I am very glad you are still, " chasing the holy grail of swiss powder. So far you and like 1 other person are the only ones really trying to make better powder. The process is very interesting and I find your style refreshing, no condescension just good information. Thanks again!

Any black powder that works at all is better than no powder.

I have seen many people making black powder, but you are the best. You make it with high quality because it burns very quickly. My tribe in Libya has been making it for hundreds of years, but I read in one of the History books that they were making it with low quality.

Love your channel and the work you are doing. I might be able to help with the loss of MV concerns. I have been doing similar work for the past year and have found at least four circumstances that can reduce your MV.#1: Grain size, pretty obvious and you already know this. In general, with same wt charges, 3f is faster than 2f, 2f faster than 1f. #2: Inadequate milling. You can mill your way out of a bad powder by returning it to the ball mill. I suspect the ceramic media does not have the wt and density of lead balls and may make your milling less efficient. A poor performing powder usually indicates it needs more maturity in the mill, regardless of the charcoal source. #3: Overheating your charcoal. I know this is another rabbit hole to go down but temperature control of the charcoal process is necessary for a good performing, consistent powder. I lost 100fps in MV with charcoal roasted at 620-670F compared to same charcoal source done at 520F. Over-cooking burns off much of the creosote and makes the fouling dryer. I don't know the magic temp yet and it may vary from source to source. #4: Over compressing the puck. Commercial puck densities in the 19th cent varied from 1.55 gm/cm to about 1.8 gm/cm. Tests done then demonstrated an inverse linear relationship between bp density and MV, that is as density went up, the MV went down. The MV consistency could be significantly effected by changes in density as little as 0.05 gm/cm so tight regulation of your puck compression may be worthwhile. I compress my pucks in a 3 in diameter die and, with some math, realized that a density change of 0.05 gm/cm in a 3 inch die translates to change of compression distance of only around 0.033 inch. I have not totally figured out fouling issues yet but have found that glazing helps. Also, anything else that helps your powder burn more efficiently generally reduces the fouling. Hope this helps. Good luck with your efforts.

Another great step in the right direction, thats what is called an improvement!

I really enjoy these. Thanks.

I finally got around to trying to make some of my own powder... I tumbled with lead media in an old brass canister I picked up. I whipped up 4 ozs into meal, but I need to press it and corn it and see how that works. The raw meal flashed quite fast. It shows a lot of promise.

Superb as always sir! Man can’t wait to see the new controlled environment charcoal video!

Hi,I made brass balls from rod,a couple each day during lunch with a grinder,held them with vice grips.takes a bit of time,but got them forever now.they work a treat,made my tumbler out of a 8” shell,bronze end plate held in place with string .strung like a drum skin.if that makes any sense.drilled the sides of the shell and riveted copper boat roves on the inside to give ‘speed bumps’....tumbler motor is a moterhome ceiling fan( needs to be 12 volt)... Thanks for your advice on charcoal temperature,have used willow,a fast cherry weed that grows down here and palonia... Regards from New Zealand.

Excellent video. I learned from you and Mystical Pyro about DIY BP. I don't puck mine, use lead balls, and a rubber jar on my mill. But I love the results I'm getting. But I'm not checking fps. I'm using cascade willow it grows here in Washington state and a 75:15:10 ratio. Early muzzleloader season starts Saturday so hopefully I get to use it. I forgot to mention I forgot my cleaning rod and fired 20 rnds. .490 round ball .010 prelubed patch 50 grains of powder and was able to seat the ball. However on around the 12th rnd I lost my groups.

This series of BP videos is REALLY useful. Just a huge THANK YOU for taking the trouble to post these videos for everyone to learn from and enjoy.

i could see the difference in the recoil of the rifle with the 20 added grains. my dear old dad always said you cant get something without giving something getting back engineering wise .something i commented on yesterday, if you used a finer powder you could have achieved the better velocity as the finer powder would have weighed more due to the volumn more splitting hairs.now back in the 70s when i shot with my dad,they used to say how you cant blow up a black powder gun by over charging and the excess powder just blows out the end of the barrel, also kinda like putting more horse power under your hood to go faster but eventually you will max out for speed due to design principles of the vehicle. you sir a a very special person hope my comments are not too boring your videos are very good.einsteign without the sheep skin

The commercial powder manufacturers coat their powder granules in graphite to protect the powder from moisture. I think it may also give some protection from static electricity. Graphite doesn't burn so it will either get blown out of the barrel or coat the inside of the barrel.

