I know it sounds crazy...

si vis pacem, para b · February 6, 2009, 01:05 PM

But have any of you guys ever tried making your own powder? If the gubmint decided to make things impossible for us would making our own powder be a viable option? Apparently it was done in the past I am just wondering if anybody here has ever tried it.
Si vis pacem, para bellum

**Mike Irwin** · February 6, 2009, 01:31 PM

The urine and fecal matter give either sodium or potassium nitrate.

Those have to be processed (very stinkily, apparently).

During the Civil War the Confederacy mined bat guano from caves in the south. Bat guano is very high in nitrates.

FALPhil · February 6, 2009, 01:38 PM

I have made plack powder. It is hardwood charcoal, saltpeter (nitrates), and sulfur. Worked pretty good, but gives off lots of smoke.

Modern propellants are sometimes based on plasticized nitrocellulose. Double based powders include a dose of plasticized nitroglycerin, IIRC. Not too hard to make, but hard to make of high quality. Further, most canister powders available today have a burn-retardant coating the kernels that gives a high degree of control over the flame front. This is about all I remember from my gunnery days afloat.

PCJim · February 6, 2009, 01:43 PM

Blackpowder can be made from the components already identified. Used to do that when many years younger. I don't believe the current smokeless powder compositions could be done for the average home reloader.

jaguarxk120 · February 6, 2009, 01:56 PM

Get a copy of Phil Sharpe's book "Complete Guide to Handloading" it has a very good write up on how smokeless powder is made. The book is out of print but copies can be had from fleabay vendors. Some what dated by todays standards but the basic's do not change, I find it a very good reference.

I would think all of todays "experts" use it as a standard reference when answering some of the questions posted in the gun rags.

kraigwy · February 6, 2009, 01:59 PM

Having been a Bomb Tec in Civilian LE, I gathered fingers and othe assorted pieces of people trying to make their own powder.

DON'T EVEN ATTEMPT IT

jaguarxk120 · February 6, 2009, 02:43 PM

Sharpe includes that info in his book not as a way of making your own powder, but so handloaders would know what it takes to make it.

Some of the acids used in mfgr. are so powerful, if spilled you would be the brown stain where the floor used to be!!!

brickeyee · February 6, 2009, 03:47 PM

Quote:

...the acids used in mfgr...

Concentrated nitric and sulfuric acid are required.
The sulfuric to dissolve the cellulose, the nitric to nitrate it.

The major danger is that you are using reactions that generate heat to make a compound (nitrocellulose) that is temperature sensitive.

Let things heat up to much and it goes bang.

Nitrocellulose becomes safe when the plasticizers are added, but not until it is colloided.

Even in factories, as much as possible of the operation is done using remotely controlled and monitored equipment in structures designed to not confine any blast and to direct it in a sasfe direction (often up).
Some of the equipment is operated by compressed air to eliminate the need for electric power and the possibility of sparks.

Radford Army Ammunition Plant still has an occasional explosion.
For many years they reprocessed left over WWII cannon powder to make small arms powder and solid fuel rocket motors.

SKULLANDCROSSBONES65 · February 6, 2009, 05:01 PM

G'day, kraigwy you are a spoilsport. How do you expect the Gene pool to get better when those types are not exposed to 'natural selection'?

jaguarxk120 · February 6, 2009, 06:43 PM

Quote:
"G'day, kraigwy you are a spoilsport. How do you expect the Gene pool to get better when those types are not exposed to 'natural selection'? "

And look at all the candidate's for the Darwin Award!

Sevens · February 6, 2009, 11:41 PM

Good discussion, and interesting to boot.

What I'd like to know is how all the amateur chemists are going to make their own primers!

**Unclenick** · February 7, 2009, 12:15 AM

In my misspent youth I learned to make and got away with making all of the above and more. I was still in high school, but was intending to major in chemistry and did quite a bit of reading on lab procedures and got the proper clothing, rigged a chemical hood and had safety gear. Were I that age today, the term Super Geek would undoubtedly apply.

But from that experience, I can state that some of the information above posts is flat out wrong. I am not inclined to correct it in a public forum. There is enough of that online already to blow fingers off unwary hands. I will say that getting through that stuff safely requires studying temperature limits and control and learning when you need to combine things moist and when to keep water away. I managed to get high nitrated cellulose which burns with a lovely yellow flame and a "whump" and I recall the lab filling with the smell of an operating model airplane glow plug engine. Very clean burning. Almost no ash.

