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Anybody here make their own Black Powder?

Dannmann801

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
10,640
191
Springboro
I've been reading some articles on making black powder, thinking about trying it just to see if I could do it.
(I do a lot of things like that :smiley_depressive::smiley_blackeye::smiley_coolpeace:)

So - anybody here ever done it? Any input?
 

Dannmann801

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
10,640
191
Springboro
Don't do it. It's extremely dangerous.

Well. Shit.
Given my respect for Sammy, and the fact that I can buy a can of Pyrodex for $19 anytime I want, maybe I'll focus on something else.
Like trying to find some brass and reload some 7.62x54R (that's on my to-do list).
Maybe I'll just print out the instructions and put 'em in a drawer somewhere and tackle that one someday when I retire.
 

FredT

Junior Member
262
0
SE Ohio
In my younger youth I looked it up in the Encyclo Brit. The ingredients are 75% charcoal (Of course I used barby Q charcoal. It is charcoal, right?) 20% Sulphur and 5% Potassium Nitrate. That stuff came from the old chemistry sets we got for Xmas back in the 50s and 60s. I pulverized it the best I could in a Campel's soup can with the handle end of a baseball bat. So we lit it off and used some of it as a fuse trail so we could run like hell before it exploded.










No explosion but boy did it smoke and smoke and smoke. If you inhaled any, you coughed for half an hour. We didn't make any more.
 

Ohiosam

*Supporting Member*
11,708
191
Mahoning Co.
You were lucky Fred, a teenage neighbor back in the late 60's tried it. He blew himself through a cement block wall. Lost an eye and a parts of both hands. Lucky to be alive.