Yup, picked up the ceramic pie weights a while ago. Love the upgrade of the mill! Took me a moment to realize that you were not using something from a previous relationship for the test comparison. (Go Ex)🤣. The 600° ceiling is interesting and wonder if that is variable with the type of wood as well as altitude. I function between 7 and 10k ft. Things boil or gas off at a lower temperature here. We have a supply of willow up here that is un beatable. I just haven't been able to get set up to produce at this time for a lack of dedicated space.

First. I enjoy your videos. Now my comment. This only my observations but i have noticed that on humid days ( i live in upstate NY) my barrel fouls up a lot quicker than on low humidity days. So a cleaner barrel with different powder doesnt always apply. Humidity makes a big difference where i live.

Cool findings Jake! Your right, made a huge difference on fouling in my guns. Have not tested mine yet on the chrono. Excited to see your next vid on this!

Now this is a revelation I have made my own powder and the past with not good results was going to start to try again this weekend thanks for this update

Use cotton to make you charcoal. Just add the charred cotton to your ball-mill after you weigh it for your correct ratio. Your ball-mill should air float the batch. Once you have run your batch to air float, add 5% dextrin as a binder and run it for 10 minutes in your ball-mill. Corn your black powder as you normally do and once dried then run it through your sifter to grade it. Your grains will be very hard and your ignition should be greatly improved. I assume your KNO3/S are of high grade. Hope this helps.

Swiss powder is milled by big heavy wheels and particles of powder are way smaller than our homemade stuff. Dirty patches are simply because unburnt charcoal.

according to some studies， the best temperature of making charcoal is between 350 and 400 degree centigrade. based on these studies, the charcoal we used should be write as C/H/O(this means the main power is from H and O), and different wood will lead to different charcoal. and the paper also suggested that we should choose the wood that with low desity and low resin. that all i konw, hopfully this would help!

Interesting video. Have been lucky to get a good supply of WASAG powder, it is the one I mainly used in Germany. I miss the Elephant powder out of Brazil. Swiss is the best, miss the cool little cardboard tubes the Swiss powder comes in when bought in Switzerland. Hope to find some to buy here in the US as it looks to be sold out every where.

Super interesting! I'm following along to see .....

A little more consistency is nice though! New favorite channel thanks for posting these vids!

I am willing to speculate the reduced velocity is tied to the time spent milling. For pyro, I notice a difference in performance based on the time spent milling. I do not mill less than 24hrs.

I have been following all of your videos along with Hoffman Reproductions & someone made the same comment to him. All of your stuff is spot on, however if that were true whats goex's excuse for being dirty. If rubber dust was a problem you would have a rubber-less drum in no time at all. They are made to tumble rocks with heavy abrasives. I think making a new drum with risers glued inside With an increase in speed did the trick. I was on a another forum & the gentle man was making what he called Sporting powder 78/12/10. Said it was the cleanest he had ever made. I tried it and it was the dirtiest I ever had ?? I made up some 45 cal. dummy rounds and I'm using them for my tumbling media. When I added too many lead balls which I used previously you could see the drum slow down & the powder came out lousy. In my opinion it is the speed + the heavy tumbling action that makes or breaks the powder. Keep up the good work. I love watching your videos.

Tons of science going on here; Love it! God Bless and stay safe.

Appreciate the education from the beginning of it all

Thanks for the info !

