I've seen a few comments about using alcohol to wet the mix when using SGRS. Alcohol inhibits the ability of the glutinous rice starch to dissolve and incorporate the water, and results in weaker grains. I would still use a small amount of alcohol in a humid environment because the benefit of a shorter dry time (therefore less recrystallization of the KNO3) outweighs the retarding effect on the SGRS. However, I live in the hot, dry, desert Southwest and can use only water and it dries within a couple of hours in a screen-covered box in my back yard. If you can get away with it, use only water with SGRS; the result is harder grains and faster burn rate.
Indeed. Good video. I've not used Dextrin for my BP in years now. Generally I use SGRS (and sometimes Red Gum or both), as a binder for everything possible. Red Gum seems to be a better choice for Pyrotechnic compounding. Red Gum by itself in BP as a binder creates some very fierce but dirty flame. It can be a desirable addition for Pyrotechnics and sometimes enhance color and assist in ignition with SGRS being a little bit more of a retardant. Nowhere near bad as Dextrin though. Plus Dextrin does not maintain it's binding quality well at all through multiple "wettings" if you are using any Alcohol as you should. Without question though, in a CLEAN BP for Firearms and Lift charges, the SGRS is superior. It also DOES dry quicker and harder than other binders. I have been using a 76% KNO3 ; 9% S base for most of my work as of late with great success despite Stoichiometry which, as any good Pyrotechnician knows, is really a secondary (sometimes even irrelevant) consideration to the desired properties of the finished product. Looking at the comments below and other places, it amazes me that folks have such trouble with this basic product. There are many ways to go about it I suppose but often, as with Mr. Tozzi below, folks are making this far FAR too complex without need. THIS was my "SAFE" most expedited method used when I had needed to turn out some more powder quickly. It actually has turned into a standard because I have found it to be perfectly fine for general purpose. Of course Mill times can be increased etc. but we are NOT reinventing the wheel. YOU WILL NOT ACHIEVE A SUPERIOR RIFLE GRADE BLACK POWDER BY MILLING ALONE. Period. Also. Despite all the commercial methods and "Ned" and everyone else. "Pucking" and /or making big cakes to crush back down is just absurd and the cause of more accidents and Mill explosions than anything else through the centuries. SO. Agricultural grade Nitrate is ok, I have used it a fair amount. HOWEVER. Yes, of course a Technical or better grade pre-milled Potassium Nitrate is preferable. I make use of both given my pocketbook, the availability of preferred products, and the sheer volume of Powder I consume in a year. I myself have been using Rubber Makers Sulfur of excellent quality and of course there's the "Coal". If you can't produce a decent rifle powder with a common mixed hardwood charcoal there's no point paying for Paulownia or Red Cedar or Willow etc. If you are crushing Barbecue Briquets...well. Stop wasting your time. You had best get a can and some aluminum foil and start making your own proper charcoal. I am not going to address ingredient proportions because if you are failing there you really shouldn't be HERE at all. Start with DRY ingedients. Screen your DRY ingredients together if you feel the need. I just tumble and make SURE they are mixed together. WELL. I AM however using somewhat pre -milled ingredients here of 80 mesh or better. If you are milling for 10 - 15 hours it doesn't matter now does it? As long as they are dry. Because they are after all going in a fucking mill jar ?? SO. Dump the shit into the JAR!! ALL 3 INGREDIENTS YES ! With ENOUGH of your 12mm Tungsten or Brass or Hardened lead balls or 15mm Yttrium stabilized Zirconia balls ? I use tri-polished Vaginium Carbide myself. Mill for at LEAST 8 hrs. depending on your RPM and how much you've mentally masturbated on the engineering or just paid $50. at Harbor freight for an Asian special. Remove the PRODUCT to a suitable container for liquid. If it's Stainless Steel, STAY OUT OF THE SUN!! You will otherwise blow yourself up most readily and unpleasantly regardless of the amusement to friends/ neighbors. DAMPEN the mixture with a 25% Alcohol/Water solution. Do NOT USE straight Alcohol. This is perhaps THE most critical step as we are looking to damp the mixture to a "Putty" state but NOT a "Slurry" or even close to it, which will effectively kind of ruin the batch. Well. It will ruin the TIMELINESS and consistency of the batch because the Nitrate will begin leaching out and recrystallizing OUTSIDE of the places we need it during drying to varying extents. Spray the Alcohol solution on the BP and mix until you can just form a ball and when you break it , it will still appear grainy/somewhat dry. At that point 2 - 4 more spritzes of the Solution is IT ....so go SLOW. AT this time some may make a cake/puck and let it cure or whatever. Realistically ??? You can just let it sit for 15 minutes (or not) and go ahead and put it through a screen of your choice onto a tray for drying. It's really done if everything else has been correct.. Yes. HOWEVER. If you wish, and generally for a BURST or RIFLE Powder I do, add the extra processing. Let it dry after screening it to like 5mm pieces and dry over night. (or 48 hours if you must) Then break it up in a container while repeating the damping step and corn/dry it as desired.
It's a joke. I use hard lead for BP media but HAVE used the new Yttrium stabilized Zirconium media. Just not worth the risk though. I just use that for mlling separate elements as a rule
People classify the grains and then pack the hell out of it in the barrel with he bullet and ram rod pounding. This just breaks up all the grains into a powder anyway.
Most people do that, but I don't. I just give it a push. Never a pounding, but the nice thing about this kind of powder is that it's very hard and very hard to crush back into dust.
