I been watching your videos for awhile. I have come to the conclusion that you are a purist. You started out making powder that was decent. But then your need to improve and improve your powder has blind sided you to the to snobbery side of making black powder. In this video i seen you using metal to break your pucks. OMG how dangerous. What you are doing is making the potential of an accidental explosion more possible. The old stamp mills, pounded powder for hours and the powder was kept damp they still exploded. Then you are using a metal machine with the potential to make sparks to grind the powder. NUTS! You can make really good powder by ball milling the material with different sizes of ball material, i have .451, .495 and .690 lead balls in my mill. To mill properly you need balls of different sizes. The ball mill is home made,. I make the green powder damp and mill it 4 hours. I mill 4 - 8oz batches at a time. I check to make sure it is somewhat slightly damp about ever 1.5 hours of run time. This causes the mix to mix consistently chemically. In my opinion you don't need to do all of what you are doing to make great black powder. You took making black powder from a "hobby kind of thing", to a "do it this way or you suck" kind of a thing. Your turning black powder enthusiast's into snobs over their black powder. No Kudos there. I can't wait until someone who watches your channel gets hurt doing what you are doing. We all know people are not bright, they make mistakes, they are stupid. Wait until the kiddies make your powder and have an accident. Wait until you cant get the chemicals because all the kiddies and stupid fucks have ruined it for us. Keep doing what your doing. SAD.

In less than an hour...........you have explained the craft of antique muzzle loading propellant better than I have discovered in 60 yrs of investigations.........my hat is off to you......and thanks, I thought I knew quite a bit over the decades but have learned in every video.........I don't blow smoke but I feel your efforts in keeping this skill alive deserves special recognition ......you are a true "Green Man"....💥.

I love this channel. Their videos do not suck.

I have been making my own powder for about 40 years. The best wood I have found for charcoal production is actually cottonwood. But a close second is red cedar. I know someone who mills his own lumber for cedar furniture. I get his sawdust bin every few months and make charcoal from the dust. It makes grinding it so easy. I also use dextrin in my powder just as a binder but it also gives it a bit of a glazed appearance. It makes for a fun hobby. I have also made a couple of rifles and handguns.. one handgun has a bore large enough to fire golf balls. It is a matchlock and works beautifully.

Frankford Arsenal makes a killer 7L tumbler for brass polishing which I use as a mill. Best off the shelf mill option out there that I know of right now. They sell replacement rubber lined barrels separately which would be great for diy mills also.

I'm a retired chemical oceanographer. I've found over the years that the distilled water also has lots of contaminants. I had to boil my DI water in order to get pure DI. Good luck.

this video will become the bible for the creation of gunpowder

Right on the money on all counts! My family has made powder for over 200 years and quality of ingredients, refining of said ingredients, and mill times are paramount. Kudos

There should be a brass band playing and fireworks going off over this. The best damn "black Powder" video ever, to grace the halls of KZfaq. Thanks for your time and dedication to go through all the experimentation, research and testing you've done. And most of all, your willingness to share what you have learned with all of us. Chip

This is the best video on the subject I’ve ever found.👍 I’m glad to see my suggestion worked for you. Those cheap ,hand cranked “corn crackers” work pretty well for granulating pucks. You can still make chicken feed with it too. Just clean it out well so the eggs don’t explode when they hit the skillet. Handgreneggs! 🙄 The density info is well received and much appreciated.👍 With a cash outlay of around $10 per pound and the opportunity to acquire knowledge that has such dramatic potential , why sit waiting for someone else to provide it for $40 / pound? You could sit waiting until your smoke pole turns into a walking stick or tomato stake! Clean ingredients. Yes. I bought some potassium nitrate , for a good price, that was ,definitely, hinkey. It had a strong chemical smell and the powder was less than acceptable. You need a trustworthy source or the ability to pee and process your own.

Dude, you have my utmost admiration on KZfaq… the years of trial and error and discovery, and ending up with a grade A BP propellant that rivals and even surpasses what is general acceptance that Swiss BP is the best commercially available powder. You have come a long way …. I thank you for the entertainment, the publicity of your findings and sharing it to anyone interested. You are an amazing individual that deserves a lot for what you have done, and willingly shared. I appreciate the lack of arrogance, the blunt straight facts without a argumentative attitude. I appreciate everything and thank you for all your sucky videos… every damn one of them. Cheers… Earl.