The black powder I made would burn with a rapid "thufff". Dirty and sufurous smelling as any. I could roll paper firecrackers with it that burst without any glue or tape required. I was trying to recreate what the ancient Chinese must have done.

But that was back before terrorists and safety regulations. A note from your mom would let you buy any chemical you wanted at the local lab supply. Fireworks were technically illegal, but it was a kind of wink and a nod thing if you weren't unsafe with them. Bygone days.

There are worse things than black powder or even guncotton making. I had a physics professor in college who had been in the explosion of a mirror silvering tank. That was back before mirrors were made by vacuum deposition of aluminum. Instead, a silver precipitating solution was made with acids and silver compounds that deposited the silver film on the glass at the bottom of the tank. Silver doesn't remain untarnished forever, so every observatory with a large reflecting telescope had a silvering tank built in to re-silver the mirror periodically.

Unfortunately, if the temperatures or the mixtures are not handled carefully, fulminate of silver can result rather than metallic silver precipitate. It is touchier than fulminate of mercury. That's what caused the explosion my professor was in. He said that one moment he was looking over at some part of the lab, then he saw the image shrink down to a point like an old vacuum tube television being turned off. He awoke under the lab safety shower where his friends were holding him under the running water to get the acid off. They'd heard the bang and come running.

I mention that story just to let people know the processes are not just recipe's that are mixed. Time, temperature, and sequence of mixing are all critical. You need to study first.

si vis pacem, para b · February 7, 2009, 12:49 AM

Well hopefully there will be somebody left in the gene pool to figure out how to make primers.

My original question comes down to; if the %$*^ hits the fan is there any way to make amunition.
- Brass can be collected
- lead can be collected
- Powder can be made of obtainable materials..... I think?
- Primers? any suggestions other than stocking up?

**Unclenick** · February 7, 2009, 01:13 AM

That's a good point. No good way to make them for Boxer primed cases because you can't usually reuse the anvil in the primer. Berdan primers are hard to get out, but because the anvil is part of the case, you could theoretically use a punch to flatten the primer indentation out and then put the center of a cap gun cap in it. I can think of ways to fiddle match heads to do it, too, but either will be very corrosive. That all still requires stored supplies, though, and if you are going to stock up on paper caps, why not stock up on primers directly? Basic pyrotechnics don't include any non-corrosive mixes either, plus you've got to store some of the chemicals, so, again, why not just store primers directly?

Out in nature you could try a mixture of pulverized flint and steel filings with some gunpowder mixed in as a combustible binder. I don't know what the chances of success are with that? Probably get a lot of misfires. And I doubt the primer cups will take many resizings if they'll even take one? May be too weak to trust to a second firing. You'd need to stock brass shim and have a forming punch to be sure. Again, when you have to stock anything, why not just stock primers directly?

luvsasmith · February 7, 2009, 01:18 AM

UncleNick I think the OP is looking for recipes that he could use later on down the road with out buying the ingredients now.

Inspector3711 · February 7, 2009, 01:23 AM

This reminds me of a lab tech i used to know. He had a fertilizer recipe... One day he was making the neighbor a batch. He was shaking the can to mix it... A few moments later he was missing half of his hair and both eyebrows. Luckily the scars went away in time. Food for thought... You might just live through the accident...

Sevens · February 7, 2009, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Again, when you have to stock anything, why not just stock primers directly?

This is pretty much THE answer to this entire thread, isn't it?

I mean, primers are tiny and you can keep tens of thousands of them in a very small space. And powder, you make a thousand or 1,500 loaded pistol rounds from just a single pound of powder. It takes almost no space to store just 20 pounds of this stuff. Or 50. Or more.

How many rounds does one need after the apocalypse?

It seems to me that it's all about storage. Afterall, why haven't we asked about what it takes to form a brass rod in to 9mm spec brass cartridge casings?

brickeyee · February 7, 2009, 02:38 PM

Quote:

high nitrated cellulose

While getting close is still not the same as straight nitrocellulose.

If you can tolerate the form the cellulose is in (like fibers from cotton) the job is a lot easier.
The finished material might be usable as a smokeless powder, but is is not going to have the same energy density as the real McCoy.

Quote:

Primers? any suggestions other than stocking up?

