Ain't no way. Bread black powder, this channel is living up to it's name.

Bamboo charcoal - try it! It's the cleanest burning charcoal. No sugar, PLEASE no sugar. I can't imagine the gumming.

I'm loving this series. Totally didn't see this one coming. and its telltale of your solid procedure that you can even make wonderbread powder shoot just 100fps shy of Goex. Even damn wonderbread gets a fair shake! Keep on going.

Now that you have started on this journey of black powder exploration it got me thinking. Old white linen bed sheets that have been washed many times over should be free of most impurities that may have been present when new(ish). Worth a shot.

I mentioned this before but I think I'll keep mentioning it in hopes it gains some kind of traction. I'd like to see activated carbon like is used in fish tank and tap water filters. It's basically the opposite structure as carbon black. It's basically charcoal that's been treated with acid to make it super micro porous and dramatically increase its surface area. I know people want to find super cheap options, but, I really think this could be really high performing.

Theres nothing more American then Making blackpowder out of things like Toilet paper or wonder bread..🤠🫡🇺🇲

Loved it. Used coffee grounds would be cool to see. Its light and fluffy might be good

Many bread companies do put plasticizers and countless other chemicals in their bread. It amazes me what we're all so willing to eat these days. There really shouldn't be anything in bread that smells like chemicals or especially plastic when it's burned to the point of being charcoal.

Barber shop floor sweepings, hair. Palm tree wood, it is very light when dry. Good stuff, thanks.

Keep them coming my man! I am LOVING this series! Great job on giving everything a fair shake! We know the sap in pine doesn't make the best powder, but they did use fat wood for the sulfur content. If you get REALLY bored I guess you could make charcoal out of fat wood to see how it works.

You, sir, are having way too much fun. 🙂 Thanks for another great video.

Used coffee grounds, now that’s recycling! Extremely interesting content, thank you Sir.

Blackpowder mythbusters.

That added calcium will make all the difference :) I'm curious about popcorn, if it would turn to charcoal properly.....if not a nice snack.

I bet cornstarch or plain old bamboo would make some light and fluffy charcoal! It’s funny that other carbon sources like bread starch make usable powder, but the chemistry makes sense. Tree cellulose and wonderbread starch are both made from nothing but glucose rings, just connected in a different orientation. These vids are awesome!

Looking over the suggestions, I think a likely choice would be corn stalks; fast growing with a pithy center. Also like coffee bean/grounds just for what it could smell like. My fastest powders so far are Sycamore, Staghorn Sumac, and Big leaf Willow.

Oh Lord! First toilet paper, now bread! I can't wait to see this one!

French BPowder is on the road ! Can'u belive it ? Great chanel and super 'instinctive' and great experimental analyses ! Please more ! 👍

Man ,this is just getting plumb entertaining. ! BUT shows that we can make bang bang self defense Dust out of about anything . Some better than others but will still make the bad guys oil light come on. Thanks for a GREAT channel. M. B.

Try dry sample of quaking aspen . No bark or heart wood . Light , no resin , burns fast , burns clean , burns hot . Here in northern Maine folks call it biscuit wood . Might be hard to get charcoal out of it .

As a mechanic i would love to see you use shop towels, not clean ones either. Randomly used shop towels. Maybe with some grease, oil, anti-freeze, whatever you wiped up. I'd also like to see you make brown powder, where you don't fully char the wood. On another note, thinking back to your Duplex load. I've heard of people using flash paper as part of it. Either instead of the smokeless powder, or as a wad to separate the two powders.

These "Premiers" are killing my morale lol

Almost anything that can be charred (tecnically called pyrolisis) can make charcoal; some not suitable for BP but some others are way better, maybe a mix with balsa and that specific toilet paper could make the best compromise between clean and powerful BP, but if there were some R/C club near you could have some balsa from crashed RC planes. As far as i know "wonder" bread adds some corn syrup to their mix, maybe another brand that don't add sweetener can make a little better BP. Thanks for sharing and as always the best videos!

A black powder with 1% to 2% ammonia nitrate blend should give a cleaner burn and higher speeds.

man, that crust joke got me good, if you're this funny and talented enough to make black powder out of all this strange stuff, I might just need to subscribe!

