I have that same handbook and this is the interesting thing about the cup measurements of the chemicals 3 cups of potassium nitrate weighs in at 24 oz. 2 cups of charcoal by volume is close to 15 percent of 24 oz. Of the potassium nitrate and the 1/2 cup of sulfur works out to be about the 10 percent ratio. I have actually made this recipe and just put it in the ball mill for 20 hours and tested it and I could not tell that it was not weighed on my scale. When you add alcohol or acetone to your mixture of BP. The potassium nitrate is now insolvent and drops out of the solution you lose. 0001 percent potassium nitrate.. things to keep in mind.. also if you drop the temperature of a solution of water and potassium nitrate to about 33 degrees the nitrate will be insoluble and crystallize out of the solution.. this information is posted I'm sure on Google just a thought...THANKS for the entertainment and as always good video..
Looking at some of my notes, I have used the label "settled density" for my components in g/cc. Using my numbers, I come up with a ratio by weight around 73.9 / 18.5 / 7.6 Someone else's settled density numbers can and probably are different. I don't ever plan on weighing anything out by volume unless I'm improvising.
I add a mixture of stale urine and dextrin solution to my milled powder before pucking, about 8-10% by weight. Dextrin will help bind and the urea and mineral salts from the urine act as a pH buffer and burn rate deterrent. Faster powder does not necessarily equate to higher velocity- in a longer barrel you want a sustained pressure plateau, not a spike. When my powder is corned and sieved into various sizes, last step is tumble coating with 0.2-0.3% graphite powder, this helps water proof the grains.
That's a Large Print Reprint of the Manual. I've got the Original issue version . I tried this on my first batch it works O'kay for Shotgun Shells but was a Total disappointment in my Revolvers .It also tends to crumble to dust over time which is why Dextrin is sometimes added. This method was never intended to be Pucked as it was only for Emergency Combat use by Soldiers trapped behind Enemy Lines.
Where do soldiers get KNo3 and sulfur behind enemy lines. I thought about this scenario when I was reading this. That's why I cracked the joke about the whiskey. It doesn't make any sense to me, I have to keep asking the question where do you what you need to improvise making gun powder. Does the military send in the KNo3 for a just in case, sulfur included. I'm still scratching my head over this one. Thank you for the comment.
I think adding alcohol to your solution will precipitate the potassium nitrate (the potassium nitrate is driven out of its solution). The technique is called in Dutch "a solvent pair". A long time ago I was an industrial chemist, I only worked in a lab for a short time, the last 30 years I did other things.
kno3 is very hydropilic, or soluble melts at 334 f sulfur melts 240f f and is plastic, not soluble what makes the puck "puck"? H2O Steam about 214 depending on alt, temp water, or MOC one? alchol, the more pure the better, is very hydopilic and used to dry h2o from things in a lab setting(like windex drys?) as it redily evaporates and carries large amounts of h2o with it, I did qc h2o -30 dew pionts in big Rx, tech, areo sytems, pet and or human food, with 99.9 and 100 isopropyl alchol. Dry hot mixed AMP with alchol fast! and it will dry fast. Please remember you will have isoprpyl hot vapor(clear flame) and AMP togather. Please dry away from hazards. once Pucked you have little surface area for the humidity, so YES! pucked is less likely to get wet. Or? Dry. The mil spec is for screened AMP any place, lots of surface area, and humidity. Your pucks looks great! I bet they sound great, like ceramic, or china when you clink them together. That was FAST for big chuncks!! Lit off easy too. My Goals! Thanks for getting me new IDEAS!
Thank you, yes they sound great, like ceramic, very solid. So perhaps using 50/50 water acetone, the acetone carries the water out of the puck quicker, thus not needing a long drying time. I am watching newer BP content creators as they come up on my recommended list and a reoccurring comment is needing a longer drying time. Their test burns are telling me they are not milling their powder long enough. Lots of big chunks of Kno3 left behind. They'll learn. We all did by experimenting.