I know this is a two year old video but i wanted to add a Little to the conversation after having made it by his recipe. Be very careful when you add the water! I can't stress this enough! It is better to stop way short of the amount of water you think you need. You are literally one squirt if water from being too wet and ridiculously hard to work with. My first batch looked just like his but took 5 or 6 hours to dry enough to create "grains" of power instead of little black worms. My other batches I used very Little water and kept mixing with my fingers. It needs to be a bit on the dry side when you put it through the mesh... It works much better. I shoot 2 and 3f mixed together in my pistol and smooth bore so i have very little waste. My normal shots are 50 yards or less in these dense Mississippi woods and this stuff works really well in my old guns.
Super large Thank You! Tested and it worked wonderfully compared to my other, expensive bark binder. Fouling was fine. I like shooting alot of muzzleloaders but powder has been rare locally. You saved me! Hollar if you want some grapevine to test. I’ll tumble ya some.
Awesome video. You said that you add the starch at "the end". Is this after the milling is complete or after the first screening and what percentage do you use? Thanks again for the great video. (The general mix is 75% KNO3, 15% charcoal and 10% sulfur)
I use the same ratio, I just add an extra 3% after most of the milling is done. So if you mill for 8 hours stop it 20 min early and add your rice starch. Thanks for watching.
If your SGRS is of very high quality as little as 1% will do. I dissolve 10 grams in about 125 ml of water for 1 kg of BP and add it to the BP as a gel.
Great info and superb video. I just need to figure out the screen mesh holes translates into thousands of an inch, so I know what to order to separate into 2f and 3f powder. Buffalo Arms has a listing of average particle size for 2 and 3f as a guide. I don't have a press, so can't go the pucking route. Going to try this and see how it works in cap and ball revolvers. Thanks again.
Can you use this powder in percussion revolver, have you any experience with that? I'm afraid of low density of powder and it might not fit in the chamber.
Yes you can and I have. It's good for low recoil rounds for target shooting. You'll get less velocity so not good for hunting but fine for anything else. If you like lighter charges you won't need to use any filler.
Glad you liked it. This process is much easier than pressing and corning and the secret ingredient makes the powder very hard and durable. IMO this is the best way to make propellent for muzzle loading rifles. Have a MERRY CHRISTMAS my friend!
How did you decide on 3% SGRS? Did you work up to this ? I'm not critisizing, I'm asking because you said the powder dried so hard. I just wonder if 2% would give results that could be easier to work with but end in similar results,
I've never used coal and I don't think it would work. You need some elements from the tree. Static is no problem at all. There's a video of a guy using a taser on black powder and it won't set it off.
@@northwoodstrapper8778 Hardwood isn't the best but it can work. If you search for good woods you'll find which ones work better, mostly fast growing soft wood works best such as Red Cedar, Grapevine, Willow and Adler.
Instead of fingers couldn't you use something like a large spoon or a rounded stick to push it through the first sieve? Also couldn't you push the stuff from the top sieve through if you wanted to get more 2f and 3f?
Sure you could use a spoon. There are no rules for this stuff. Pushing through grains isn't going to work. My stuff is too hard. You're better off smashing with a rolling pin or using a coffee grinder to reduce sizes. The sieves are just for sorting not size reduction.
@@SuperSneakySteve I was just thinking about the top level the spoon is harder than the thumb. This looks like a much better method than the puck method. Much less equipment involved.
It's safer. Corning, especially with a metal grinder is the most dangerous step. It doesn't require a large and expensive press. It produces very hard grains. It produces a very uniform grain size. Less dense powder can burn cleaner. I get better accuracy with screened vs pucked powder. It's faster in most cases.
@@MegaMarclar If that's your purpose then screened is by far the best for your lift charge. For fireworks you have other options like coating rice hulls and other methods.
The only benefit to making powder this way is it may be easier for someone who does not have the tools to do it the right way. Making it this way makes very light, less dense, less powerful bp. Using starch to make the grains hard only makes it burn slower. Sulfur is the binder in bp when it is done right, which requires pressure to plasticize it. Adding anything extra slows down the oxidation reaction. To make good bp press the damp powder into pucks under 2000lbs pressure for at least 10 minutes, let dry then corn by grating through screens, and you'll have rock hard, energy dense, clean burning powder that rivals Swiss.
I do it both ways and there's much benefit to screened powder. In muzzle loaders adding more no problem so the density doesn't matter. I go by weight not volume and my burn is very consistent giving me good repeatable accuracy. Corning is dangerous and people have lost hands doing it. I do it for cartridges and cap and ball but other than that screened is the way to go. @@dangibb1329
You don't actually show yourself adding the SGRS, so I'm trying to make sure I understand just when its mixed in and how. Is there some reason for not just adding it at the beginning?
@@SuperSneakySteve I thought about it and I realized that if you added the binder at the beginning, everything would get hard before it had the chance to mill together. This time while typing I heard you say add it 10 minutes before the milling is done. Missed that the first time.
@@SuperSneakySteve I have a couple pounds I made in 2019 without pucking, sorting or a binder. It does still work (used some yesterday) but I'm considering adding SGRS and re-granulating it as its clumpy, soft and probably has a lot of dust. But now I have a flintlock, so I guess the dust can be my primer now.
@@SuperSneakySteve Looking forward to testing. Ordered the rice starch. I corned some graoe vine.. sorta. Don’t have a -2 or 6 pound press, using my lil’ manual rivet press. 🙄 Made lil’ pucks although not compressed per ratio. Question. Preferred method to process corned pucks? Grapevine seems real fast per my non-science test.