My dad owned his own car repair shop for over 40 years. I can totally understand Jakes sarcasm in his videos. Having put time and knowledge into something just to have people whine and complain about information thats free thru some else's time and efforts beacuse you don't like something is about as annoying as watching a college snowflake melt down over freedoms vs their feelings. Like the man said if you don't like his method's don't do it. If you like chewing the blue crayons you don't have to eat the green ones you have choices. Me personally I appreciate his efforts and the experiences Jake is willing to share. Thank you.

I want to thank you, sincerely, for taking the effort and the willingness to share your secrets and laying them out in a full length pyrotechnics lecture on making -the- best powder. When you said "99%" my first thought was "might wanna recrystallize.. oh you do that!" Step by step you explain the full process.. Many will misunderstand because they lack the life skill of actually listening what was said, and instead forming an opinion on facts. I'm meticulous and your presentation was that, so like you said, any misunderstandings are on the viewer's end. My attention span for youtube is *shot fires!* but your 45 minutes were an information dense breeze. I have an intellectual fetish for complete condensed information, and this was good for me. Immediately chimed in friends to come have a look. Thank you.

This guy has brass balls. And so should you.

Earlier today I pulled a T/C flintlock out of a trash pile on the side of the road, looking foreword to finally putting what I have learned on the channel to use. I have never owned a muzzle loader, and you videos have been giving me the itch to get one. Snagging that rusty Hawken on the way home from class feels like divine providence.

Outstanding as always. You have never yet failed to inform, and never once motivated me in the slightest to make my own damned video. Keep up the science. Thank you Sam

Thank you. I've done a little black powder hunting years ago but now you have inspired me to get a good flintlock. That just looks fun and relaxing. Time for me to get back to the basics as well as the science behind it. I really do appreciate your style of presentation as well.

Christ I feel like an idiot with this hindsight. First batch I made was with one of those harbor freight rock tumbers. I knew I added too much, excess of 500 grams with little tumbling. It dawned on me how explosive that could’ve been, but the environment was safe enough to warrant a trial run. No accidents, but recognizing the potential for serious harm if a fault occurred. Thank you again for making these videos. It’s a fun sport and a cool hobby. I’m thankful there’s enough wisdom with those with greater experience guiding greenhorns right. Thank you!

Thank you for this detailed no nonsense walk through of making top quality black powder. I've learned more in these 46 minutes than I ever knew before. I intend to experiment for myself and have as much fun with it as I can.

EBP: Absolute golden information. Well presented and concise. A masterclass!

Thank You! Hands down the best video out there. Following your methods (as closely as I can with that I have to work with) I was able to make Goex equivalent powder on my first try. Going to have to refine my nitrate for the next batch. The only thing I can add that of value is a quicker and easier method of finding density. Take your dried broken pucks and grab a few chunks that will fit in a 100ml graduated cylinder. Weigh these pucks in grams. Fill the cylinder 1/2 full of water, get a reading on the water level. Drop in the broken pucks and get another reading. Dump it out and set your chunks to the side to dry. The water won't penetrate in that amount of time. Now you have grams of powder and CC's (Ml's) of displacement. Do the math and its done. Takes longer to describe than to do.

You guys are so knowledgeable, so experienced, and so inspirational. You’re also just down-to-earth blokes. You are definitely the peerless authority to go to, for Everything Black Power.

Thanks for putting the entire process in one video, summarizing past efforts and current choices. By the amount of subscribers, looks like interest in making black powder is gaining. I have to say you have removed a lot of the mystery for me. Well done sir.

I just wanted to sincerely say Thank You!!! for taking the time to make this video. I'm not making muzzleloader propellant at this time, but it is on my bucket list of things to do. I am kind of a perfectionist and detail oriented, and I believe that the information you have given checks all the required boxes. My reason for wanting to try and make BP is to see if I can make a consistent and reliable powder better than what I can purchase, not really to save money, although that would be great too. Again, thank you very much.

My friends, I'm French and it's an honor to be on the FBI watch list with you.

Thank you for all the info. Been waiting for this one. First off as a 47 year safety professional thanks for including safety. I've got most of what's needed looking for brass media. I've made screened powder hey it was exciting and worked. Now it's time to up the game. Again thanks appreciate your humor. You'll know when the videos suck when people stop watching. Please keep them coming