I live in an area of Texas that has two native woods that might be interesting to see if it was worth a darn. Mesquite and Mountain Juniper. The Mesquite is used mainly for BBQ wood and the Mountain Juniper is mostly used for fence post since it has high rot resistance. Both woods burn extremely hot. As always I have enjoyed your presentations.

Great video Jake, you are teaching us all that we can make bp out of anything, just that much of it isn't what you want in a flinter or percussion. We are warming up here so I will be trying some different char in the not so near future, not much else to do.

What about making powder out of dried flower pedals or dried grass? Love the videos!

I just discovered your site, just subscribed. I sat and watched quite a few video's, very enjoyable and very informative. Take care 👍👍👍

Okay you definitely have me wanting a flintlock and making my own powder. I never thought that charcoal would make that big a difference. Im going to start with Basswood. Please keep this going! This is interesting and fascinating to say the least. Corn husks and cobs should definitely be on the list as well as popcorn. If you can stand the smell. I'm thinking corn stalk might be the ticket?

Awesome! These are my favorite vids... I can't wait for the Scotts... Maybe pine cones or lawn grass would be good... Dried lawn grass would be really interesting for obvious reasons... Thanks

Thank you I have subscribed and liked each video very entertaining. You have motivated me into shooting my black powder rifle again. Thank you and stay safe!!!

10:50 For all the bad powders, make a base line with pressure treated spruce 2x4. If a powder performs worse, it is not worth the hassle🤗

Great Mucker ,, I love your humour ,and especially your tenacious approach to all the testing , your doing great work for the BP community, I would like to see if there is any life left in those coffee grounds . Best regards. Reg

Love the video. I know it takes a lot of effort for evey BP run. It would be good to come up with a charcoal test. That way you can just make a BP run only for the charcoal that passes. Looks like folks have hundreds of recommendations. Appreciate all the hard work.

I always just use spruce, mostly because I use a lot of spruce at work and always have plenty of drops piled up. But I do really enjoy these videos, thanks for taking the time to try out various materials and sharing the results.

Another banger video. Keep them coming.

Would be curious to see corn cob (easier to use corn cob tumbling media, it's already crushed).

Powdered cotton flocking as used in fiberglass fill is real cotton, just ground up in small partials. I heard it comes from the left over fuzz on cotton seed as it is being processed. It looks like bleached wheat flower with bigger pieces than actual dust. I plan to make nitrocellulose out of it. I was thinking it might make a really good single source and clean charcoal.

If I remember right, I think that in England, the Alder tree was much used for gunpowder charcoal, also where it grew was not too close to human habitations (towns).

You guys are a hoot I have enjoyed and learned a lot here. Keep up the good work.

Looking forward to your density video! Maybe you can delve into how to adjust the weight/volume if the batch is way off? I suppose a powder could be re-pucked at possibly a higher pressure to even out the ratio?

I would be quite interested to see how charcoal made from lawn grass would work. Just any old grass that you might cut, be it from your lawn, range, Or anywhere else. Edit- Alternatively. Charcoal made from tree bark, No specific kind of bark, Any will do

These videos are just plain FUN !

I made some antique firearms propellant using Angle soft TP and some with the Cottenelle. The Cottenelle out preforms the Angle soft and is not as dirty.

It’s amazing to me just how much difference your charcoal source has on the performance of the powder. I wonder what would be had from the dead roadside grasses we have around here in SWLA.

Original entertainment! Educational too. & a lot of fun on both sides of the screen. Dry bamboo next. Please!

You said it did that to embarrass you when your rifle flashed ithe pan. I think you did it on purpose to demonstrate your steely nerves and super human, rock steady holding ability. If not for the rising pan smoke, l would have thought the video was paused. That muzzle remained absolutely motionless! Respect!

Great video.liked it.

👌👌👍👍

Used coffee grounds seems like a good experiment. Plentiful and in common use. If it is effective it would provide another use besides a soil amendment. Enjoying the videos.

Love this series

Looking forward to the used coffee grounds test because my granddad told me once about how they used to collect used coffee grounds for the war effort. "Really?" "Yes, they used them to make the black powder for hand grenades..." Thinking back on it with a lifetime of learning since then, I think it's more likely they were used to make activated charcoal because lots of need for purification & filtration at industrial scales of making chemicals to make the explosives to win the war. But who knows? We will, after your test!