I have been collecting the bits & bobs to do make my own BP. The weather in my area has been so dry that everyone is deathly afraid of fire. So, no charcoal making. That's changing with the season now...I hope. Meanwhile, my gut said that lead ball media would introduce inert mass to the mix. Never mind the toxicity thing. That said, going from rubber & lead to PVC & ceramic at one time is two substantial variable changes at once. May I suggest same for same ingredients with rubber/lead, rubber/ceramic, PVC/lead, PVC/ceramic with corresponding volume to weight measurements vs. velocity & fouling vs. milling time & granulation. Perhaps the rubber is acting as a fuel or the lead is making things slower & less energetic? My guess, PVC/ceramic will yield the best result overall. Many thanks for the effort it takes. Y'all be safe & shoot happy!

Hello, good evening, I just saw your video and it's very good. I tell you that here I couldn't get the ball mill (as I make the black powder I also make the implements to make it) so I had no choice but to make it with a motor from a car windshield wiper, where you have a motor that already it has the speed reduction, it has 3 speeds from which to choose the one you like the most, it is at 12vdc and I feed it with an old pc source (all free up to here) and that way I have two things, the first one I make sure that it consumes practically nothing and the second is that with this source and motor configuration everything is grounded so that it does not generate static, the container is metal and a can of powdered milk and I weld it to the motor shaft. The balls are made of bearing steel that I ordered in different workshops and they gave them to me. In this way I am totally sure that it does not have contaminants such as lead or container plastic. I hope it helps you. Excuse any translation error because it is the google translator.

It is a known fact that some charcoals produce faster powder and some cleaner burning powder too. I think it would be good to find out for a certainty what is the difference. I just learned that most charcoals contain sulfur. Just thinking out loud....would be nice to have charcoal from various woods produced in the same way and milled in the same way tested for chemical composition via the ultra modern instrumental methods. Would be an eye opener I am sure. Also, there are several papers on the subject out there in cyber space.

Hey Sir, glad my info on the rubber dust and the other guys info on lead dust helped some. I was excited to see that you and Hoffman Productions got similar results in regards to less foweling! Not sure where the velocity drop is coming from, but I like your plan for testing. I'm sure you've seen it already, but Hoffman lined his tumbler with aluminum. You may consider doing a batch using his setup and one using your new setup to see if there's any difference or if both are equally good solutions to the problem. Anyway, keep up the good work Sir, can't wait to see more of your results in the future👍

if you get a consistent method of making charcoal it might be worth while to test other sources and test them for velocity and cleanliness. reading old British manuals dogwood always seemed to test well and for artillery powder they switched to reeds or straw. I have also read somewhere that corn cob piths were good.

954 Bronze is a fantastic option for a non-sparking, corrosion resistant metal. Its about as hard and strong as mild steel, and pretty inexpensive for what it is. If you're interested in making parts to reduce contamination, and you're wortied about sparks (as you should be in this business), I highly recommend Aluminum Bronze.

Have you thought about using a pottery oven to make your charcoal? That is a controlled environment, and you can dial the temperature in. This looks pretty good. Greetings, Jeff

Thanks for these videos bruh!

I love all of your videos and especially your comments. As far as cleaner charcoal and thus cleaner powder, try washing the powdered charcoal with distilled water and later alcohol using a Buchner funnel with filter paper and a vacuum flask arrangement. Removes water soluble minerals and other soluble contaminants. Lastly, if you have not tried Mimosa charcoal or mesquite charcoal, you might want to take a look if you have time. They will give alder buckthorn and willow a run for their money.

Fun video man, I'm always learning something from you!

I've been curious about the lead & rubber issue as well. My .490 balls have gotten reduced down to about .475 diameter. I'm assuming most of that lead goes up in smoke. Care to share where one can attain a similar product... If one were so inclined? The duct tape trick on the spindle works for a while as a short-term fix. Ideally, a piece of plastic tubing with the same OD as the ID of the existing tubing would be better. After having a motor issue arise, the duct tape on mine melted, slid off to the side & gummed everything up. It took a while to disassemble, clean everything & put it all back together. I can't find the right tubing so I opted for a couple strips of bike innertube wrapped tightly & then affixed with electrical tape. Makes for a bumpier ride over that transition but it turns faster & without hanging up as much. Good stuff here.

Like your new mill Jake !