Great information, thank you. I don't make powder but am considering it. (been shooting black powder guns for over 50 years), because, .as you say the supply is dwindling. Living on the east coast I have had the experience of visiting Du Ponts early works. Their early 19th century batches were the volume of an over size cement mixer. The building the mixer was in was to made let go (boom wise) , and they were on the shore of a river, pointed so the blast wave went over the river. Most of the crew that manned the mixer were on the other side of a brick back wall, as much as they could be. They did have some tragedies. The damp milled powder from several of the mills then went to a screening house (I don't remember seeing a compression process, but I expect there was) . Any way, seems to me that a safety measure to emphasize is not to get greedy and try to make bigger batches. I have been impressed the many times you have mentioned your batch size of about 200 grams, or less than half a pound. With black powder the size of the bang is absolutely related to the quantity. Small quantities of unconfined black powder typically will burn fast. Larger quantities are more likely to go boom. I don't know the burn to boom crossover point, and expect it's a bit unpredictable. At the rate I shoot, it's about 1/2 pound per month. Typically I don't cast more bullets than I can shoot in a few months, so I can easily see keeping up with my powder demand with 200 gram batches. staged a few days apart. (helps to be retired) . In this day and age many people may not be aware of the danger of gas appliances. I can remember as a kid how we had to pay attention to the pilot lights in our gas appliances. I have a work shop in my basement and when I watch your videos I sit back and contemplate making some powder in my nice cozy basement. Then I hear the piezo electric igniter in my gas furnace or gas water heater go spark spark spark whoosh and realize that I really don't want to be making black powder 8 feet away, probably not even in 200 gram batches. As far outside and away from any source of spark including automatic electrical switches as possible., not to mention gas pilot lights. I suppose the part of the process to really take care is in the screening and sorting.

OUTSTANDING video!! Keep posting... a worthy effort for a good cause!

Great job Jake, thank you for sharing your experience and hard work.

Really appreciate your presentation. You have used science-like methodology, changing one variable at a time to remove guesswork and have been open-minded to experimenting with unknown variables until you zeroed in on the best possible combinations that achieved your desired goal. PhD chemists couldn’t have done it better.

This video didn't suck in fact it's the best video I've seen on KZfaq. You're the man. Thanks for your patience and sharing your experience with me. That's very unselfish of you. Hopefully I can get enough experience by practicing the craft, and then more practice plus maybe a little more. Stay safe my friend. God Bless. NW ga.

Thank you for sharing these details. I had most of the bigger details down but the refinement details made a lot more sense. Back to the shop I go.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! Love your videos!

Yay!!! Been waiting for this vid!!!!

Thanks for taking the time

Loved this I tried messaging you with a question and you hit it all and more with this video. Thank you so much. Gonna try make some soon.

Thanks for all the effort you and your team spend to share really valuable info, your videos are really good!

LMFAO!!!!! Your sarcasm can not be match 😅😅😅 Love the video..The real teacher in the house!

Thank you so much for sharing your method! Great content!!!

This is the very best video on making blackpowder on KZfaq. I really need to make a ball mill and get some brass media like yours. great video Jake.

Wow what an exelent episode!!! A wealth of info and experience in one video. Thanks to you all for sharing your experiences with us!!!👍🤠

Now you present your quintessence of several years of your research. Thank you very much!

As always, some of the very best content online. Interesting, intelligent, and well-presented. I've been a fan for quite awhile and have been hoping for an updated "how to" video. I'm definitely motivated to try it for myself. Rest assured, I won't be short-cutting any part of the process. Thanks for everything you do; as ever, I'll be looking forward to your next video.

Well, ya said ya would and ya did, and, I applaud you for it! Excellent, comprehensive, no BS tutorial Jake, or Willard, or Mr. McBain... Regardless, even if I thought it sucked I wouldn't make my own damn video because that's what I used to do for a living and now that I'm retired all I like to do is watch people like you so I can learn stuff. But, seriously, THANK YOU! You really did a great job of putting everything that matters in one place!!!

This is fantastic information on years of research. Priceless knowledge. Thank you so much.

Your boundary value analysis, on contaminants, is excellent !

I already have a notebook full of your useful knowledge and how to get and make ingredients. Truly remarkable!

When the paint can that you use for cooking your charcoal is worn out, grab one of the small ammo cans from your local sporting goods shop. Just burn out the paint and gasket then drill your hole. Works awesome! I also use it to make charcoal for grilling on the bbq! Don’t crush it like you would for propellant, just let it cool and relight it (the same way you light the store bought stuff) when you’re ready to use it.

Outstanding Sir! maybe consider doing an annual update to summarize any advances in the past year, with this video as the baseline. Keep up the good work!

Once again you have created a brilliant, frank, educational and entertaining presentation - we all owe you a deep debt of gratitude and a bucket of respect! Thank you.

Thank you so much. Very good information. Been waiting for this. Love watching your channel. Love the ending too!