Hi I am a mid 60"s man and I found your channel While looking for information on Making your own blackpowder instead of being held hostage by the powder companies either not being able to find powder or if they do then having to paying an arm and a leg for it.I saw that you have several articles that pertain to Blackpowder and shooting and subbed. I am interested in making blackpowder without using a Mill or pucking . From what I have read the fastest powder is made by both milling and pucking and I am not expecting to make a great powder just a powder that is useable that I can plink some using a Pietta 1858 revolver. Even if the powder is so slow I have to use 40 grains by volume to get 500-600 FPS from the guns 8 inch barrel using a Hornady .454 round ball. I have access to wood like white oak,red oak,bradford pear ,cyprus,crepe myrtle and maybe find some willow although I dont know the kind other than weeping willow. I would appreciate information regarding this. Thanks
Weeping Willow is what I use. It's not as good as black willow but it will do. Red Cedar pet bedding can be found at Walmart or any store and is also very good for making BP. There's no getting around a mill. Go to Harbor freight and buy one. It's not that much money and get yourself some lead round balls for media. You can skip the press by doing the way I show in the video. You'll get about 200fps less in a revolver. For muzzle loaders you can always add more powder, but in revolvers you only have so much room to work with. Screened powder is just as good for accuracy. Give it a try.
Hi Thanks for your information. How would blackpowder be made if the electricity was off for an extended period of time or living off grid with no electricity to run a ball mill ? Thanks
@@billyhenard1473 Maybe get an exercise bike to do the milling. Loose weight at the same time! Back in the day they probably used a water wheel powered by a stream or river.
@@billyhenard1473 There are lots of creative ways but the problem is the mill time. You'll need at least 8 hours of continuous mill time to make the charcoal air float quality and adequately mix the formula. If all components are already purchased pre milled then you can use screens to combine it. The powder will work, but it will be very sub-optimal.
I know willow is the best charcoal for burn rate but it's sometimes hard to find. Do you have a general idea about different burn rates using different charcoal. What wood is closest to willow if willow is not available?
I tried 3% by weight SGRS in a batch of powder I made over the weekend and it didn't seem to get real hard like yours did, I can fairly easily crush the grains back into a fine powder between my fingers... Any idea what might have gone wrong?
Maybe not enough water. You need to get it pretty wet to get the starch activated. So much so that it will be too sticky to screen effectively, you'll need to let it dry out a bit before you can screen.
We're both hi humidity, moved from CA. dextrin binder was fine at 5% here No way. Sumuzu uses this as a binder in fireworks. I window screen . Does this work with just adding cold water?. And at 3% should be just enough for dextrin. Good for a solid grain comprerable ?. Have it on hand will try tomarrow but hydroscopic?
@@SuperSneakySteve Did you get a good bind and activation with out boiled water and SGRA ? Just cold water 3% binder? I will share I'm an old pyro for 45+ years. I have even made fresh water drift wood charcoal making effects. Bob
@@SuperSneakySteve Thank you. I need for a star and lift for fireworks.. Hey have you ever played pyro golf or thrown anvils? . Really thank you, no time for experiments if I want a fourth. Bob
So I’m trying to use the puck method and I have a hydraulic press along with a pressure to force gauge and my press is not a manual one so it produces a lot of pressure but how much do you think would work if I want to try and plasticize the sulfur?
You'll have to do some testing. The pucks should make a clanking sound like pottery after they dry. If not you'll need more pressure. There is a figure floating out there on the internet as far as how much PSI you'll need. Try googling it.
@@SuperSneakySteve yeah I tried but not many people have the force gauge so they didn’t specify the pressure but it’s too easy I can adjust the pressure to 5,000 psi so I’ll get it to work.
@@atexc5604 yes so I ended up using 3,000 psi and left the pressure on for about a min. I have a video on my channel as I make whistle rockets and other stuff
I recently tested weight for weight of both my screened vs corned and the corned was still faster by about 200fps with equal weights. That said I can always add more screened to get additional speed, it's easier to make and more durable.
I'm not sure but you've got to keep this stuff dry to work. I moved my batch from glass to plastic because the glass would condense water taking it out in the cold.
@@SuperSneakySteve Большое Спасибо. В России сложно купить черный порох , единственное , что иногда попадается в магазинах - это так называемый "Мексиканец" - списанные по сроку годности дробленные артеллерийские заряды. Большое спасибо за ваш канал
From my experience I have seen that it is not easy to obtain a good black powder. My procedure is based on three steps. Part One For this mixture the following composition was used: - 75 g potassium nitrate; - 10 g sulfur; - 15 g willow, poplar or alder buckthorn charcoal (below 80 μm fine particles). Sulfur and charcoal are milled into a 3 lb ball mill with 10 mm high density 90 tungsten spheres for about 6 hours. Subsequently, potassium nitrate (agricultural grade), with particles of about 0.5 mm was added, mixing the ingredients manually with a spoon. Part Two The previous powder is put in a kitchen blender, wetting it with 90° denatured ethyl alcohol. After 30-40 seconds of blending, the material is dried in a glass bowl and at a temperature not exceeding 220 °C. After drying, sieving and milling, a more flammable powder is obtained. Part Three This powder is fed into a mini ball mill (3 lbs) containing 100 brass balls of 10mm diameter and 50 brass balls of 15mm diameter. The final grinding of the powder takes 13 hours. Now the black powder is ready to be used.