Lead styphanate is not that hard to make, just make sure it stays wet till it is in the primer cups.

grendelbane · February 7, 2009, 04:00 PM

Back in the day, old films could be ground up and used as powder. The Boers did this when they were fighting the Brits.

Today's film stock is not nitrocellulose any more, so this won't work anymore.

Everything will soon be digital, anyway.

the_right_reverend · February 7, 2009, 08:47 PM

everything you need to know about blowing yourself up

making your own nitro still... shaped charges, rocket propelled grenades

TM 31-210
Improvised Munitions Handbook

http://onlinebooks.110mb.com/tm%2031...0-contents.htm

a must read for every revolutionary

Scorch · February 8, 2009, 01:47 AM

Even supposing the "gubmint" tries to take all our toys away, the military will still have them. That's what toppled the Shah. He disarmed his enemies, but forgot he could not disarm his army. When the populace revolted and he sicced the army on 'em, the army said no, and since we have the guns you gotta go.

Real nitrocellulose is not that hard or dangerous to make, it just involves really nasty chemicals and a lot of specialized equipment, and a goodly supply of dimethyl ether. I turned filter papers into nitrocellulose in college chemistry lab, it's really no big deal, but I would not want to try doing it for a living if the government were opposed to it.

Voyageur · February 8, 2009, 03:36 AM

Reloading and shooting after the comet hits (or whatever) is not difficult at all.

You simply push the patched ball down on top of the main charge. It doesn't matter much which end of the ramrod you use.

So... stock up on black powder and put it in the NE corner where folks aren't around much.

70 grain charge = 100 deer.

90 grain charge = 77 deer and some fire starter.

Cost of chemicals and equipment to make powder = ? maybe several M/L rifles.

Primers (or 'caps')... a flintlock solves the problem.

Homeland Security? They're probably not even paying attention as most folks think a M/L isn't a REAL firearm anyhow. Of course there are countless men and an undetermined number of game animals who would beg to differ.

February 6, 2009, 01:05 PM	#1
si vis pacem, para b Senior Member Join Date: January 22, 2008 Location: Cypress (North West Houston) Posts: 157	I know it sounds crazy... But have any of you guys ever tried making your own powder? If the gubmint decided to make things impossible for us would making our own powder be a viable option? Apparently it was done in the past I am just wondering if anybody here has ever tried it. Si vis pacem, para bellum

February 6, 2009, 01:59 PM	#6
kraigwy Senior Member Join Date: June 16, 2008 Location: Wyoming Posts: 11,060	Don't try it Having been a Bomb Tec in Civilian LE, I gathered fingers and othe assorted pieces of people trying to make their own powder. DON'T EVEN ATTEMPT IT

February 6, 2009, 11:41 PM	#11
Sevens Senior Member Join Date: July 28, 2007 Location: Ohio Posts: 11,775	Good discussion, and interesting to boot. What I'd like to know is how all the amateur chemists are going to make their own primers! __________________ *Attention Brass rats and other reloaders:* I really need .327 Federal Magnum brass, no lot size too small. Tell me what caliber you need and I'll see what I have to swap. PM me and we'll discuss.