Here’s something to think about. I’ve found that just before I mill I dry my charcoal to get any moisture out. I’ve noticed a 100 fps increase with this process. But I do have to say that usually I make my charcoal in batches and store it before using it, so maybe that’s why I’ve found that I have to dry it before milling.

What I have found to work well in those tumblers is a regular 1 litre nalgene bottle.

Very helpful.

I LOVE what your doing I am a huge BP shooter and LOVE your testing!! THANK YOU!!!!! Please answer these questions based on your experience: Grape VINE wood? cleaner better? how about Silver Maple that is what Goex uses. any news you got there?? then i heard that Buckthorn ALDER wood .I know you have better cleaner powder right? Please make a video on those charcoals and see if you can help us WHERE TO GET THOSE WOODS! I want to buy them but nothing on the web..? Keep up that great work !!v Thank you!!! Look up our club come shooting with us one day "Laguna mountain muzzloader." Our Rendezvous are pretty decent. Thank you again! Tim

Ahh You got the Alumina Balls!! don't need a reducer if you get a no hub fitting same o.d. as end cap or just two no hubs one each end. I did same idea with internals but at angles similar to cement mixers mixing paddles! and ABS it's harder And I accidentally "may have" discovered Carbon material "May Not" matter as much as I thought? But How or What I do to my Carbon makes HUGE differences! in speed and clean? I did micro adjustments on my last batch in-between rudimentary testing. I came up with a base of 75:15:10 but I noted my fouling? and my foulded ratio sweated indicating my KNO3 was Not used up completely? and ended adding the equivalent of 2% and 1% of gross amounts added in char and sulfur until the fouling did Not Sweat. I did not break the math down to actual %. I got Soo excited with it I did not Bother Pucking! I just pushed dough balls through screens. Oh Well Now I need to TEST MORE! I think I "MAY" have found the Dragon! and my journey and equipment was almost the same!!! as You! my last batch was FAST! Hoffman FAST! it scared Me and my Dogs! when I tested it on my welding bench! and it looked clean. I used a split piece of tubing for speed control? How can I get hold of you? we could cut development in half? Keep your Smoke Poles SMOKING! Keep Chasing the Dragon! Keep it by the tail!

Lots of good tips, thank you. I've wondered since the very first about using lead to mill with. I don't remember, have you tested longer milling sessions? Just for shits and giggles, I milled some for 2 days, stopping and shaking the contents several times to loosen it up and start milling again. I didn't use my Chrono but seemed to improve the final product.

After watching Ron's video I went out and made a PVC mill but chickened out because there internet told me static electricity would make it blow up. I think it's a mistake to change more than one variable at a time. Try using lead balls in your PVC or ceramic balls in your rubber mill. I inspected my rubber containers and didn't see much wear even after many batches. Not enough rubber was removed for me to feel with my fingers. I also think the balls wouldn't shed any lead after the sprew is gone. I'm happy to see the community coming together on this. My powder is screened with rice starch and made with weeping willow. It's very dirty and I was thinking of trying other woods. I think in your case the ceramic balls aren't having the hammer effect of the heavier lead balls. Where did you buy them?

When charcoal is burned, ash is left. This ash is mostly potassium carbonate (also produced by the burning of black powder) and insoluble calcium salts. The calcium salt could be removed by treating it with acetic acid followed by washing with water to remove the soluble calcium acetate

Contaminants is a good guess. However, the mill time would be my first suspect even with increased rpm's it may appear to be done to the naked eye, but just not quite. Lower velocities almost always (in my experience) meant not fine enough. The mill being the only thing different points to that. Maybe investigate both variables?

Good shit bubba. 👍

This kind of R&D is always interesting.

That’s great information, thanks. I’m curious, what are you using for your cleaning patches? Looking forward to your next video.

I am following your experiments with great interest! One thing slightly off topic: if as you mentioned you mill your lead ball bullets to remove the sprue, then how do you know which side of the bullet is the front?

Sounds like the contaminants messed with your mix ratios. Looks like it didn't take long to get back in the groove. Looking forward to seeing you get to Swiss cleanliness.