@@lamebeavertradingco.1642 I have used the acetone, not much different as "I noted" or noticed, while looking. Same hazard for the most part, but the A is less bad for US as a bio with out proper fume, vapors, and such PPE. I have access to 99.9 IPA via Mexico and regular medical visits. and its' "medicinal?"
Something I keep asking various from various tubers us how dry us the char wood before charring and how fine is the ingredients before blending. I use the coffee grinder till every thing is a micro dust. In other words you can not remove the top of the grinder for five minutes or the dust will go airborne. I tend to think the finer everything is the better it will mix when milling. The absolute mix seems to be the secret to good powder. For the char my wood of choice is 5 % moisture before charring it.
I'm to darn lazy to RUclips? I too use a coffee type grinder, or sausage maker. My base pre char materials are typically aged, but I have done wet, or damp. I chared it slower to let the steam boil off the carbon, I can watch my vent for signs of steam or wood gas, and my finished char cools almost instantly with little or no new oxygen. now that I think about it, depending of tar or resins in the char source "I think" steam helps remove some resins with wood gas for a faster easier lighting AMP? but if I change anything? Everything changes "for me" I do a wet, acetone, or alchol mill some char for dust control. my new thing is the char and sulfur ratioed 3:2 for milling, very safe and I pound the two togather big time. Have fun be safe ish.
My wood is pretty dry. I would think 5 % to about 10% Moisture content is ideal. Except on one occasion I did use pretty freshly cut Bar Berry. My Juniper does have a resin related to the wood so it has to dry out. I do put my charcoal through a micro paint filter before milling, it is a very fine dist. I do not do anything with the potassium nitrate, I let the ball mill do that in the milling time, which a about 30 hours. If the mix is compacted in the bottom of the jar I will mix it up again and continue milling. Either way It's all fun to do and learn. Thank you for your comment
@@lamebeavertradingco.1642 I do pre dry my kn03 in my wife's oven at 350 ish on baking pan (very perilous) for an even weight batching and base line. store sealed and ready.
Ding in the “cake” I would not think it would gain any weight unless exposed directly to moisture, physically. When granulated, it would change or at least be susceptible to changing as more surface area is exposed to the atmospheric conditions than in the “cake” form.
Overcooking charcoal makes it harder something like cristalyzing making more dificult to react with the other ingredients, as far as i investigated controling pyrolisis temp between 400c to a max of 500c works fine for BP, an example of extremely overcooked charcoal is the japaneese charcoal called "binchotan" they heat the charcoal of hard woods at over 800c for days, when manipulated sounds like glass or something metalic.
@luisgarza2036 that's down to the ingredients and solvent of the reaction in question. The reason why charcoal bonds with potassium nitrate in the first place, comes down to its reactivity to alkaline metals, and halogens. It's for this same reason that carbon water filters are so effective at reducing lead and chlorine. Once contacted by a solvent, such as water, chemical reactions take place more readily and less violently than in common air(another solvent, to chemists). This is why even though something cooked like bitukan will react and work in black powder, it appears to suck more. It comes down to captive volatiles in the charcoal, that makes the charcoal more energetic. Think of it like this- Your fuel source for your incomplete reaction (black powder) is the charcoal or carbon. Volatiles (it's kinda in the name) react more readily with an oxygen source under confined plasmation. Ergo, more Volatiles, more power, at the disadvantage that not all of the carbon gets used up. This causes the sooty "black powder fouling" that everyone has mentioned.
Was it the sun in the window causing the temp to rise above 100° & the RH to drop so low? May have been shining directly on the thermometer. I can understand pucks being the preferred method of shipping powder.
No, the temp gauge was not setting in the window. I moved it there for filming purposes. I have done other videos in the past and referenced the RH and how low it does get her in N.M. The building faces west and with 2 windows it heats up pretty quick. It does get that hot in there, especially that late in the day. I have to keep it closed up to keep the critters out, and the windows closed to help keep the blowing dust out. Although I think that is a loosing endeavor. Thank you for your comments
Only impure potassium nitrate will be hydroscopic ... maybe Google search is wrong, according to the search it says POTASSIUM NITRATE IS NOT VERY HYDROSCOPIC ONLY ABSORBING 0.03 PERCENT MOISTURE OVER 50 DAY'S AT 80 PERCENT HUMIDITY. And also says not HYDROSCOPIC..
