Nessalco Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 I've been making BP with charcoal made from staghorn sumac, and have been very pleased with the results. Very fast powder. I made it in three forms: corned, granulated with alcohol/red gum, and coated on to rice hulls 6:1 They were all fast, but the MCRH gave a cool effect. This is 15g of MCRH, which is actually about 13g of powder, being burned in a Dixie cup without any other containment. Kevin
dagabu Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 Never seen meal covered rice hulls go THAT fast! Is there metal in there too?
Nessalco Posted June 15, 2016 Author Posted June 15, 2016 Not a bit, Dave. Mill dust + 5% dextrin. Kevin
dagabu Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 HOLY COW! That stuff is incredible, Kevin! Very impressed for sure.
FlaMtnBkr Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 I would love to know what it would do in an FPAG type BP tester. 4g of Goex is supposed to give a 5 sec flight time. My hottest BP gave a 9.5 sec flight time which I imagine would make it well over twice as powerful. I had a few 8 sec BP with charcoal being the variable, but nothing else I tried approached that one. Almost makes me want to start testing and optimizing again. That seems darn impressive but I haven't tried enough in a cup to know what that extra pressure does. Wonder what that looks like on a flat piece of paper. I hate to admit to stupidity, but I once put a little BP in the bottom of a soda can and taped a long fuse in the hole. Not much hot BP made an impressive salute. And a bunch of aluminum confetti.
PhoenixRising Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 That is some nice BP for sure! On page 13 of this BP seminar document, there are the pyro-baseball flight times. We know that a baseball weighs between 142 and 149 grams, and that equates to roughly 1/2 ounce (14 to 15 grams) of BP to make 10% by weight. So using the graph, we can discern that by the 1/2 ounce mark they are pretty much at 10%, which commercial BP is getting between 5.5 and 6 seconds flight time. I know it may not be totally transferable info, but I thought it was a decent gauge if you had nothing else to compare with. Also (as most here already know) those times are for granulation and not coated rice hulls. http://www.wpag.us/learn/Black%20Powder%20Seminar%2020sept14.pdf
Nessalco Posted June 16, 2016 Author Posted June 16, 2016 .......t I haven't tried enough in a cup to know what that extra pressure does. Wonder what that looks like on a flat piece of paper. Good call. I tried a 15g sample on a flat surface - still goes up very quickly, but without the report. I'll try to post some video for comparison. Kevin
CrossOut Posted June 18, 2016 Posted June 18, 2016 (edited) that some pretty spicy stuff! I Never would of thought to make charcoal using a plant. What was your manufacturing method?Would you mind doing a spoolette test with your powder? 1/4" or 3/8" diameter spoolette w/ 1" fuel grain length Im interested to see its burn characteristics in a pressed format. thanks. Edited June 18, 2016 by CrossOut
Mumbles Posted June 18, 2016 Posted June 18, 2016 that some pretty spicy stuff! I Never would of thought to make charcoal using a plant. .... Uhhhhh, you know trees are plants, right? 2
dynomike1 Posted June 20, 2016 Posted June 20, 2016 I would have called it a vine. Cant mess with that alergic to it.
MadMat Posted June 20, 2016 Posted June 20, 2016 Just to be sure, you talking about the sumac with the groups of dark red, fuzzy berries on it, right? Hmm, There is a lot of them around here. Nice, hot BP BTW!
Nessalco Posted June 20, 2016 Author Posted June 20, 2016 That's the stuff, Mat. FWIW, the dried berries make an excellent tea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhus_typhina The charcoal was cooked in a retort, and I did not peel or split the feedstock. It was well dried. The BP is standard 15:3:2 +5% dex milled for 4 hours. Here's the burn on a flat surface. Kevin
Nessalco Posted June 20, 2016 Author Posted June 20, 2016 that some pretty spicy stuff! I Never would of thought to make charcoal using a plant. What was your manufacturing method?Would you mind doing a spoolette test with your powder? 1/4" or 3/8" diameter spoolette w/ 1" fuel grain length Im interested to see its burn characteristics in a pressed format. thanks. Since this is a new batch of powder I'll give it a go this weekend, but previous tests give a burn rate of around 1.9 to 2.1 sec per inch. Kevin
MadMat Posted June 20, 2016 Posted June 20, 2016 (edited) Yeah, I've known about making tea from the berries for a long time now. The taste reminds me slightly of pink lemonade . I'm going to make a batch of charcoal out of the sumac we have around here.... just the largest woody vines/stems, right? I'm dying to compare the resulting BP to my willow BP Edited June 20, 2016 by MadMat
FlaMtnBkr Posted June 22, 2016 Posted June 22, 2016 Looks pretty darn fast. Too bad a ninja was escaping the area at the same time and threw down the elusive and mystical ninja smoke at almost the exact same moment.
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