I wonder if it was the lead acting to support the combustion? Your charcoal shouldn't get over 560f-570f and stop the cook when the gasses still flame, but are darker like orange. Also quicker cooldown without introducing air obviously, would help slow the process. If you get the better char, it'll be a brownish black, instead of glossy black. Try bumping sulphur up to 12% and see what happens, might replace some of the speed of losing the lead.

Keep up the good work 👍

it didnt suck. great vid,

On page 246 of Foxfire 5 an old mountain man gives his method of making black powder. He said he used stale urine instead of water when he wet the powder to granulate it because it gave a faster burn rate.

I wonder if because the new media is lighter if it isn't mixing as well? Causing slower velocities. I would ball mill a batch with lead and a batch with the new media for the same amount of time in the new drum you made. And see if you get the old velocities back. I suspect that you will need to mill it longer if using ceramic media.

I wonder if a stainless tube 304 would make a difference, tig a few slats in it since mig tri-mix cost would make the experiment expensive.

I have read that adding roasted grasshoppers to the mix makes for a more "springy" mix..........

Can't believe you never thought of the lead ball thing. I thought of that day 1 when I saw your method

I'm wondering if the wetting process for making the pucks that are later corned, is resulting in some undesirable distribution of the ingredients. When that water is evaporating, carbon is not very soluble, but the oxidizer is highly soluble, and can get concentrated on the surface, where the water is doing its evaporation thing. Also, if the wet oxidizer is in contact with the sulfur and it's not kept near freezing cold, Some of the sulfur is likely going to rob oxidizer to make un-helpful sulfate compounds, a double-problem. Perhaps doing wet grinding of very dry ingredients in xylene instead of water would give a fairly stable and non-burnable atmosphere in your tumbler, while keeping any reactive oxygen or moisture separated. The downsides are that the vapors are about as flammable as gasoline, and you'll need to get the pucks up to about 300F to drive off the residual xylenes. On the other hand, the xylenes will remove other oils when you drain/screen/press the liquid out, and it will pull out remaining water that way, and via heating. You will need to keep the vapors under tight control though.

I'm going to bite the bullet and purchase brass balls. I think the weight will do better than ceramic and less likely to chip.

A little stray of the subject matter but I’m curious if you’ve ever consider adding a percentage of triple seven to your homemade black powder during the grinding process to integrate the artificial black powder into your homemade powder. With the thought of increasing your velocity? May be adding 10% by volume would increase your velocity without sacrificing ignition qualities..

How do you keep track of chamber pressures with muzzle loaders? When hand loading modern cartridges you can estimate chamber overpressure from flat primers and heavy bolt lift in bolt guns. Are there any similar signs in this case? It makes me nervous to experiment with powder chemistries if you can't identify possible overpressure or pressure spikes. Great video. Thanks!

Lead dust getting into the powder and most likely people's lungs when you fire. Idk what that does to powder performance but I do know lead vapor also happens when shooting modern smokeless powders as well. I don't want to be a safety nerd, and I don't know the extent of risks overtime, but If you want my advice then you should wear a mask or respirator when you fire. If not then that's fine too, I just wanted to throw that out there

Hi. Wanna try with fig tree as carbon source for formula. Crazy powder...!

Hey buddy really enjoy the channel ! Have to share a new project , inherited an old single barrel 12ga that was grt grandads .actions tight and solid . I am turning a 18 in green mtn .45 bbl blank to drop in like an adapter and will fix in place .then will dress it up J P Gemmer style . Should be odd but sexy LOL In .45lc of course ! M Baker Blank

Where are you getting your buckthorn alder? My next batch will be grapevine

Hello, thank you for the video and sharing the results. I have feedback and question. Feedback: Please note that there is a strong relation between diameter of the container, diameter of the media and the speed. Usually the jar diameter is equal to the length. If the jar diameter is 100mm then the diameter of the ball media is 12,5mm and the speed must be 140 critical and 90 optimal rpm; If the jar diameter is 200mm then the diameter of the ball media is 15mm, the speed must be 98 critical and 64 optimal rpm. Question: Since you have tried both dry and CIA methods, what is the difference and does it make sense to mill first the charcoal and sulfur and then separately dissolve the potassium nitrate in distilled water and add the milled charcoal and sulfur and cook it until dry or use cooled alcohol and then mill all again OR simply put all ingredients Charcoal Sulfur and Potassium nitrate dry in the ball mill and mill longer? Does if make a difference and does it make sense the CIA based on your tests? Thank you

Great videos! Question, are you still using the CIA method before milling and picking?

