WPAG Method of Making BP W/O Ball Mill

[Wiley]

I found this on the WPAG site:

http://www.wpag.us/learn/How%20To%20Make%20Black%20Powder.pdf. It doesn't seem that this BP would be very powerful; what do you think?

[val77]

similary to the bp puck

[Algenco]

if you don't have or want to mill it not much choice.

If I were going to do it I would use Mike Swishers method and use boiling water or Ned Gorski's red gum BP with alcohol

 

Can't beat ball milling

[Mumbles]

I know Chris Szot fairly well. Despite what he says, this method produces a BP that is not on par with milled powders. That said, it's also not as bad as one might think. It's definitely serviceable. I'd put it somewhere around milled BP made with commercial airfloat charcoal. Not great, but if you use some extra it will get the job done. This method does rely on very finely powdered materials, that cannot actually be done without a ball mill. A mortar and pestle will not get you the same level of particle reduction without extensive, time consuming grinding. It also relies on using fairly reactive charcoals. Essentially what this method does is to produce polverone with very fine materials, and quite reactive charcoal.

 

I'd bet taking this method, and using red gum and alcohol would get you somewhere around commercial powder at least. I sort of wish someone would find some additive to use with this method to give harder grains. On it's own, red gum bound BP gives too weak of grains for my uses.

 

I'm not sure if using boiling water, ala Mr. Swisher's method, would help, but you never know until you try. I've often considered going that route, but using a reactive charcoal to try to get something useable. After my accident I'd really prefer to make large batches of BP all at once, so perhaps this might be a way to do it without needing to invest in a very large ball mill.

[Algenco]

Mumbles,

 

I'm glad you feel the RG BP grains are too soft, I like mine hard!

I use 3-5% dextrin with my Paulownia BP , no way you could crush it between your fingers

 

I get arguments all the time about it

[pyrojig]

I second that . The RG seems to get soft grains for me as well.Not to mention the cost of Alcohol.

Dextrin seems to win the cake on the hard grain and cost effective approach to very good bp binder.