See my comment above. You are really making this way too difficult and you need to also overcome your paranoia and retain basic vigilant and consistent safe practices. We are making explosive after all and some risk is inherent. However putting a prepared explosive in a high speed blender wet or not is just STUPID. No offense. Just completely unnecessary and absurd.
@@ronorban58 Using a high-speed blender in the presence of water and alcohol to mix explosive materials is not dangerous. The presence of the liquid reduces the sensitivity to impact and rubbing of the material. Furthermore, the liquid facilitates the mixing of the potassium nitrate with the other ingredients of the mixture, favoring the formation of micro and nanocrystals inside the carbon and sulfur particles. The same technique can also be used for mixtures of ammonium nitrate, TNT and aluminum powder (under 5 micrometers).
@@alessandrotozzi9246 thanks. Yes I know this but calling it a safe process is folly given the construction of a kitchen blender which people will wash and assume it to be free of residue. Which it won't be. It's not even so much that as it is completely unnecessary for producing a quality BP.
In my 50cal I mix all sizes together except for the dust that comes out which is close to 4F. I put that in my priming tool for my flintlock so nothing is wasted. If you want more of one size you can use my rolling pin method I showed in a previous video to make it smaller. Usually smaller calibers should use smaller grain sizes but it's more of a suggestion than a rule.
I did alittle testing on this. Swiss 1.5F stays in 30 screen *Goex 2F stays in 30 (alittle bit of 2F Goex stays in 20) Sutchzen 1F stays in 20 Didn’t test 3F
You could, but anything you get in a size you don't want can be just added to the next batch and run through the process again. I've been getting a lot of dust as I was neither pucking or using a binder. What I learned here is when I loaded the gun if it wasn't dust when I started it was dust after it went in.
I've tried making homemade dextrin and it is never as good as the commercial stuff, but homemade SGRS can be every bit as good as anything found commercially. The Japanese will steam sweet rice ("Sticky Rice" - regular white rice or sushi rice won't work) and pound it into a flat cake and bake that into a hard disk that they break up and then grind to a powder. I've found that I can just powder the raw sweet rice in my grain mill then heat it with enough water to make a thick porridge-like paste and then bake it on a silicone sheet, break it up, and powder it again. Another thing that works almost as well is wheat dextrin, which is sold as a fiber supplement (Benefiber original) - although it is VERY sticky to work with if you get even a little too much. In the end I'll stick with SGRS; it is cheap and effective and reliable. There are many brands of rice, but for example I bought a 5-lb bag of Sho Chiku Bai sweet rice at my local asian food mart (I think you can get it on Amazon too). After two years and many batches, most of the bag is still unused, and I also use it as a paper glue and add it with water to wood glue when I make cardboard tubes for rockets. Great stuff.
I've seen a few comments about using alcohol to wet the mix when using SGRS. Alcohol inhibits the ability of the glutinous rice starch to dissolve and incorporate the water, and results in weaker grains. I would still use a small amount of alcohol in a humid environment because the benefit of a shorter dry time (therefore less recrystallization of the KNO3) outweighs the retarding effect on the SGRS. However, I live in the hot, dry, desert Southwest and can use only water and it dries within a couple of hours in a screen-covered box in my back yard. If you can get away with it, use only water with SGRS; the result is harder grains and faster burn rate.
Agreed!
5% alcohol, not more. Unlike dextrin it's very easily inhibited by alcohol.
Indeed. Good video. I've not used Dextrin for my BP in years now. Generally I use SGRS (and sometimes Red Gum or both), as a binder for everything possible. Red Gum seems to be a better choice for Pyrotechnic compounding. Red Gum by itself in BP as a binder creates some very fierce but dirty flame. It can be a desirable addition for Pyrotechnics and sometimes enhance color and assist in ignition with SGRS being a little bit more of a retardant. Nowhere near bad as Dextrin though. Plus Dextrin does not maintain it's binding quality well at all through multiple "wettings" if you are using any Alcohol as you should.
Without question though, in a CLEAN BP for Firearms and Lift charges, the SGRS is superior. It also DOES dry quicker and harder than other binders.
I have been using a 76% KNO3 ; 9% S base for most of my work as of late with great success despite Stoichiometry which, as any good Pyrotechnician knows, is really a secondary (sometimes even irrelevant) consideration to the desired properties of the finished product.
Looking at the comments below and other places, it amazes me that folks have such trouble with this basic product. There are many ways to go about it I suppose but often, as with Mr. Tozzi below, folks are making this far FAR too complex without need.
THIS was my "SAFE" most expedited method used when I had needed to turn out some more powder quickly. It actually has turned into a standard because I have found it to be perfectly fine for general purpose.
Of course Mill times can be increased etc. but we are NOT reinventing the wheel.
YOU WILL NOT ACHIEVE A SUPERIOR RIFLE GRADE BLACK POWDER BY MILLING ALONE. Period. Also. Despite all the commercial methods and "Ned" and everyone else. "Pucking" and /or making big cakes to crush back down is just absurd and the cause of more accidents and Mill explosions than anything else through the centuries.
SO.
Agricultural grade Nitrate is ok, I have used it a fair amount. HOWEVER. Yes, of course a Technical or better grade pre-milled Potassium Nitrate is preferable. I make use of both given my pocketbook, the availability of preferred products, and the sheer volume of Powder I consume in a year.