What is your source for this comment? I would like to know. So many making BP state the other. That is why I did the small experiment, to see how easy it was for the KN03 to gain moisture. I waited for this time of year to do this experiment.
This is interesting. I did a search for how hydroscopic is potassium nitrate on Google search.This is the result of said search. Which you can also search Google and see for yourself this answer. POTASSIUM NITRATE NOT VERY HYDROSCOPIC WILL ONLY ABSORB ABOUT 0.03 PERCENT MOISTURE IN 50 DAYS AT 80 PERCENT RELATIVELY HUMIDITY.. something to think about...
Dunno where you got that - Even the purest, triple-recrystalized KNO3 is VERY hydrophilic - It'll suck water vapor out of the air. Not QUITE as well as Calcium Chloride (where you can literally sit and watch the water droplets form and grow on it on a "moist" day), but darn close. Whoever you're getting your info from, find another source - it's bad info.
@@Ferd414hydroscopic means absorbs water from air, hydrophilic means repels water. KNO3 is NOT hydroscopic in a low humidity environment if it's relatively pure, 99.8%. How do I know? Been working with it in various form for nearly 40 years as a propellant chemist. Sodium nitrate on the other hand is quite hydroscopic and commercial KNO3 is sometimes made by double replacement reaction, mixing potassium chloride with sodium nitrate. Any sodium residues left will make the KNO3 hydroscopic.
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I have that same handbook and this is the interesting thing about the cup measurements of the chemicals 3 cups of potassium nitrate weighs in at 24 oz. 2 cups of charcoal by volume is close to 15 percent of 24 oz. Of the potassium nitrate and the 1/2 cup of sulfur works out to be about the 10 percent ratio. I have actually made this recipe and just put it in the ball mill for 20 hours and tested it and I could not tell that it was not weighed on my scale. When you add alcohol or acetone to your mixture of BP. The potassium nitrate is now insolvent and drops out of the solution you lose. 0001 percent potassium nitrate.. things to keep in mind.. also if you drop the temperature of a solution of water and potassium nitrate to about 33 degrees the nitrate will be insoluble and crystallize out of the solution.. this information is posted I'm sure on Google just a thought...THANKS for the entertainment and as always good video..
Looking at some of my notes, I have used the label "settled density" for my components in g/cc. Using my numbers, I come up with a ratio by weight around 73.9 / 18.5 / 7.6
Someone else's settled density numbers can and probably are different. I don't ever plan on weighing anything out by volume unless I'm improvising.
I add a mixture of stale urine and dextrin solution to my milled powder before pucking, about 8-10% by weight. Dextrin will help bind and the urea and mineral salts from the urine act as a pH buffer and burn rate deterrent. Faster powder does not necessarily equate to higher velocity- in a longer barrel you want a sustained pressure plateau, not a spike. When my powder is corned and sieved into various sizes, last step is tumble coating with 0.2-0.3% graphite powder, this helps water proof the grains.
That's a Large Print Reprint of the Manual. I've got the Original issue version . I tried this on my first batch it works O'kay for Shotgun Shells but was a Total disappointment in my Revolvers .It also tends to crumble to dust over time which is why Dextrin is sometimes added. This method was never intended to be Pucked as it was only for Emergency Combat use by Soldiers trapped behind Enemy Lines.
Where do soldiers get KNo3 and sulfur behind enemy lines. I thought about this scenario when I was reading this. That's why I cracked the joke about the whiskey. It doesn't make any sense to me, I have to keep asking the question where do you what you need to improvise making gun powder. Does the military send in the KNo3 for a just in case, sulfur included. I'm still scratching my head over this one. Thank you for the comment.
Great as always. I think I will do the extra drying step as well.
