My homemade black powder

[DoubleBuck]

I recently bought 250 FMJ 9mm 147 grain bullets. Weighed my lead balls and replaced them. It took 130 to slightly increase over the weight of the .50 cal. balls in one jar. If it works well, I will buy more for the other jar, or make up the loss with the lead balls. They were non magnetic and cheap enough, that I didn't have to make the copper pipe filled with lead, which I was going to do. I'll find out shortly how they actually work. Hopefully, it was not a mistake. They LOOK like they will work very well.

[Swineherd]

I'll bet they'll work just fine. In all my searching, I've come to the guesstimation that getting in the neighborhood, insofar as milling media is concerned, is plenty good. Heavy, non sparking, hard enough not to leave any substantial portion of itself in the feed stock: good.

Excellent solution, IMHO, Doublebuck. Cost effective and time saving. Great thinking.

I would think to use as large a FMJ as one could source would be best. Probably 45 ACP as heavy a you could find.

[DoubleBuck]

Yes, I had been getting a lot of lead loss into my powder and didn't as much care about the danger of breathing it, etc., as to the contamination of the powder. At one point I had lost about 10 grams of weight into a pound of powder. I went with hardened balls, but they were still showing wear, which may have slowed down, with more time, but I figured the FMJ bullets should be losing very little, if any, wear weight. If they do lose some, maybe it will make the smoke pole belch green flame. That might be interesting.

[Swineherd]

Lead fumes: Bad
Dirty fouling from contaminants: Bad
Green flames? It's a feature, not a bug.

[dondiego]

I pick up spent jacketed .45 bullets at the range and had thought of using them in my HF and Thumlers Tumbler to ball mill with.

[LAGS]

Those spent jacketed bullets should work great if not cracked.
I have 500 FMJ .45 slugs in my reloading stuff.
I haven't used them yet , because I still have 3 - .45 pistols to shoot them in.
But the thought has crossed my mind.
It isn't the cost of using them that is the factor.
It is the availability of buying more that keeps them for reloading rather than making powder.
But maybe I should reload them , shoot them and collect them to use for my powder making.

[Huvius]

Speaking of experimentation, has anyone tried used coffee grounds?
Every morning I wonder about this.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...ort=objectonly

Also found this interesting:

https://www.fao.org/3/X5328E/x5328e0...les%20is%20low.

[HWooldridge]

I'll bet they'll work just fine. In all my searching, I've come to the guesstimation that getting in the neighborhood, insofar as milling media is concerned, is plenty good. Heavy, non sparking, hard enough not to leave any substantial portion of itself in the feed stock: good.

Excellent solution, IMHO, Doublebuck. Cost effective and time saving. Great thinking.

I would think to use as large a FMJ as one could source would be best. Probably 45 ACP as heavy a you could find.

I used 500 grain 45-70 Hornady jacketed pills for quite a while - but eventually went back to plain brass slugs.

[DoubleBuck]

Huvius;
Coffee grounds was one of my early powders. It worked but was dirty enough that when you lit it, it looked like a sparkler. Your chart makes me wonder why I'm setting here with a large cup of coffee! Any one of the chemicals sound like they would kill you, but if you put them all together, they make a pretty fine hot beverage!

[DoubleBuck]

I tried to go to three shooting ranges to glean out some shot bullets. One was indoor, and they had just had their mats replaced. One was outdoor and they had just the week before finished a major remodel, and had sifted a whole mountain of dirt, removing all metal. The third is on a state park and the hours they are open are the only time the gates are open, to allow you in.
So, I gave up and started looking for new. I gave .20 cents a piece for them, but if they take the worry out and work well, I consider it a fair price to pay. The reason I went with the 147 grain 9mm, was price. Some were twice the price, for not that much of an advantage for my use.
I have seen an uptick in ammo and reloading accessories availability in the last few months, with some falling prices. Hopefully, it keeps up.

[Swineherd]

I used 500 grain 45-70 Hornady jacketed pills for quite a while - but eventually went back to plain brass slugs.

You cut some bar stock to length then?

[Swineherd]

I tried to go to three shooting ranges to glean out some shot bullets. One was indoor, and they had just had their mats replaced. One was outdoor and they had just the week before finished a major remodel, and had sifted a whole mountain of dirt, removing all metal. The third is on a state park and the hours they are open are the only time the gates are open, to allow you in.
So, I gave up and started looking for new. I gave .20 cents a piece for them, but if they take the worry out and work well, I consider it a fair price to pay. The reason I went with the 147 grain 9mm, was price. Some were twice the price, for not that much of an advantage for my use.
I have seen an uptick in ammo and reloading accessories availability in the last few months, with some falling prices. Hopefully, it keeps up.

20 cents per is a difficult price to beat for appropriate media.

[HWooldridge]

You cut some bar stock to length then?

Yes, I had some 3/4" round brass bar stock so I slapped a stick in the lathe and started parting off pieces until I had a tumbler barrel's worth.

[Swineherd]

Yes, I had some 3/4" round brass bar stock so I slapped a stick in the lathe and started parting off pieces until I had a tumbler barrel's worth.

Nice. I'm still in the process of restoring an Atlas 6x18. Got a barrel to crown soon as its done.

[HWooldridge]

Nice. I'm still in the process of restoring an Atlas 6x18. Got a barrel to crown soon as its done.

Also easy with a hacksaw or portaband - I used the lathe because it was just sitting there, staring at me, waiting for something to do.

[Swineherd]

Also easy with a hacksaw or portaband - I used the lathe because it was just sitting there, staring at me, waiting for something to do.

To a man with a hammer...

[HWooldridge]

To a man with a hammer...

Most definitely…

[shaman]

I've got my first batch of ailanthus powder ready to sort and grade. Can y'all direct me to a source of the proper sieves?



I'd like to get 2F to 3F powder.

Another question: The stuff is drying. It's fairly dry already. When I priced it through window screen it ended up like black rice-a-roni. Now it's kind of all clumped together in junks. How do I get it down to granules?

[DoubleBuck]

1F passes a 12 screen and holds on a 20. Some say it holds on an 18.
2FF passes a 20 screen and holds on a 30.
3FFF passes a 30 and holds on a 40. Some say it holds on a 50.
4FFFF passes a 40 and holds on a 50.
Some use powder that passes a 50 and holds on a 60 for flint pan use.
There may be others who disagree or have other outlooks.
If you are ricing it, you should be able to gently break up the dry chunks and screen the powder to size. Depending on your charcoal, and if you used a binder; the grains should withstand some abuse without turning to dust.

[LAGS]

One thing that I have found with new guys in powder making is.
When they screen their powder.
They pick a size screen that is the size for the finished powder that they want to produce.
But it always comes out a ton of different granular sizes when dry.
They get very disappointed.
They should find that using a larger grain size to damp screen the powder is easier and when done you have to sift the final dried powder to the sizes they want.
I do my screening with a course screens on the first screening.
Then re screw it while still damp with the next finer size screen.
Then let it dry before I sift it out to the final sizes .
The dried powder that is larger grains then I want or use gets ground down or crushed , then resifted.