I myself have been using Rubber Makers Sulfur of excellent quality and of course there's the "Coal". If you can't produce a decent rifle powder with a common mixed hardwood charcoal there's no point paying for Paulownia or Red Cedar or Willow etc. If you are crushing Barbecue Briquets...well. Stop wasting your time.
You had best get a can and some aluminum foil and start making your own proper charcoal.
I am not going to address ingredient proportions because if you are failing there you really shouldn't be HERE at all.
Start with DRY ingedients.
Screen your DRY ingredients together if you feel the need. I just tumble and make SURE they are mixed together. WELL.
I AM however using somewhat pre -milled ingredients here of 80 mesh or better. If you are milling for 10 - 15 hours it doesn't matter now does it? As long as they are dry.
Because they are after all going in a fucking mill jar ?? SO. Dump the shit into the JAR!! ALL 3 INGREDIENTS YES ! With ENOUGH of your 12mm Tungsten or Brass or Hardened lead balls or 15mm Yttrium stabilized Zirconia balls ? I use tri-polished Vaginium Carbide myself.
Mill for at LEAST 8 hrs. depending on your RPM and how much you've mentally masturbated on the engineering or just paid $50. at Harbor freight for an Asian special.
Remove the PRODUCT to a suitable container for liquid. If it's Stainless Steel, STAY OUT OF THE SUN!! You will otherwise blow yourself up most readily and unpleasantly regardless of the amusement to friends/ neighbors.
DAMPEN the mixture with a 25% Alcohol/Water solution. Do NOT USE straight Alcohol.
This is perhaps THE most critical step as we are looking to damp the mixture to a "Putty" state but NOT a "Slurry" or even close to it, which will effectively kind of ruin the batch. Well. It will ruin the TIMELINESS and consistency of the batch because the Nitrate will begin leaching out and recrystallizing OUTSIDE of the places we need it during drying to varying extents.
Spray the Alcohol solution on the BP and mix until you can just form a ball and when you break it , it will still appear grainy/somewhat dry. At that point 2 - 4 more spritzes of the Solution is IT ....so go SLOW.
AT this time some may make a cake/puck and let it cure or whatever.
Realistically ??? You can just let it sit for 15 minutes (or not) and go ahead and put it through a screen of your choice onto a tray for drying. It's really done if everything else has been correct.. Yes.
HOWEVER. If you wish, and generally for a BURST or RIFLE Powder I do, add the extra processing. Let it dry after screening it to like 5mm pieces and dry over night. (or 48 hours if you must)
Then break it up in a container while repeating the damping step and corn/dry it as desired.
Thanks for taking the time to explain all that.
“Vaginiun” that one made me crack up. You mean vanadium?
@@zach3096 Nooo. I actually MEANT "Vaginium"
It's a joke. I use hard lead for BP media but HAVE used the new Yttrium stabilized Zirconium media. Just not worth the risk though. I just use that for mlling separate elements as a rule
Greetings from Ireland. The dust would probably work as 4f for priming a flintlock.
Yes, I've used it for exactly that. It helps to have some granulation. A finer screen would give you really nice 4F.
People classify the grains and then pack the hell out of it in the barrel with he bullet and ram rod pounding. This just breaks up all the grains into a powder anyway.
Most people do that, but I don't. I just give it a push. Never a pounding, but the nice thing about this kind of powder is that it's very hard and very hard to crush back into dust.
I know this is a two year old video but i wanted to add a Little to the conversation after having made it by his recipe. Be very careful when you add the water! I can't stress this enough! It is better to stop way short of the amount of water you think you need. You are literally one squirt if water from being too wet and ridiculously hard to work with. My first batch looked just like his but took 5 or 6 hours to dry enough to create "grains" of power instead of little black worms. My other batches I used very Little water and kept mixing with my fingers. It needs to be a bit on the dry side when you put it through the mesh... It works much better. I shoot 2 and 3f mixed together in my pistol and smooth bore so i have very little waste. My normal shots are 50 yards or less in these dense Mississippi woods and this stuff works really well in my old guns.
I appreciate your feedback and I'm glad the powder is working good for you.
Super large Thank You! Tested and it worked wonderfully compared to my other, expensive bark binder. Fouling was fine. I like shooting alot of muzzleloaders but powder has been rare locally. You saved me! Hollar if you want some grapevine to test. I’ll tumble ya some.
So happy to hear it worked out for you!
Awesome video. You said that you add the starch at "the end". Is this after the milling is complete or after the first screening and what percentage do you use? Thanks again for the great video. (The general mix is 75% KNO3, 15% charcoal and 10% sulfur)
I use the same ratio, I just add an extra 3% after most of the milling is done. So if you mill for 8 hours stop it 20 min early and add your rice starch. Thanks for watching.
Thank you.
If your SGRS is of very high quality as little as 1% will do. I dissolve 10 grams in about 125 ml of water for 1 kg of BP and add it to the BP as a gel.
Great info and superb video. I just need to figure out the screen mesh holes translates into thousands of an inch, so I know what to order to separate into 2f and 3f powder. Buffalo Arms has a listing of average particle size for 2 and 3f as a guide. I don't have a press, so can't go the pucking route. Going to try this and see how it works in cap and ball revolvers. Thanks again.
you'll get about 200fps less with screened in a revolver. Still good for shooting paper and things.
Can you use this powder in percussion revolver, have you any experience with that? I'm afraid of low density of powder and it might not fit in the chamber.