I think adding alcohol to your solution will precipitate the potassium nitrate (the potassium nitrate is driven out of its solution). The technique is called in Dutch "a solvent pair".
A long time ago I was an industrial chemist, I only worked in a lab for a short time, the last 30 years I did other things.
Really good info here!!
Good video, let's get more scientific about where the charcoal is peaked during the burn?
Good Stuff.
kno3 is very hydropilic, or soluble melts at 334 f
sulfur melts 240f f and is plastic, not soluble what makes the puck "puck"?
H2O Steam about 214 depending on alt, temp water, or MOC one?
alchol, the more pure the better, is very hydopilic and used to dry h2o from things in a lab setting(like windex drys?) as it redily evaporates and carries large amounts of h2o with it, I did qc h2o -30 dew pionts in big Rx, tech, areo sytems, pet and or human food, with 99.9 and 100 isopropyl alchol.
Dry hot mixed AMP with alchol fast! and it will dry fast. Please remember you will have isoprpyl hot vapor(clear flame) and AMP togather. Please dry away from hazards. once Pucked you have little surface area for the humidity, so YES! pucked is less likely to get wet. Or? Dry. The mil spec is for screened AMP any place, lots of surface area, and humidity.
Your pucks looks great! I bet they sound great, like ceramic, or china when you clink them together. That was FAST for big chuncks!! Lit off easy too. My Goals!
Thanks for getting me new IDEAS!
Thank you, yes they sound great, like ceramic, very solid. So perhaps using 50/50 water acetone, the acetone carries the water out of the puck quicker, thus not needing a long drying time. I am watching newer BP content creators as they come up on my recommended list and a reoccurring comment is needing a longer drying time. Their test burns are telling me they are not milling their powder long enough. Lots of big chunks of Kno3 left behind. They'll learn. We all did by experimenting.
@@lamebeavertradingco.1642
I have used the acetone, not much different as "I noted" or noticed, while looking.
Same hazard for the most part, but the A is less bad for US as a bio with out proper fume, vapors, and such PPE.
I have access to 99.9 IPA via Mexico and regular medical visits. and its' "medicinal?"
Something I keep asking various from various tubers us how dry us the char wood before charring and how fine is the ingredients before blending. I use the coffee grinder till every thing is a micro dust. In other words you can not remove the top of the grinder for five minutes or the dust will go airborne. I tend to think the finer everything is the better it will mix when milling. The absolute mix seems to be the secret to good powder. For the char my wood of choice is 5 % moisture before charring it.
I'm to darn lazy to RUclips? I too use a coffee type grinder, or sausage maker. My base pre char materials are typically aged, but I have done wet, or damp. I chared it slower to let the steam boil off the carbon, I can watch my vent for signs of steam or wood gas, and my finished char cools almost instantly with little or no new oxygen. now that I think about it, depending of tar or resins in the char source "I think" steam helps remove some resins with wood gas for a faster easier lighting AMP? but if I change anything? Everything changes "for me"
I do a wet, acetone, or alchol mill some char for dust control. my new thing is the char and sulfur ratioed 3:2 for milling, very safe and I pound the two togather big time.
Have fun be safe ish.
My wood is pretty dry. I would think 5 % to about 10% Moisture content is ideal. Except on one occasion I did use pretty freshly cut Bar Berry. My Juniper does have a resin related to the wood so it has to dry out. I do put my charcoal through a micro paint filter before milling, it is a very fine dist. I do not do anything with the potassium nitrate, I let the ball mill do that in the milling time, which a about 30 hours. If the mix is compacted in the bottom of the jar I will mix it up again and continue milling. Either way It's all fun to do and learn. Thank you for your comment
@@lamebeavertradingco.1642 I do pre dry my kn03 in my wife's oven at 350 ish on baking pan (very perilous) for an even weight batching and base line. store sealed and ready.
Ding in the “cake” I would not think it would gain any weight unless exposed directly to moisture, physically. When granulated, it would change or at least be susceptible to changing as more surface area is exposed to the atmospheric conditions than in the “cake” form.