You have indeed created a masterpiece how to video. GREAT JOB! Thank You!

I made 3 pounds 1 pound with Charmin charcoal. 2 pounds with red ceder. My groups with my 58 cal. About 7 inches at 50 yards . I did not separate all the powder, so I had 1f 2f and 3f all mixed up. After this video, l polished it all for two hours and ran it through the screens again. Back to the range to test groups again!

Thank you very much to you and your team for all the effort and time that went into thinking, trying, testing, evaluating, starting over again, and everything else that went into this whole process of making your blackpowder, and finalizing this process (for now, maybe) in this great video for the world to see. Great work! I very much enjoy watching your videos and learning from them. I only shoot blackpowder with an original R&S cap and ball revolver and some antique single shot cartridge rifles. My next armory addition is very likely to be an antique flintlock rifle, mainly because of how you have presented them in your videos and made them more interesting to me. You have a great and entertaining way of explaining everything clearly and practically including a bit of humour too. Have a great weekend!

Thanks Jake. Been very excited for this one. Thanks so much

best video on youtube on the subject i've seen yet, watched every minute as there is some really very good info. getting a hydraulic jack, getting out my lead balls in exchange for brass and finding a new ball mill (or making one with speed control) thank you!

Adding 5 g dH2O on 200g dry meal is good ratio. I use 3g dH2O + 1g ethanol for 96 g dry meal. 18:26....For a diameter of 30 mm, I recommend an increase in the cylinder height of 4 - 6 mm. (20% of dia) In one pressing step. Thus about 8 g of wet BP meal. I also recommend a compaction process before pressing. Wet dust is hitting into a glass suitable for 200g using a wooden pestle. By handle power. This process increases the consistent moisture content during press handling. Also to compaction process decrease final force (pressing process) to achieve the desired density is lower.

True, the best black powder recipe video ever.

Downloaded in case YT nukes this video in the future. Thank you for all you do. Love your videos!

Can't wait for this to start. Have an elk tag in an area known for big bulls. Best part if I can duplicate the black powder you make.

Thanks for all your knowledge and this.I appreciate it

Outstanding tutorial. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Now to get myself moved to a place where I can start making my own Antique Muzzleloading Propellant.

A buddy of mine did a sacrificial test with a Harbor Freight rock tumbler full of green meal and detonated it remotely. It was not much of an explosion. It was more of a "woosh". Popped the lid and big woosh. A bolt-down lid might give a bigger problem, as you note.

Great lesson once again! Much appreciated, thanks!

Fantastic video! Thanks a bunch for sharing your knowledge and wisdom.

this video is sooooo damn good! Wow and thank you so much. I will start gathering materials in the morning. The best "how to" I have ever seen.

I know where there is a black powder plant that was built in 1982, ran for 1 year, and moth balled. It produced 500,000 lbs per month. It’s about 3 miles from my home!

I'm in Florida. We have enough humidity that I compress without adding any water at all. I was able to confirm that SOME moisture is necessary by drying it in the sun before compressing and that didn't work. But the ammount of necessary moisture can be had with just 90% ambient humidity.

Thank you for sharing what you have learned from many hours of experimenting. You have put a lot of effort into making powder, and are giving the results to us for free!

Very informative video. I will keep this in the saved file for later. You do a very good job on explaining everything a lot. Thanks for all the info.

Just saying, your vids and " antique muzzle loading powder" are Bitchin! I still use the Harbor Freight rook tumbler,(because someone a couple of years ago told me to-hmmm), but I modified it to take two PVC 4 inch cleanouts and a coupler stuck together, (no glue, so if something happens, big fire no boom). It's slow so 48+ hours of tumble. I use some brass balls like I should, but I found that .45 cal. copper plated round nose bullets work pretty well too. They are not spark prone, a bit denser, and a lot cheaper. This channel has to be the most realistic, reliable, accurate, straight forward channel on YT. And thanks for not making me " make my own Damn videos".

Thanks for the video! I have a question, I don't have an access to that kind of 20 or 10 ton press machines. I only could use an old screwed press (I dont think its general use is compressing things tho) and my black powder comes out too loose than you said as expected. I don't expect to make the best black powder without proper equipment but do you have any suggestions for me? Should I compress it over and over as you said or can I use a different method for better compression? Thanks again for the video, all the best!