Yes you can and I have. It's good for low recoil rounds for target shooting. You'll get less velocity so not good for hunting but fine for anything else. If you like lighter charges you won't need to use any filler.
They sell "Glutinous Rice Flour" in the shops here, i think it would work the same? What do you think
It might work. Try a small batch and let me know how it turns out.
Thanks for going over the finer points of your process…. Interesting for me as I only use the end product. Liked the video pard
Glad you liked it. This process is much easier than pressing and corning and the secret ingredient makes the powder very hard and durable. IMO this is the best way to make propellent for muzzle loading rifles. Have a MERRY CHRISTMAS my friend!
Question , witch is better for black match , laundry starch solution or sgrs ???
I've never made black match. SGRS makes good fast burning powder. I never heard of using laundry starch.
Steve do you know if or think arrowroot powder could be used in place of the soluble glutinous rice starch?
I'm not sure but it's worth a try. Make a small batch with it and let me know how it goes. I've had a lot of fails before I got a win.
How did you decide on 3% SGRS? Did you work up to this ? I'm not critisizing, I'm asking because you said the powder dried so hard. I just wonder if 2% would give results that could be easier to work with but end in similar results,
I have used as little as 1%, but that supplier doesn't have SGRS anymore.
Great job. Have you ever used lump coal and do you worry about static using plastic? I’m interested in trying being I shoot flintlocks
I've never used coal and I don't think it would work. You need some elements from the tree. Static is no problem at all. There's a video of a guy using a taser on black powder and it won't set it off.
Thanks for the reply. I didn’t specify correctly i meant the lump coal from wood you use in a bar barque for cooking. I think it’s hardwood lump coal.
@@northwoodstrapper8778 Hardwood isn't the best but it can work. If you search for good woods you'll find which ones work better, mostly fast growing soft wood works best such as Red Cedar, Grapevine, Willow and Adler.
Instead of fingers couldn't you use something like a large spoon or a rounded stick to push it through the first sieve? Also couldn't you push the stuff from the top sieve through if you wanted to get more 2f and 3f?
Sure you could use a spoon. There are no rules for this stuff. Pushing through grains isn't going to work. My stuff is too hard. You're better off smashing with a rolling pin or using a coffee grinder to reduce sizes. The sieves are just for sorting not size reduction.
@@SuperSneakySteve I was just thinking about the top level the spoon is harder than the thumb. This looks like a much better method than the puck method. Much less equipment involved.
@@michaelgoodwin712 Yes, way easier and just as good results for muzzle loading. Still comparable by weight.
Use a spoon to transfer the carbon/charcoal and reduce the dust.
What is the benefit of doing it this way rather than pressing/pucking
It's safer. Corning, especially with a metal grinder is the most dangerous step. It doesn't require a large and expensive press. It produces very hard grains. It produces a very uniform grain size. Less dense powder can burn cleaner. I get better accuracy with screened vs pucked powder. It's faster in most cases.
@@SuperSneakySteve interesting, I am learning different processes for making firework powders.
@@MegaMarclar If that's your purpose then screened is by far the best for your lift charge. For fireworks you have other options like coating rice hulls and other methods.
The only benefit to making powder this way is it may be easier for someone who does not have the tools to do it the right way. Making it this way makes very light, less dense, less powerful bp. Using starch to make the grains hard only makes it burn slower. Sulfur is the binder in bp when it is done right, which requires pressure to plasticize it. Adding anything extra slows down the oxidation reaction. To make good bp press the damp powder into pucks under 2000lbs pressure for at least 10 minutes, let dry then corn by grating through screens, and you'll have rock hard, energy dense, clean burning powder that rivals Swiss.
I do it both ways and there's much benefit to screened powder. In muzzle loaders adding more no problem so the density doesn't matter. I go by weight not volume and my burn is very consistent giving me good repeatable accuracy. Corning is dangerous and people have lost hands doing it. I do it for cartridges and cap and ball but other than that screened is the way to go.
@@dangibb1329
You don't actually show yourself adding the SGRS, so I'm trying to make sure I understand just when its mixed in and how. Is there some reason for not just adding it at the beginning?
I'm not totally sure why. I guess you could try it but this is the way people usually add binders at the end of the milling cycle.
@@SuperSneakySteve I thought about it and I realized that if you added the binder at the beginning, everything would get hard before it had the chance to mill together. This time while typing I heard you say add it 10 minutes before the milling is done. Missed that the first time.
@@SuperSneakySteve I have a couple pounds I made in 2019 without pucking, sorting or a binder. It does still work (used some yesterday) but I'm considering adding SGRS and re-granulating it as its clumpy, soft and probably has a lot of dust. But now I have a flintlock, so I guess the dust can be my primer now.
@@slcgrgcrgcaneafgugiesclawhfg Good to hear. Let me know how it turns out for you.
Do you know if the rice starch leaves any ‘not good’ residue behind in your smokepole?
It doesn't, but if you use willow it will be dirty. Goex uses hardwood. It's cleaner but less powerful.
@@SuperSneakySteve Can’t find Willow at home so Silvermaple and Grapevine to test.
@@SuperSneakySteve Looking forward to testing. Ordered the rice starch. I corned some graoe vine.. sorta. Don’t have a -2 or 6 pound press, using my lil’ manual rivet press. 🙄 Made lil’ pucks although not compressed per ratio. Question. Preferred method to process corned pucks? Grapevine seems real fast per my non-science test.
@@johnnottahcal5725 Poplar or Cottonwood would also be close softwoods to Willow.