It cakes when it absorbs moisture. Put it in a plastic container it don’t sweat from two variations. Can be any container plastic.
The truth is, the ratios aren't as crucial as people make them out to be. As long as it's close, it'll burn right.
Overcooking charcoal makes it harder something like cristalyzing making more dificult to react with the other ingredients, as far as i investigated controling pyrolisis temp between 400c to a max of 500c works fine for BP, an example of extremely overcooked charcoal is the japaneese charcoal called "binchotan" they heat the charcoal of hard woods at over 800c for days, when manipulated sounds like glass or something metalic.
@luisgarza2036 that's down to the ingredients and solvent of the reaction in question. The reason why charcoal bonds with potassium nitrate in the first place, comes down to its reactivity to alkaline metals, and halogens. It's for this same reason that carbon water filters are so effective at reducing lead and chlorine.
Once contacted by a solvent, such as water, chemical reactions take place more readily and less violently than in common air(another solvent, to chemists). This is why even though something cooked like bitukan will react and work in black powder, it appears to suck more. It comes down to captive volatiles in the charcoal, that makes the charcoal more energetic.
Think of it like this-
Your fuel source for your incomplete reaction (black powder) is the charcoal or carbon. Volatiles (it's kinda in the name) react more readily with an oxygen source under confined plasmation. Ergo, more Volatiles, more power, at the disadvantage that not all of the carbon gets used up. This causes the sooty "black powder fouling" that everyone has mentioned.
@@guardsmanom134 thanks for all that info still learning more every time.
My pucks behave the same way. I have even placed a puck in a container full of silica beads and for a week and no weight change
Was it the sun in the window causing the temp to rise above 100° & the RH to drop so low? May have been shining directly on the thermometer. I can understand pucks being the preferred method of shipping powder.
No, the temp gauge was not setting in the window. I moved it there for filming purposes. I have done other videos in the past and referenced the RH and how low it does get her in N.M. The building faces west and with 2 windows it heats up pretty quick. It does get that hot in there, especially that late in the day. I have to keep it closed up to keep the critters out, and the windows closed to help keep the blowing dust out. Although I think that is a loosing endeavor. Thank you for your comments
Only impure potassium nitrate will be hydroscopic ... maybe Google search is wrong, according to the search it says POTASSIUM NITRATE IS NOT VERY HYDROSCOPIC ONLY ABSORBING 0.03 PERCENT MOISTURE OVER 50 DAY'S AT 80 PERCENT HUMIDITY. And also says not HYDROSCOPIC..
What is your source for this comment? I would like to know. So many making BP state the other. That is why I did the small experiment, to see how easy it was for the KN03 to gain moisture. I waited for this time of year to do this experiment.
The source was from someone on utube that was using nitrate in an experiment. And that's what they stated on the video...
This is interesting. I did a search for how hydroscopic is potassium nitrate on Google search.This is the result of said search. Which you can also search Google and see for yourself this answer. POTASSIUM NITRATE NOT VERY HYDROSCOPIC WILL ONLY ABSORB ABOUT 0.03 PERCENT MOISTURE IN 50 DAYS AT 80 PERCENT RELATIVELY HUMIDITY.. something to think about...
Dunno where you got that - Even the purest, triple-recrystalized KNO3 is VERY hydrophilic - It'll suck water vapor out of the air. Not QUITE as well as Calcium Chloride (where you can literally sit and watch the water droplets form and grow on it on a "moist" day), but darn close. Whoever you're getting your info from, find another source - it's bad info.
@@Ferd414hydroscopic means absorbs water from air, hydrophilic means repels water. KNO3 is NOT hydroscopic in a low humidity environment if it's relatively pure, 99.8%. How do I know? Been working with it in various form for nearly 40 years as a propellant chemist. Sodium nitrate on the other hand is quite hydroscopic and commercial KNO3 is sometimes made by double replacement reaction, mixing potassium chloride with sodium nitrate. Any sodium residues left will make the KNO3 hydroscopic.