips on your kibler rifle and tell us how it is with accuracy.
I have a video on it
Time to look for deals on bulk balsa wood. Thanks for sharing all this valuable info.
Happy to help
When you saw the chrono flash the number it probably captured it. I have the same one and sometimes it looks like it didn't read anything at all, then when I import the string into the computer via blue tooth, the "missing" shot is in the list of velocities as an actual reading.
at the end off all your testing on this quest you should write a book. I think the fact that balsa is a very soft and light wood is playing a factor in its burn characteristics. so other options worth testing might be poplar, basswood, and fir. It would also be interesting to see if the other end of the spectrum gives really bad results. oily hard tropical trees like cocobolo, rosewood, and purpleheart. not sure if it is the density of the wood that matters or its oil and resin content. keep up the great work. science is all about testing theories.
Balsa is expensive today. And getting scarce. However some wind generators blades use balsa inside them. And they do break or wear out. Maybe you could source some that way. Could be a lifetime supply.
I used some balsa from old life vests......brick sized chunks when retorted they seemed to not char well, I think to thick so they insulated themselves from the heat, so the centers didn't finish good .....should have sawed them to inch or less but life got in my way and stopped my research........hope to revisit that again sometime.
You've become my gunsmith blackpowder hack. Ill be bingeing your vids to learn how to make 3 fg of bulsom or buckthorn charcoal blackpowder. Love what Im seeing so far
Balsa is the best wood I've ever used. I bought it at Hobby lobby. Cleanest and fastest powder you can make.
I bet it has to do with the density of the balsa wood's structure. The very low density is likely leading to extremely extremely small particle size for the charcoal when it is milled down, which leads to better incorporation and more complete combustion.
Back around 2008 or so I experimented with a lot of powders. None homemade, but close enough. Swiss, Graf, Goex and... wait for it.
All of the commercial FFFg were reasonable for OEM 3F. But I'm weird. I bought 25 lbs of fireworks grade "3F". It sucked... u til I ran it through a series of screens to remove the fines and chunks. I held the 3F, Set the 2F(-) aside, and double strained the 7F.
On shoot testing (It's up on one or more gun forums of the era) I found that by biying cheap firewors powder and screening the fines, you can shoot with almost no fouling/residue. As in Negligible. A greanish smear from the groves on a TC Firestar flintlock (I used the 7F as prime). SD of velocity was good, but lower than unscreened Commercial.
I really didn't have enough commercial to screen, but my supposition is that if hand screened, using a brass tumbler or a flat screen in a needlework hoop, the commercial would shoot every bit as clean.
imho…mission accomplished…everything from here is a plus! WTG Jake and other guys! Y’all are a real inspiration, but set the goal very high.
Thank you
Very interesting results. Two things Balsa seems to have a very low volatile content and is dried and prepared fairly carefully. Have you given any thought to doing something like dimensional milling and either air drying for a time or even force " kiln" drying some of your other woods? Also, I am getting ready to remove a big old cottonwood tree from my property and intend to chain saw mill and dry some of it. I plan to char and experiment with some of it as well. ( yeah cotton wood is trash wood and very wet. But it is also comparatively light when dry and very open grain, though stringy) to my mind it seems like it may be a good choice.
impressive but clean with black is still relative!! wonder how catabba (AKA bean tree) charcoal would do? it's similar to balsa!
File a Patent and start selling this, I'll definitely buy it because when shooting my Brass Pietta 1851 Colt Navy .44, I don't use any grease or wads and shoot 30 ish times before I'm done.
I don't really care about the accuracy or power but just firing the gun so the cleaner and weaker powder would fit my shooting style well.
Shout out to @Snapper for hooking you guys up with this Balsa to make the "Muzzle loading propellant" cleaner than Swiss and sharing it for us all here in YT land Jake... I appreciate this as in the future, I'll look to make my own BP for storage and for emergency here in case shtf scenario hits L.A. and I'll be ready for anything!...
maybe is about fat in heave wood. that could be why light wood works really well ! any way congratulations!
Initial investigation- as far as I can surmise, is that the sodium content in the woods are rising over a longer period of time of growth (assuming, Sale Peter, ((salt of potassium) would therefore be elevated). Buckthorn Elder and Balsa is in the 5 year growing range, accumulating sodium. Something a LOT quicker... Sunflower or Hemp stalks. This is not my forte, BY A LONG SHOT, but if you are looking for cleaner, might do it. History has used hemp before.
I saw another youtuber making transparent wood. Wonder how that would work for black powder.
Seems like they use balsa wood and dissolve out the lignin using some kind of chemicals.
I have heard that balsa is excellent, but unless you have access to scraps it's very expensive. Apparently pine cones are worth exploring....and they are free... Must try a batch with cones...
I dont know where you would get scrap balsa but one place you could look is a scrap yard for wind turbine blades as they are FULL of balsa ( for some reason they HALF to use balsa to fill those GIANT blades ( balsa is VERY expensive as 90% of the worlds supply of basa goes into those GIANT blades). A lot of them are damaged in transit and cant be repaired so are scraped. Dont know where you live but if get online you might find a turbine blade scrap yard where you can get all the balsa you would need probably realy cheap!!.
Interesting. Thank you
Interesting! We are told the super green wind turbine blades have to be changed every few years, but they cannot destroy them without cancelling the green energy they have produced so they heap them up in yards all over the country, if we could locate a yard then the balsa could be put to good use, (from our point of view).