February 7, 2009, 12:15 AM	#12
Unclenick Staff Join Date: March 4, 2005 Location: Ohio Posts: 21,743	In my misspent youth I learned to make and got away with making all of the above and more. I was still in high school, but was intending to major in chemistry and did quite a bit of reading on lab procedures and got the proper clothing, rigged a chemical hood and had safety gear. Were I that age today, the term Super Geek would undoubtedly apply. But from that experience, I can state that some of the information above posts is flat out wrong. I am not inclined to correct it in a public forum. There is enough of that online already to blow fingers off unwary hands. I will say that getting through that stuff safely requires studying temperature limits and control and learning when you need to combine things moist and when to keep water away. I managed to get high nitrated cellulose which burns with a lovely yellow flame and a "whump" and I recall the lab filling with the smell of an operating model airplane glow plug engine. Very clean burning. Almost no ash. The black powder I made would burn with a rapid "thufff". Dirty and sufurous smelling as any. I could roll paper firecrackers with it that burst without any glue or tape required. I was trying to recreate what the ancient Chinese must have done. But that was back before terrorists and safety regulations. A note from your mom would let you buy any chemical you wanted at the local lab supply. Fireworks were technically illegal, but it was a kind of wink and a nod thing if you weren't unsafe with them. Bygone days. There are worse things than black powder or even guncotton making. I had a physics professor in college who had been in the explosion of a mirror silvering tank. That was back before mirrors were made by vacuum deposition of aluminum. Instead, a silver precipitating solution was made with acids and silver compounds that deposited the silver film on the glass at the bottom of the tank. Silver doesn't remain untarnished forever, so every observatory with a large reflecting telescope had a silvering tank built in to re-silver the mirror periodically. Unfortunately, if the temperatures or the mixtures are not handled carefully, fulminate of silver can result rather than metallic silver precipitate. It is touchier than fulminate of mercury. That's what caused the explosion my professor was in. He said that one moment he was looking over at some part of the lab, then he saw the image shrink down to a point like an old vacuum tube television being turned off. He awoke under the lab safety shower where his friends were holding him under the running water to get the acid off. They'd heard the bang and come running. I mention that story just to let people know the processes are not just recipe's that are mixed. Time, temperature, and sequence of mixing are all critical. You need to study first. __________________ Gunsite Orange Hat Family Member CMP Certified GSM Master Instructor NRA Certified Rifle Instructor NRA Benefactor Member and Golden Eagle

February 7, 2009, 12:49 AM	#13
si vis pacem, para b Senior Member Join Date: January 22, 2008 Location: Cypress (North West Houston) Posts: 157	hmm primers.... Well hopefully there will be somebody left in the gene pool to figure out how to make primers. My original question comes down to; if the %$*^ hits the fan is there any way to make amunition. - Brass can be collected - lead can be collected - Powder can be made of obtainable materials..... I think? - Primers? any suggestions other than stocking up?

February 6, 2009, 01:31 PM	#2
Mike Irwin Staff Join Date: April 14, 2000 Location: Northern Virginia Posts: 41,642	The urine and fecal matter give either sodium or potassium nitrate. Those have to be processed (very stinkily, apparently). During the Civil War the Confederacy mined bat guano from caves in the south. Bat guano is very high in nitrates.

February 6, 2009, 01:38 PM	#3
FALPhil Senior Member Join Date: September 10, 2007 Location: Racoon City Posts: 934	I have made plack powder. It is hardwood charcoal, saltpeter (nitrates), and sulfur. Worked pretty good, but gives off lots of smoke. Modern propellants are sometimes based on plasticized nitrocellulose. Double based powders include a dose of plasticized nitroglycerin, IIRC. Not too hard to make, but hard to make of high quality. Further, most canister powders available today have a burn-retardant coating the kernels that gives a high degree of control over the flame front. This is about all I remember from my gunnery days afloat.

February 6, 2009, 01:43 PM	#4
PCJim Senior Member Join Date: July 11, 2008 Location: FL Posts: 570	Blackpowder can be made from the components already identified. Used to do that when many years younger. I don't believe the current smokeless powder compositions could be done for the average home reloader.

February 6, 2009, 01:56 PM	#5
jaguarxk120 Senior Member Join Date: February 28, 2008 Location: Michigan Posts: 2,626	Get a copy of Phil Sharpe's book "Complete Guide to Handloading" it has a very good write up on how smokeless powder is made. The book is out of print but copies can be had from fleabay vendors. Some what dated by todays standards but the basic's do not change, I find it a very good reference. I would think all of todays "experts" use it as a standard reference when answering some of the questions posted in the gun rags.

February 6, 2009, 02:43 PM	#7
jaguarxk120 Senior Member Join Date: February 28, 2008 Location: Michigan Posts: 2,626	Sharpe includes that info in his book not as a way of making your own powder, but so handloaders would know what it takes to make it. Some of the acids used in mfgr. are so powerful, if spilled you would be the brown stain where the floor used to be!!!

February 6, 2009, 05:01 PM	#9
SKULLANDCROSSBONES65 Senior Member Join Date: August 19, 2008 Location: Far Nth Wst QLD Australia Posts: 992	G'day, kraigwy you are a spoilsport. How do you expect the Gene pool to get better when those types are not exposed to 'natural selection'?

February 6, 2009, 06:43 PM	#10
jaguarxk120 Senior Member Join Date: February 28, 2008 Location: Michigan Posts: 2,626	Quote: "G'day, kraigwy you are a spoilsport. How do you expect the Gene pool to get better when those types are not exposed to 'natural selection'? " And look at all the candidate's for the Darwin Award!