Thanks for sharing all your hard work.

super excited to get into making my own black powder. really appreciate this video

love the video just a thought what size would you say would be good for the balls? the reason I ask is in my works we use a lot of phosphor bronze ball bearing BUT the smallest we use is 20mm (3/4 inch)

Fantastic. If you burn this to cd or dvd or usb stick i will buy a copy for reference. Thanks for the video, Jake or is it Willard? Any how thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Have been subscribed for a while now and this comprehensively sums up your fine body of work/experiments. It will save many of us hours of reinventing the wheel you have built.

best and in depth video I have seen on this subject. I have made screened forever, gonna go your way and see the differences. Thanks much

This was great ,i was hoping you would do one of these videos. Love your videos.

I am looking into making my own powder....for my 45-70s and Colts....out of curiousity, instead of brass balls ( I live where that kind of thing is rare to find)...could one buy say... 1/2 inch brass bar stock and cut it into 1.2 inch pieces instead?

Great video! Not as exciting as the state of the union, but you had a lot more useful information.😂 Thank you

Excellent tutorial. Thank you

It was long but a great video. Thank you so much for all the info. Now time to gather the stuff we need. I do like idea of cases to save a little money. Telling to refine the nitrates is a good tip I didn't think of.

"Step one, buy toilet paper"

This didn't suck.

The most useful and comprehensive information on gunpowder production of all the times.....😎

Love this video !

I've never seen such a detailed video on black powder. I've been wanting to make my own, for a few reasons for several years now, so I've watched and read everything I can find on how to make. Your videos are like a god send. Flips diy black powder on its head. Great info. I love when people like you have taken hours upon hours of personal time to come up with a process, then put it on KZfaq for all to see. You could charge people to teach them how to make black powder, but you just put it out there. I love it.

Thank you for taking the time to make this video sir!!!

Wow, I never realized that making black powder what so involved..Thank You for showing us what you do. I am sorry to say that it takes alot more effort than I thought it would (I had no clue). this is a great channel.

Great video I believe one of you best yet. I would like share my results with you and everyone else. Followed your ( I was already their) instructions from the past videos step by step , weight ever charge, each ball, checked each patch for tolerances and I believe one of the most important things I cleaned between ever shot and came up with only a 15 - 25 F.P.S. Spread over 5 shots and I done this 10 times. I believe the weather had something to do with the spread, I done this over a 3 day span, the temperature and humidity where a little different. Yes I agree this is some trouble but it works and damn it's a lot fun. Thanks

THIS is THE video we've been waiting for. I LOVE this channel but I have been DYING for this video to come out. THANK YOU!

Spot on! I've studied BP and its manufacture from a historical perspective as much as anything else (although I have made a few trial batches in the process). Everything you say about the quality of ingredients and the nuances of the manufacturing process is in line with what I have read about the development of BP manufacture at Waltham Abbey. Those guys really were the "rocket scientist" equivalents of their day, working at the cutting edge of technology and producing the perfect product through knowledge, experimentation, and trial and error. As an example, when the change was made from the P53 rifle to the Snider and later the Martini Henry rifle, the powder was also changed slightly to suit the slight differences in performance of each rifle. It wasn't a question of merely getting the "fastest" BP or adjusting the quantity used, rather one of tweaking the manufacturing process to obtain the BP that most suited each firearm (a very different thing). Even things such as the time of year the trees were felled and how long the wood was dried for before charcoaling, all made a difference. A really excellent video - thank you!

In-depth video yes please!

Absolutely great info! I'm not a black powder shooter, (I'm an air gunner) but I AM an amateur rocket scientist. Of late, I've been working towards refining basic black powder as a rocket propellant. It has been used in commercial model rocketry motors for decades (since the late 1950's), but modern model/amateur rockets tend towards more exotic amonium nitrate/ and amonium perchlorate/reactive metals in a synthetic rubber binder. Granted, these are much more energetic choices, but they also require much more technical processes such as vacuum processing of propellant before casting. Your information, I feel, will allow me to provide the amateur Rocketeer with a much less expensive, more consistent mid-power propellant for their hobby/experimental endeavors. Thank you for your diligence and hard work. I just wanted you to know that it isn't only shooters and hunters benefitting from your work. P.S. I'm a survivalist as well, and this info is PRICELESS!!

Thank you so much for creating this video. The level of detail is incredible!!! I don’t know that I am ready to make black powder myself yet but I sure know whose instructions I will follow if I do.

What a gold mine of solid advice! It must have been hard earned knowledge.

Thank you for everything that you do you one of my favorites on KZfaq

I started BP shooting in pandemic and your tutorials helped me a lot, I’m making my BP regularly and never bought commercial BP - thanks to you! Thank you for your job and keep going.

That was impressive. Thank you very much for this excellent tutorial.