Modern Blackpowder

[Grumpa]

More good information, Gus.

The willow wood making the best charcoal rings a bell. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Swiss uses willow. I will have to find time to sort through my "favorites" and "bookmarks" to see if I can find it. Swiss was ranked the best powder way back, and still is considered as such by many today.


Thanks to everyone who is replying. I am learning more about gunpowder, and learning more is most always a good thing. :hatsoff:

Richard/Grumpa

 

[mooman76]

Soft wood make the best charcoal for this application. Soft woods burn faster than hard. Willow is one of the more common woods used for this. Wood does come in different characteristics even with the same type wood thus getting different powder burn rates. Selecting wood for consistency with what is being already used helps keep it as close to the same burn rates as possible.

 

[Artificer]

"The more saltpetre that the mixture contains, the quicker and more fiercely it burns."

and

"The constituents of gunpowder, the modern black powder, are potassium nitrate (saltpetre), sulphur, and carbon in the form of wood charcoal, in the approximate ratio by weight of 4:1:1 for a strong cannon powder to 10:1:2 for a pistol powder. A modern average ratio is 75:11:14."

This information seems to agree with period accounts of special powders or more likely special formulations for different guns.

What I don't know is if modern powder is all the same ratio and only separated by the grain size, which I suspect it is.

Gus

 

[fleener]

The rep for Schuetzen Powder comes to Friendship and shoots with us. She is part of our evening social group.

Swiss powder only uses Buckhorn Alder from Canada. The other powders that they sell use a mixture of different woods. She did say that they do quite a bit of testing of their powders.

If you have ever studied the history of black powder you will know that it was very much a cottage industry for a very long time. I would assume that there was a wide variance between powders.

I would believe that today's black powder is of a higher quality and more consistent from batch to batch than powder of 200 years ago.

Now if you threw in Elephant powder and I believe it is no longer being made, that was not a great powder. I also have played around with some powder from China that had foreign material in it. The Chinese powder was only good for a cannon or pyrotechnics IMO.

Fleener

 

[RAEDWALD]

Thank you for this Spence. Would that I could justify the prices asked for the work today.

Modern powder can be as good as the best made in the past but the public would not pay the price for the extra time, labour and materials choice and careful processing. There is no new technology, invention or development needed otherwise. The Aubon works in Switzerland take the most care and make the only true sporting powder I am aware of currently. Actually you can do good work using some poor powder as long as it is consistent and does not deteriorate in store and transport. Just use more and clean more often.

Today Swiss is as good as you will get and stands well with the best late 19th century powders which were the pinnacle to date. Your average shooter back in the day used what he could find and afford which most modern powders exceed in all parameters. It was the 'carriage trade' that could afford to use the likes of Curtis & Harvey's no6. Most of our ancestors used the other end of the market. In today's terms, more Chinese than Swiss.

 

[Redstick Lee]

I live close to a cave from which the C.S.A. dug and leached saltpetre and also hid caisons from Federal raiders.

a larger cave (Desoto Caverns) 60 miles to my south used to have a saltpetre leaching vat set up for display in a heavily dug section of the cave floor.

of course the charcoal came from the same operations that supplied the charcoal for the local iron furnaces.

but i've no idea where our sulphur was mined from......