Great job ! Cheers !!

I stumble across a booklet (35 pages) giving a small history of how they (Pouderie D’Aubonne S.A.) make Swiss BP. Of note is the following: "The wood is aged for 3 years prior to being used to make charcoal in the plant. The Alder Buckthorn is cut in late winter just after the sap rose in the tree with the thawing of the ground. The sap at that time of year being rich in sugar which the tree had stored in its root system. This sugar acting as food for the tree while it sets out flowers and develops leaves to the point where they would produce the sugar the tree needs for growth. This sugar remains in the wood after it has dried. The finished charcoal, in addition to having carbonized cellulose would also contain some caramelized sugar. Simple experiments have shown that this inclusion of caramelized sugar is of benefit in the charcoal in the finished powder." "Charring conditions. Sporting powder. 300 to 320 degrees Centigrade (572 - 608 F) for 8 hours which gives a fixed carbon content of about 65% in the finished charcoal."

From the pressure used to seat each additional ball, and the increase in velocity after each additional reload, I would suggest that you are pushing incompletely burned powder residue onto the fresh powder. Just a thought.

Excellent information as always. I wonder if the chemical smell is from the preservatives? As several others have mentioned grass clippings/hay/straw would be interesting. That's something most everyone would have access to and somewhat inexpensive.

Voting again for pure fluff pulp from a cellulose mill with no glues etc.. for you to try as a carbon source. Aside from that though this video was excellent as always and I really enjoy watching you try weird carbon sources even if they do end up sucking it's still fun to see how they turned out.

Sir: thank you for the videos I have been pondering the charcoal made from the alder buck thorn the Swiss may be using a sub species or a different Species. Just like the different willows there is so many subspecies if that makes sense!

Wow!!! Bread!!!! Thanks for the video. Made me laugh on this one.

I’d like to see if those wood pellets for the smokers and bbq pits would do any good

Always worth a watch, have you tried a more ancient historical approach and used bamboo? I have done this myself not awesome but up there

About density... a measuring teaspoon is 5cc. So one could just use a tsp, 1/2 or 1/4 tsp scoop of the powder, weigh it and do the division and get the grains per cc. Or just make a 1cc scoop (or pull one from the Lee dipper set) and weigh 1cc.

I’m so happy to see this. I asked for it on the carbon black video. Fingers crossed it goes well! 😂

Charcoal is a hydrocarbon. So when you make your “carbon source”, it will always have residual oils left in it, varying in weights. With most of the light weight gases and oils being already burned off. Washing carcoal removed the lightest oils first, which are the easiest to light and leaves rhe heavier oils that are hard to burn. When you got the carbon black, its all the heavies. Same with sugar or others. Different oils and amounts come in different woods, and my guess is the best black powder is made from “gasoline not motor oil” types of terpenes

Orange peels.. for that fresh citrus smell stumbled on your channel awhile back and love it

Awesome 😂 Yes Ive found that the low density charcoal seems to have a faster ignition but dirty

Thank you, I guess you can make the charcoal out of many things, just not equal. I am curious about Scott 1000 sheet TP

Great vid!

I love this channel I was at a friends house who carves Tiki’s out of palm trees he was burning the scrap pieces in his fire pit the night before, I picked up a piece of it Al charred up and almost charcoal it was light and I wondered how that would do in BP

Question: Given all of the antique firearms propellant you’ve made is batches for testing, do you consume the entire batch during testing? I was curious to what the remaining mediocre to bad propellant what you do with it? Fireworks or hand salutes?

I’d think coconut husk should work for a Good charcoal and probably was used in the past at some time In the past . If you can get hemp stocks It probably make a dense charcoal tho

un petit commentaire de france .merci pour les vidéos sur la poudre noir .

I had watched the video yesterday and today I was opening a package and remembered you asking for ideas. So, If you haven't thought about it or someone else hasn't mentioned it, how about plain brown cardboard boxing material. Looking forward to your Scott toilet paper video, because that is what I have. Waiting on items so I can build a ball mill and get started making my own. Have already made some slow fuse for my cannon kit that came today.