Hmm, I always like running near a pound for a day of milling bc if I always just don’t want to start and weigh and such, I’ll keep that method for fireworks, but may adopt this for shooting powder, you corn or rice your powder? Also where’d you buy your ceramic media?

Very interesting to see you and Hoffman going down this rabbit hole from different angles. Interesting to juxtapose this with the fact that back in the day people would beg borrow and steal anything to make their smokepoles burn and the vast majority of gunpowder made before the industrial process to make it was perfected, was utter dogshit in comparison to the shittiest batch you've ever produced. Talk about contamination, those guys were getting their potassium nitrate from pissed on compost heaps...

Im just thinking here, but is it possible that the ceramic media is leaving abrasives in the powder..? That could cause friction which could also cause barrel erosion to occur... Maybe copper, brass or bronze media would be better..? IDK, just brainstorming an idea.. love your vids and mean no disrespect..

Ok I made my mill. I use a large hard food grade plastic protein powder jug. About 60 rpm. Seems to work well. And cheap!?🤣 I’m a mechanic all my life I got stuff everywhere to make projects. 👍

thanks for the ball jar tips! wood is local? making char coal retort or other method?

Out of curiosity, what is the flintlock rifle you're shooting in the tests?

Great video, where did you get your milling media? I use .490 hardened lead round balls but would love to try the ceramic and see if I can get the same results as you did.

I am not sure what your granulation method is for your homemade powder but if you are granulating through a screen you are making much less dense powder than corned production powder. You should get a scale make a your powder charge to the volumetric measure. I'll bet you will find that your powder is lighter per volume. You might just get that velocity back if you weigh it

If I didn't know your gun was a flintlock, I'da thought it was a very well-functioning caplock. So fast! Do you make 4F for the pan or same as what you charge with?

I would try charcoal that was washed with hot water- it would remove all ashes from it.

Just throw in a anti-static dryer sheet. Also wondering if white charcoal would fire.

You shuold try to make black powder with sodium nitrate and other oxidizers to see which one works the best

Have you tried brass balls to put in the tumbler? As far as I am aware of they do not leave the dust like lead balls do.

what do you use for cleaning patch Material? it is textured?

This is an aspect I have no experience at, so I have nothing but questions. One can not complain about the consistancy of the 50 grain load. Do you have a theory as to why the inconsistency of the 70 grain load? Or is this a small sample size compared to overall experience?

Does alder buckthorn produce higher velocities than willow? I heard they both are considered some of the best, but is one better than the other?

Graphite used to glaze the powder gives clean results but black powder is dirty and awlways will be unless you using fake BP.

Whenever I reach for my black powder guns, it's because I'm in the mood for something a little more dirty.

Good

Do you activate your charcoal or leave it unactivated? I don't know if this would make a difference. To activate charcoal you smother it in water at the end of the heating process. This changes it somehow. Not a clue if you do this already.

What is your opinion on using glass marbles instead of lead in your black powder mill?

I started purchasing supplies for making black powder, where can I get pucking die?

Thanks for your great vids Jake - pi$$ funny telling the pin heads to “go make your own damn video” Saw an idea for milling media on a Cast Boolits “mega” BP thread - they sectioned 1/2” and 3/4” copper pipe into inch long pieces and filled them with lead - peened the ends over - reckon it’s the ducks nuts they do.

Can you just use pure carbon powder?

you ever though about putting it in a dehydrator or baking it in a toaster oven on low to rule out any moisture contamination

So have you given up using brass balls as your milling media?

Double the speed double the result? So what about 10x times ;) ?

Today was my day after 4 mill hours my powder flashed fast. So I screened it we will see how it shoots next.