@@453421abcdefg12345 Not only am I interested in firearms but I have been into model airplanes since I was 12 the balsa you get on line or at the hobby shop is grade A hobby and cut into VERY thin sheets and thus even MORE expensive , but what they use in those blades is ungraded. Balsa is very hard to find for sale ( I got a SMALL stack of balsa in Spokane WA. about one board foot and paid $180.00 for it, another place you might find cheap balsa is a army/ navy surpluse store ( balsa was used in ww2 life rafts!!😊😊
@@Everythingblackpowder I thought about balsa for charcoal for about 10 seconds I emedeatly
Try this again I thought about using balsa as a source of charcoal ( for about 10sec. BUT I figured about 2 cubic feet of balsa would give me about 1 cubic inch of charcoal ( as DRY balsa is about 85% AIR) thats what makes it so light so after cooking off the gasses wouldent be much left, guess I was wrong, THATS why I dont EVER miss one of your " damn vidios"!!!😆😆😆😆
Guy behind the camera sounds like the dude ala the big Lebowski.
Good video!
😂
Good video. Just a thought about the mix ratio. Start at 75 15 10 and go back up to the ratio your at now to see if it makes difference.
I have so many unfinished projects but here i go looking to get into something else! Lol thank you for the great videos!
Thank you
Try 75/15/10 balsa and see if your velocity doesn't come up. It might not be as good a fuel as the other woods you've tried and is running too lean.
Very cool! I've been wanting to try making some AMP with ailanthus "tree of heaven" it's an invasive species over here and is very prolific. Very light and soft wood, who knows, might work great.
I have heard that the peth from corn stalks make a great charcoal for black powder. I don't know this for sure but I think it would be worth a try if you have access to some. Hopefully you'll try some with a small batch.
Huh. I have some scrap balsa from cutting model rocket fins. I might have to try this for my muzzleloader.
Have you ever tried making powder with charred cotton balls? One of the other comments mentions that balsa is a really clean wood, so what if you take that to the extreme and just pure cotton?
Not yet
Well done. Swiss ups the saltpetre to gain extra expansion from the extra heat even though it generates a touch less gas. ie more expansion. Economically I suspect that balsa by the several tons for Swiss scale manufacturing is way more expensive than Bourdain (Alder Buckthorn) and Swiss sells at a premium price for its premium quality. Also available balsa might not allow the same consistency in industrial quantities and Swiss is premium for consistency as well. But, if you can get scrap balsa, then it is a well tried quality wood for charring in black powder. I suspect that your charring method was fairly low for the task and would have left more creosotes in the end product which gives a softer fouling, hence easier to clean. nb not the creosote one used to paint on wooden fences. Black powder is a very complex item when looked at in academic level research and is still not fully understood. Bill Knight brought me up to speed on the detail and chemistry and pointed me at the academic research.
Ground eggshell for charr carbon, or coffee grind. Used and fresh
Very interesting, I'll need to try the balsa wood, what's the dims on that pvc setup for ball milling, Dia...etc....looking to make a container for milling
4 in diameter 10 in long
For shure very informative and entertained, simply the best !
Thank you
Making headway on a project like this is great. Any reason you suspect that Swiss doesn't use the same? All that comes to mind is maybe the overall cost for Balsa is too high for the quantities they need? For the Hobby shooters this is excellent!
That would be my guess
I was experimenting with bp in high school back in the late 70 and had the same results with the balsa powder in my very small batches. Burned faster too.
hell yeah man, keep up the good work! happy 4th!!
Thank you. Same to you
Cheers to super clean BP!
How much smoke was there compared to other powders. Was there less because it burned cleaner? It’s always been said that it’s the charcoal that makes the biggest difference. Thanks for the video. Keep them coming..
Thank you
Thank you for all the good information, although I’m old I’m new to black powder and have applied your knowledge to my process. I wonder if Bass wood would burn clean, it’s another very light weight wood
You said it was left over balsam just thought age ,kill dried wood , which in my mind theres no hint of sap left in wood ,its simply clean super dry before you char it so on so on , ?? Just thoughts
In my area that I have access to I have no alder buckhorn, little grape vine or willow with out trespassing. I do have an abundance of invasive honey suckle which when I cut it has very porous cell structure in the inner woody parts. I would like to try my hand at making antique muzzleloading propellant. The expense of start up only to find it's a failure keeps me from any attempt. Would there be any chance you would attempt a good at this in the future. Please let me know your thoughts. My woods behind my house is full of this stuff. Thanks. Oh like your videos have watched them all.
Thank you
I personally have tried honeysuckle. It didn't seem as powerful as silver maple and was a lot dirtier.
Jake, the lube we shoot, we can shoot all day long, and i really mean all day, with no swabbing at all! no matter the powder. we use dawn dish soap and water, about 30-70 mix. wet the patch with a spray bottle and load, also, the barrel is a snap to clean at the end of the day. a buddy of mine shoots 3 day matches Stright and never cleans or swabs at all until he gets home. try it you will like it! and the accuracy is great,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I know you have mentioned this before and I forgot about it. I will definitely give it a try.
I'm curious to know when you Chronograph do you use wads for Revolver Loads ? I would think they might cause bad false readings or strike the Chrono.
I don’t typically use wads in cap and ball pistols