Have you considered taking for say the three best powders you have made and combine them to see the results? Char up some cotton, tp maybe balsa and mill together maybe?

How about leather charcoal? Works well for carburization of mild steel. Keep up the great work ,love these videos.

Well, I would suggest starch again, that appears to be very clean and has some formula like CH2OH-O-OH ... this may even be good to use directly but would require quite some experimenting for the mix. When charred I would guess only the Carbon part would be left and the main part of it will gas out. Yield may be very low. So this should come out 90+% Carbon maybe? Alder Buckthorn was/is popular for Black Powder due to its low ash which likely means high carbon. The Toast had likely lots of funny stuff in it which ended up as ash obstructing the deflagration. The ingredients list has salt and several calcium things in it.

BTW, have heard of folks using grass clippings and/or pine cones for charcoal as well. No idea how good/bad either are... but easy and cheap to get.

Something I thought of was using the dried grass from the range you shoot at to make black powder.

Wow, always entertaining, & really enjoy your clips as very informative. No matter how bad always show it. Eg, miss fire for #3. Could have edited it but didnt. Great work. Cant wait to see whats next.👍

I remember seeing some completely charred tortillas on my dads grill after he forgot them in a barbecue. If youre continuing these wacky black powder recipes id like to see how well this works.

We are watching all these videos but it would be nice to remind us which BP is best. Thanks

Not surprised at the performance if Swiss vs GOEX as it definitely feels "snappier" when shooting it. Interesting series. Don't feel like making my own video so--subscribed.

I like the previous suggestions of coffee grounds and quaking aspen. By the way, are you using a wood ramrod or fiberglass with that SMR?

Great vid again sir! Was thinking can you make charcoal from chicken bones? Or charred bones in general? 👍

Another idea for a carbon source…….basswood. Basswood is used by carvers because it is consistently dense and soft enough to easily carve with hand tools. It’s not prohibitively expensive and it’s easy to get. Give ‘er a try 😁

Great video Sir!! It was good talking with you and Snapper last night too. Definitely enjoyed the conversations. 👍

Sugar has been used in the past. From what I remember it leaves a hard residue but its been years ago since I read about it being used in times past.

Another very interesting and informative Video, thanks for that! I would still like you to do a test of some BAMBOO TOILET paper. And for something different how about using some old, dried bones or some leather?? Love your videos keep up the awesome work , cant wait for your next one!!

I would like to see brown paper sack material used I have been getting some of that used as packing in boxes. Keep up the great work you make very interesting.

Thanks Jake! Tell your brother thanks too!

Coconut sounds cool.

I read something along the lines that hay or some water weed/reed made some of the fastest BP. Would be interesting as you said the light woods usually are the 👌

Might be neat to try dry pine needles

I already use fresh spring willow wicker for the black powder. so here in the Czech Republic I use pomláska after Easter

after having tried several woods and toilet paper, I will soon try pine cones, I am trying the .308 (like your British .303 I really liked it) I ordered a refill kit and a bullet mold I follow you closely, it's passionate

It seems that almost anything that will char will make powder that works, just some not that well. So interesting .... thanks for all your time and effort to inform us....... I am told that pine cones work well... haven't tried them yet. 🙂

I've often wondered about Kingsford charcoal, I've thrown more away over the years than I used.

This is a really interesting and fun series, I'm curious if using wood heating/smoking pellets would do well since they are just compressed wood and burn very cleanly.

I have heard of a very old charcoal source and I thought I would ask if you have tried it, and that is black walnut shell. From the information I heard, black walnut shell is very dense and makes a very nice charcoal for small, tiny actually, forges used about 200 years ago, maybe more. The tiny forges were made and used to produce small metal castings in shops where they didn't want to fire up the normal forge, as it would be too much heat for tiny projects, but they still needed a decent heat to melt regular metals, zinc, lead, tin, and etc. I found the information while researching small forges for my small projects, and when I learned about the walnut shell, a candle light flickered on. If you don't have an easy access to walnut shell, I happen to live in an area where I am surrounded by black walnut trees, which is why I call my farm the Walnut Grove Farm, and I also have these minions that shuck, clean, and stack the shells for drying, and I could send you a bag of shells to test!