Black powder.... need to know item?

I haven't see this on the board, so I am going to ask.

Is it a good skill to know?

If you plan to use a muzzle loader to hunt with, this would be a good idea to practice...


Any idea?

depending on where you are at you will probably need to be certified and have commercial licensing. From a show on TV a while back it is A BAD IDEA in every respect. It is even a bad idea to store more then the small can. I used to shoot black powder when I was a kid and I remember all sorts of things going wrong from powder burned hands to copper shrapnel in the face from a bad cap. A charge igniting up the barrel while loading from burned patch stuck in the barrel. All sorts of little things and that was with commercial powder of the proper grade.

Don't even consider making your own powder, unless you want to be on that Darwin awards website. Murphy's Law will ensure you get there no matter how careful you try to be.

Safety first. Shooting glasses and gloves, always. Better yet, stick with modern firearms unless you join up with a BP club and learn all the ins and outs.

reply to post by Illahee

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Wise wise words. you got a star from me.

There is going to be enough going wrong with out playing with unstable compounds. I know if done right it is suppose to be very stable but why take the chance? death is generally a one way trip, and we are survivalist. death is the oppisate of survival.

yea, black powder can be bad..........ust use your common sense.
oops, make that rare sense, i forgot its not being issued on a regular basis.

you need around 75% saltpeter(finely ground), 15% charcoal and 10% sulfur.

All ingredients must be fine ground separately. This can be accomplished with either a mortar and pestle, or with a hand-cranked flour mill. Never mix all three ingredients before grinding unless you want to turn your mill into a deadly grenade, or your mortar into a cannon that can blow off your fingers or even your hand.

Then the ingredients can be mixed with a small amount of water so the mixture comes out with biscuit-dough consistency. Usually when I mix the ingredients, I add just enough stale urine to make the batch bunch about like biscuit dough. The urine, substituted for water, gives the powder more oxygen and higher performance.
after all that its as simple as letting it air dry. never use to much water/urine because nitrogen has a chance of developing.

and there yea go, just be careful.........VERY careful.

its best use in a survival situation is, if you are in the area of ducks, make a small "shot" cannon (can be filled with 1 inch pebels or whatever) and use it on the ducks like a large shotgun.

[edit on 11-5-2008 by Infadel]

I wasn't going to mention or list the ingredients, but since someone already did and it's likely available all over the internet anyway...

The one thing that comes to mind is where the heck are you going to get saltpeter and sulfur in a survival situation? I can't think if where I'd get it now while things are good!

Charcoal you can get easily from wood, that's the only simple ingredient.

Saltpeter can be made by taking bucketfuls of drinker's urine (people without alcohol in their system make much worse saltpeter apparently), then you need several buckets of animal feces.... you mix and filter them all together, transferring from bucket to bucket until you get a small amount of saltpeter. Don't ask me how someone figured this procedure out.
Overall, not something you want to be doing in a survival situation.

Sulfur is normally mined in Sicily I think, I have no idea where you would just find it laying around.



Overall, not very practical. There are more common, more dangerous, and more stable compounds laying around. ie. You can find a litre or two of gasoline in nearly anyone's garage or shed, bleach and ammonia under the sinks and in the laundry room of any household you come across.

[edit on 5/11/2008 by Yarcofin]

a skill I learned back my hello ween hell raising days . Salt peter and sulfur could easily be bought at the pharmacy . Not sure now days if these products can still be easily picked up at the local pharmacy .

[edit on 12-5-2008 by OpusMarkII]

As a professional explosives handler, my advice is DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

As a survivalist, I suggest that you take several courses in basic chemistry at a local university/college and learn how to safely handle nitric acid. This is the base chemical compound of smokeless powder. Black powder is far more difficult to keep safe and usable than smokeless powder and is far less powerful.

If you decide to make your own powder, I suggest that you create a powder magazine that is a safe distance from all inhabited buildings or transportation routes. There are tons of reference materials to be found in old US military manuals that maybe found online. If you're going to deal with dangerous chemicals or explosives, you should do it in as a professional and safe a manner as possible.

Once again, I WANT TO SUGGEST IN THE STRONGEST MANNER POSSIBLE: DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME




[edit on 15-5-2008 by crgintx]