February 7, 2009, 01:13 AM	#14
Unclenick Staff Join Date: March 4, 2005 Location: Ohio Posts: 21,743	That's a good point. No good way to make them for Boxer primed cases because you can't usually reuse the anvil in the primer. Berdan primers are hard to get out, but because the anvil is part of the case, you could theoretically use a punch to flatten the primer indentation out and then put the center of a cap gun cap in it. I can think of ways to fiddle match heads to do it, too, but either will be very corrosive. That all still requires stored supplies, though, and if you are going to stock up on paper caps, why not stock up on primers directly? Basic pyrotechnics don't include any non-corrosive mixes either, plus you've got to store some of the chemicals, so, again, why not just store primers directly? Out in nature you could try a mixture of pulverized flint and steel filings with some gunpowder mixed in as a combustible binder. I don't know what the chances of success are with that? Probably get a lot of misfires. And I doubt the primer cups will take many resizings if they'll even take one? May be too weak to trust to a second firing. You'd need to stock brass shim and have a forming punch to be sure. Again, when you have to stock anything, why not just stock primers directly? __________________ Gunsite Orange Hat Family Member CMP Certified GSM Master Instructor NRA Certified Rifle Instructor NRA Benefactor Member and Golden Eagle

February 7, 2009, 01:18 AM	#15
luvsasmith Senior Member Join Date: September 20, 2008 Posts: 358	UncleNick I think the OP is looking for recipes that he could use later on down the road with out buying the ingredients now.

February 7, 2009, 01:23 AM	#16
Inspector3711 Senior Member Join Date: February 9, 2008 Location: Puget Sound Washington Posts: 1,553	This reminds me of a lab tech i used to know. He had a fertilizer recipe... One day he was making the neighbor a batch. He was shaking the can to mix it... A few moments later he was missing half of his hair and both eyebrows. Luckily the scars went away in time. Food for thought... You might just live through the accident...

February 7, 2009, 04:00 PM	#19
grendelbane Member Join Date: August 8, 2005 Posts: 66	Back in the day, old films could be ground up and used as powder. The Boers did this when they were fighting the Brits. Today's film stock is not nitrocellulose any more, so this won't work anymore. Everything will soon be digital, anyway.

February 7, 2009, 08:47 PM	#20
the_right_reverend Senior Member Join Date: January 19, 2008 Location: Sneads Ferry, Nc Posts: 232	everything you need everything you need to know about blowing yourself up making your own nitro still... shaped charges, rocket propelled grenades TM 31-210 Improvised Munitions Handbook http://onlinebooks.110mb.com/tm%2031...0-contents.htm a must read for every revolutionary

February 8, 2009, 01:47 AM	#21
Scorch Senior Member Join Date: February 13, 2006 Location: Washington state Posts: 15,249	Even supposing the "gubmint" tries to take all our toys away, the military will still have them. That's what toppled the Shah. He disarmed his enemies, but forgot he could not disarm his army. When the populace revolted and he sicced the army on 'em, the army said no, and since we have the guns you gotta go. Real nitrocellulose is not that hard or dangerous to make, it just involves really nasty chemicals and a lot of specialized equipment, and a goodly supply of dimethyl ether. I turned filter papers into nitrocellulose in college chemistry lab, it's really no big deal, but I would not want to try doing it for a living if the government were opposed to it. __________________ Never try to educate someone who resists knowledge at all costs. But what do I know? Summit Arms Services

February 8, 2009, 03:36 AM	#22
Voyageur Member Join Date: October 28, 2008 Location: In the Shining Mountains Posts: 72	Reloading and shooting after the comet hits (or whatever) is not difficult at all. You simply push the patched ball down on top of the main charge. It doesn't matter much which end of the ramrod you use. So... stock up on black powder and put it in the NE corner where folks aren't around much. 70 grain charge = 100 deer. 90 grain charge = 77 deer and some fire starter. Cost of chemicals and equipment to make powder = ? maybe several M/L rifles. Primers (or 'caps')... a flintlock solves the problem. Homeland Security? They're probably not even paying attention as most folks think a M/L isn't a REAL firearm anyhow. Of course there are countless men and an undetermined number of game animals who would beg to differ.