Hi
I am a mid 60"s man and I found your channel While looking for information on Making your own blackpowder instead of being held hostage by the powder companies either not being able to find powder or if they do then having to paying an arm and a leg for it.I saw that you have several articles that pertain to Blackpowder and shooting and subbed.
I am interested in making blackpowder without using a Mill or pucking .
From what I have read the fastest powder is made by both milling and pucking and I am not expecting to make a great powder just a powder that is useable that I can plink some using a Pietta 1858 revolver.
Even if the powder is so slow I have to use 40 grains by volume to get 500-600 FPS from the guns 8 inch barrel using a Hornady .454 round ball.
I have access to wood like white oak,red oak,bradford pear ,cyprus,crepe myrtle and maybe find some willow although I dont know the kind other than weeping willow.
I would appreciate information regarding this.
Thanks
Weeping Willow is what I use. It's not as good as black willow but it will do. Red Cedar pet bedding can be found at Walmart or any store and is also very good for making BP. There's no getting around a mill. Go to Harbor freight and buy one. It's not that much money and get yourself some lead round balls for media. You can skip the press by doing the way I show in the video. You'll get about 200fps less in a revolver. For muzzle loaders you can always add more powder, but in revolvers you only have so much room to work with. Screened powder is just as good for accuracy. Give it a try.
Hi
Thanks for your information.
How would blackpowder be made if the electricity was off for an extended period of time or living off grid with no electricity to run a ball mill ?
Thanks
And if a ball mill is absolutely mandatory what would be a good way to make a ball mill that uses manpower to operate ?
Thanks
@@billyhenard1473 Maybe get an exercise bike to do the milling. Loose weight at the same time! Back in the day they probably used a water wheel powered by a stream or river.
@@billyhenard1473 There are lots of creative ways but the problem is the mill time. You'll need at least 8 hours of continuous mill time to make the charcoal air float quality and adequately mix the formula. If all components are already purchased pre milled then you can use screens to combine it. The powder will work, but it will be very sub-optimal.
I know willow is the best charcoal for burn rate but it's sometimes hard to find. Do you have a general idea about different burn rates using different charcoal. What wood is closest to willow if willow is not available?
Alder buckthorn, red cedar, grapevine or even common pine have been used to great success.
Swiss powder is made from “buckthorn”
tree that produces black berries@@SuperSneakySteve
@@studiodw12 Same with Swedish BP or at least it used to be. The tree is even called "brakved" - literally "thunder wood" because of this.
I tried 3% by weight SGRS in a batch of powder I made over the weekend and it didn't seem to get real hard like yours did, I can fairly easily crush the grains back into a fine powder between my fingers... Any idea what might have gone wrong?
Maybe not enough water. You need to get it pretty wet to get the starch activated. So much so that it will be too sticky to screen effectively, you'll need to let it dry out a bit before you can screen.
@@SuperSneakySteve I'll keep that in mind next time, thanks!
Question: What size screens were you using in your video?
30/20/10 plus the first coarse strainer that he used for 'break up'.
@@hazcat640 Amazon sells the pans he is using for about $30
@@slcgrgcrgcaneafgugiesclawhfg Yep
Careful Once you Start chasing a faster burn, you are chasing your tail! But? it is a fun journey.
Keep your smoke Poles SMOKING!
Thanks for the comment Dave.
We're both hi humidity, moved from CA. dextrin binder was fine at 5% here No way. Sumuzu uses this as a binder in fireworks. I window screen . Does this work with just adding cold water?. And at 3% should be just enough for dextrin. Good for a solid grain comprerable ?.
Have it on hand will try tomarrow but hydroscopic?
Be sure to stop by and let me know how your experiment went.
@@SuperSneakySteve Did you get a good bind and activation with out boiled water and SGRA ? Just cold water 3% binder? I will share I'm an old pyro for 45+ years.
I have even made fresh water drift wood charcoal making effects. Bob
@@bobharrison9620 Cool water and 3% binder with SGRS. It's rock hard and burns just as fast out of my .50 cal.
@@SuperSneakySteve Thank you. I need for a star and lift for fireworks.. Hey have you ever played pyro golf or thrown anvils? .
Really thank you, no time for experiments if I want a fourth. Bob
So I’m trying to use the puck method and I have a hydraulic press along with a pressure to force gauge and my press is not a manual one so it produces a lot of pressure but how much do you think would work if I want to try and plasticize the sulfur?
You'll have to do some testing. The pucks should make a clanking sound like pottery after they dry. If not you'll need more pressure. There is a figure floating out there on the internet as far as how much PSI you'll need. Try googling it.
@@SuperSneakySteve yeah I tried but not many people have the force gauge so they didn’t specify the pressure but it’s too easy I can adjust the pressure to 5,000 psi so I’ll get it to work.
@@E85_STI Did you made your tests? How many psi/surface area you used?
@@atexc5604 yes so I ended up using 3,000 psi and left the pressure on for about a min. I have a video on my channel as I make whistle rockets and other stuff
@@E85_STI Thanks. :) Will check your vids later when i come home, cuz i see yo have a lot of cool stuff there. :P
If you're shooting by weight, would it matter?
I recently tested weight for weight of both my screened vs corned and the corned was still faster by about 200fps with equal weights. That said I can always add more screened to get additional speed, it's easier to make and more durable.
Ingredients are water soluble or air-float and wet mixed for rice, so why mill?
