DIY Historical Gun Powder Formulas

[thelionspaw]

I just lifted this from my book: "War in the Middle Ages" by Philippe Contamine and thought that a Do It Yourselfer might find it of interest.

Richard "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"

[KABAR2]

I am thankful we have come so far from the days when a cannoneer had to roll his own powder,
Corned powder of today is far more powerful and consistant than what could be had in that period.
when I was 15 or 16 a friend and I experimented making our own and the first results were equivelent
to what is printed above, it worked but is far more messy than corned powder, we did our research and learned
aboud making it into cakes and compressing it and grinding it......... (also learned about graphite)
my chemistry days of my youth are far behind I'll buy it in a can 

[thelionspaw]

Ahhh but you should have drunk wine; not beer.  The secret amalgam was wizz of Hombre; not Colt 45. 

rc

[Rickk]

The most popular modern ratio is 15:3:2  or 75%:15%:10% (KNO3:C:S)

I have made the stuff myself. I tried it with little success when I was 15 years old and again with considerably more success more recently (like 35 years later).

The formula is the easy part. The process is the remaining 90% of the secret.

Just mixing the stuff together will result in a very low performance powder.

Milling is ALMOST mandatory (there is the messy "CIA method" that does not require milling).

Then turning the resulting milled dust into grains of some sort to allow a separation between the grains for the flame front to quickly propogate is also mandatory. Typically the dust is wet pressed into thin cakes, allowed to dry, broken up, and then screened into various grain size ranges.

It is also possible to make fairly large grains by coating the dust onto dampened rice hulls. I have made the rice hull version for use as a "break charge" in pyrotechnic arial shells but have not tried it in a gun yet. I have to try that sometime, as it is a much quicker process than pressing, crushing, screening, and the rice hull coated grains come out sized something like cannon grade powder grains.

[RocklockI]

Among my most vauable referances I had accsess to as a kid was World Book Encyclopdia . So we made some while completly duping the pharmacy folks "...uh , yes Sir ,I need the sulfer cause my cows are sick..."  Oh yea they bought that stuff !

Any way all we ever achieved was a slow sizzling yellow/green goo . The best part was it was cooked on to the sidewalk for a year or so .      I know now ,without doubt , that that was the kindest thing that could have happened ,green bubbling goo ...

[seacoastartillery]

     Thank you, Richard "The Alchemist".  When I first saw this thread, I wondered which way it would go.  Well, having mentioned CANNONS right here, I will continue the nostalgic tangent.  In 1959, when my friends and I were about 12 years old, we used to ride the bus to downtown Albany, NY to buy chemicals from Albany Labs.  The old guy who manned the retail counter peered over his bifocals and asked, "What do you kids want?"  I shakily handed him a list. As he read it a nasty smirk came across his face.  He said, "Well, what you boys really want from this list is the sulfur, the two oxidizers and the two powdered metals! Isn't that true?"  We thought real hard and nodded, yes.  "So", he said, "We can keep the Copper Sulfate, the Potassium Sodium Tartarate, the Monoammonium Phosphate and the Sodium Thiosulphate, right?"  We nodded in the affirmative, not knowing, if by dropping all of the camoflage chemicals from the list, we might have sealed our fate.  He stared at us for what seemed like an eternity, then said, "O.K. boys, a pound of each, that's it! and Don't take any of these out of the box until you get home! and it's $12.00, cash".  What a cool guy; we were in a state of bliss, and just before we reached the front door, the old clerk said in a kindly manner, "And boys, be careful; don't blow yourselves up."  We were and we didn't.

Regards,

Tracy and Mike

[Don Krag]

We used to buy powdered sulfur from sporting goods stores. It was used to keep chiggers off the ankles (and made your feet smell horrid!) and came in 1/2lb boxes. Salt petre we just got at the grocery. Mix them up with powdered sugar and you have a real nice pink-lava-forming smoke bomb.

I never tried making my own black powder, but I'd love to mess around with the old medieval recipes. At our old house, we have the 30 yr-old concrete septic tanks. Hmmm.....should I dig them up in the name of historic research?

[Rickk]

At my local hardware store, you can get "Grant's Stump Remover" (KNO3).  Sulfur comes in 5# bags in the garden department. Charcoal (briquets) in the BBQ grill department. One stop shopping, although the material all needs serious grinding to a fine powder in a ball mill to be usefull, and I don't know how good a powder the charcoal BBQ briquets will produce.

A big agricultural fertilizer supply house might sell KN03 (fertilizer), and most likely will sell Sulfur (Soil Ph adjustment).

Of the three ingredients, other than granulation, KNO3 is KNO3, Sulfur is Sulfur, but not all Charcoals are created equal.  So, if you want to experiment, find the KNO3 and Sulfur wherever you can get it cheaply. For Charcoal, unless you want to experiment, "Airfloat Charcoal" from one of the big pyro supply houses (Skylighter for instance) is the way to go.  Skylighter's web site has a monthly newsletter (archieved for your viewing). There are some good how-to's on how to make BP, including how to coat rice hulls with milled BP Dust to make big grains. I still havn't tried the rice hull version in a cannon... to busy with less exciting stuff lately.

[rays89]

I was reading this post and was hesitant to reply to it but here I am. Grant's stump remover comes in pellets and is not pure KN03 It needs to be proccessed to  be pure. there is another brand that is pure. Sorry lips are sealed. In my younger days I played with the "chemicals" even Potasium percholate and another chemical making some very evil stuff.  The reason I am typing this is because I am still alive with all my limbs attached. Well I fortuntly gotten older and hopefully a little bit wiser. For me I will go for good ole Goex and let them take the risk..... I am not bashing anyone it is an interesting thread but its best just for information and reminising purposes . Just my 2 cents.

[Rickk]

"Grants" is close enough to pure to work as an oxidizer. I generally only use it in a pinch when making slowmatch though. If making BP I buy the "good stuff" from one of the online pyro dealers. It comes 99.somthing refined, already ground to a small partical size, and way cheaper than Grants in any realistic quantity.

Making BP isn't particularly hazardous. ONce you mix and process it, you need to take the same safety precautions as handling Goex. The individual ingredients are not particularly dangerous. Like I said, they sell them in somewhat usable purity in the hardware store with no restrictions.  Even when they are mixed, the crude mixture is considerably less powderful than commercial BP. After mixing comes the ball milling. Explosions in a ball mill are very rare. Still, to be on the safe side, most people run their ball mill in an isolated area, plugging them in via a long extension cord a considerable distance away. When my ball mill is running, it is 25 feet down the side of a steep hill that is 100 feet behind my house. I tend to work with only a pound or so at a time. Take some basic safety precautions and you are as safe as handling the already processed stuff in the tin can.

As far as Potasium Perchlorate and that "other stuff", ya I know what that is and ya, it is a bit scarey to play with. It is amazing what so little of it can do. While it is commonly used in the pyro hobby, it has no use that I can conceive of in the cannon game, so no need to discuss handling of anything like that here. 

[Squire Robin]

But if you want to do it the old fashioned way, you need a powder recipe to match the age of the piece

The bombarde had a seperate powder chamber. After loading the powder you put in a stick of wood to plug it while you got some kind of pressure up. Then the ball, then wooden wedges to stop it coming out too soon.

Sometime after the Civil War they fired Mons Meg and broke it. I think it could have been part of the Restoration celebrations in 1660.

Did it break because it was overloaded, or simply because they used completely the wrong powder?