Question about black powder?

[Big7]

Reading the "only three gun" thread
I noticed some folks chose a black
powder firearm so you could find
your own flints and make powder from available components.

I've made some buying sulphur and
saltpeter from the old drug store
In town. Used various store bought
charcoal (not the grilling kind)
with mixed results. That was a LONG
time ago and forgot what I once
knew.

To the point, if you really needed
to make black powder in a bad situation, how do you make the charcoal and get sulpher and
oxidizer?

What ratio of each component?

I'd like to try some homade in shotguns and cartridges
that originally used black powder.

Been thinking about building a
cannon.

Thanks in advance!

 

[strothershwacker]

A guy with a picture of a missile as his logo wants to build a cannon with homemade powder? Hummmmmm.........

 

[Big7]

A guy with a picture of a missile as his logo wants to build a cannon with homemade powder? Hummmmmm.........

That' not missile, that's BOMB.

FYI, I can make aluminum/magnesium
high explosives that would make
black powder seem like a child's
toy.

If you can't contribute to the topic,
PLEASE DON'T POST IN MY THREAD.

 

[280 Man]

That's a MOAB.....

 

[pdsniper]

I think that if you went on youtube you could probably find a Video on how to do it and I'm sure there is a how to some where on line, but this is an interesting question

 

[Rabun]

Mother Of All Bombs....A real cave buster

Would be interested in seeing how your homemade BP works out. This link might help you get started with proportions and techniques https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Black-Powder

 

[NCHillbilly]

There are several books out there with detailed instructions.

 

[Muldoon]

There's always.....one!!

 

[Hooty Hoot]

I experimented with it when I was a youngster. A friend had a mortar and pestle and we used bag charcoal. I don't remember our percentages of components but the absolute intensifier was wetting the mixture into a dough, allowing it to dry, then crushing again in the mortar and pestle.

 

[GunnSmokeer]

I tried making black powder as a teenager.
I was not successful. At least not in making anything with the open-are burn rate of commercial black powder that Deercreek Gun Shop sold.
My powder would just burn and flare up like smokeless powder would, if I lit a few tablespoons of it out on the driveway. No "poof." No mushroom cloud of smoke!

That being said, I don't know if my homemade powder would detonate if contained in a gun barrel, with the pressure building up behind the bullet. I never tried that.

My homemade concoction did make a decent incendiary mixture, though. Something like thermite, though I don't know if it would melt steel. It made concrete flake and chip. It melted tin cans and aluminum TV dinner trays (this was back before all TV dinners were made in microwave-safe plastic trays). Adding cut-up steel wool added to the intensity of the fire.

 

[Hooty Hoot]

We made about 10 batches with nothing to go on. Fifty years ago we didn't have the internet. We made bombs that would get you locked up today and it is a wonder that we didn't get killed. I guess we were satisfied after getting a 6 inch galvanized gas pipe with nipples in each end and a dynamite fuse in the middle to blow up. Youthful stupidity I guess. Anyway, we lost interest.

 

[tv_racin_fan]