Everything needs to be mixed well. You can do it without the mill but it won't be nearly as good.
How does the addition of the rice powder affect moisture absorption?
I'm not sure but you've got to keep this stuff dry to work. I moved my batch from glass to plastic because the glass would condense water taking it out in the cold.
Where do you get the stackable sieves?
Amazon
What was the mix ratio? I heard 105grains SGRS to 1/2 lb BP?
I used 3% by weight.
@@SuperSneakySteve Got it fiqured. .24oz/105 grain per 8ounce. Tomorrow we try. Thanks!
ps: easy to make “squishy worms”. 🥴
@@SuperSneakySteve можно ли заменить рисовый крахмал пшеничным?
@@leha_piteskiy Я не пробовал пшеничный крахмал, но я сомневаюсь, что это сработает. Декстрин будет работать, но не так хорошо.
@@SuperSneakySteve Большое Спасибо. В России сложно купить черный порох , единственное , что иногда попадается в магазинах - это так называемый "Мексиканец" - списанные по сроку годности дробленные артеллерийские заряды.
Большое спасибо за ваш канал
From my experience I have seen that it is not easy to obtain a good black powder. My procedure is based on three steps.
Part One
For this mixture the following composition was used:
- 75 g potassium nitrate;
- 10 g sulfur;
- 15 g willow, poplar or alder buckthorn charcoal (below 80 μm fine particles).
Sulfur and charcoal are milled into a 3 lb ball mill with 10 mm high density 90 tungsten spheres for about 6 hours.
Subsequently, potassium nitrate (agricultural grade), with particles of about 0.5 mm was added, mixing the ingredients manually with a spoon.
Part Two
The previous powder is put in a kitchen blender, wetting it with 90° denatured ethyl alcohol.
After 30-40 seconds of blending, the material is dried in a glass bowl and at a temperature not exceeding 220 °C.
After drying, sieving and milling, a more flammable powder is obtained.
Part Three
This powder is fed into a mini ball mill (3 lbs) containing 100 brass balls of 10mm diameter and 50 brass balls of 15mm diameter. The final grinding of the powder takes 13 hours.
Now the black powder is ready to be used.
See my comment above. You are really making this way too difficult and you need to also overcome your paranoia and retain basic vigilant and consistent safe practices. We are making explosive after all and some risk is inherent. However putting a prepared explosive in a high speed blender wet or not is just STUPID. No offense. Just completely unnecessary and absurd.
@@ronorban58 Using a high-speed blender in the presence of water and alcohol to mix explosive materials is not dangerous. The presence of the liquid reduces the sensitivity to impact and rubbing of the material. Furthermore, the liquid facilitates the mixing of the potassium nitrate with the other ingredients of the mixture, favoring the formation of micro and nanocrystals inside the carbon and sulfur particles.
The same technique can also be used for mixtures of ammonium nitrate, TNT and aluminum powder (under 5 micrometers).
@@alessandrotozzi9246 thanks. Yes I know this but calling it a safe process is folly given the construction of a kitchen blender which people will wash and assume it to be free of residue. Which it won't be. It's not even so much that as it is completely unnecessary for producing a quality BP.
What size screens do you use for what F?
In my 50cal I mix all sizes together except for the dust that comes out which is close to 4F. I put that in my priming tool for my flintlock so nothing is wasted. If you want more of one size you can use my rolling pin method I showed in a previous video to make it smaller. Usually smaller calibers should use smaller grain sizes but it's more of a suggestion than a rule.
I did alittle testing on this.
Swiss 1.5F stays in 30 screen
*Goex 2F stays in 30
(alittle bit of 2F Goex stays in 20)
Sutchzen 1F stays in 20
Didn’t test 3F
Thank you!
When exactly did you put the binder in
I mill for 8 hours without the binder then put the binder in and mill for another hour tops.
@@SuperSneakySteve ok great thanks
Can you ship me 1kg soluble glutinous ricerice starch(sgrs)?
No but you can get it shipped to your door through Amazon. www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09J94T8NK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Cool but the station is filthy need organization
Could you use the leftover powder in pistol rounds.
You could, but anything you get in a size you don't want can be just added to the next batch and run through the process again. I've been getting a lot of dust as I was neither pucking or using a binder. What I learned here is when I loaded the gun if it wasn't dust when I started it was dust after it went in.
Can you sell me 2kg of SGRS?
No, you can buy it online easy. It's food, not regulated.
I've tried making homemade dextrin and it is never as good as the commercial stuff, but homemade SGRS can be every bit as good as anything found commercially. The Japanese will steam sweet rice ("Sticky Rice" - regular white rice or sushi rice won't work) and pound it into a flat cake and bake that into a hard disk that they break up and then grind to a powder. I've found that I can just powder the raw sweet rice in my grain mill then heat it with enough water to make a thick porridge-like paste and then bake it on a silicone sheet, break it up, and powder it again. Another thing that works almost as well is wheat dextrin, which is sold as a fiber supplement (Benefiber original) - although it is VERY sticky to work with if you get even a little too much. In the end I'll stick with SGRS; it is cheap and effective and reliable. There are many brands of rice, but for example I bought a 5-lb bag of Sho Chiku Bai sweet rice at my local asian food mart (I think you can get it on Amazon too). After two years and many batches, most of the bag is still unused, and I also use it as a paper glue and add it with water to wood glue when I make cardboard tubes for rockets. Great stuff.
Hi sir .how can making charcaol briquette quickl burning ? Formula chimic