You are actually making powder that is more powerful than factory ever cleaner,but the best part is that you're sharing your knowledge with us...thanks.
@@EverythingblackpowderHey would you be able to show us some finer details on your ball mill. I’ve been looking into ball mill efficiency and it seems complicated. I’d like to know the size of your drum, the volume of balls and the volume of powder. Also the speed at which you spin it. Eg, is your drum half full of balls? Quarter full?…. Thanks! Love your channel btw. You do great vids!
I would have thought sometime in history, some absent-minded BP maker would have forgotten to turn off his mill and discovered this earlier. Great results! I'm ready for it to get back down into the chilly 90's.
Might have but wasn't doing any record keeping on how strong it was, so just thought "huh this batch feels like it has extra kick, wonder why" Where these guys know exactly how long they milled and exactly what they used for the carbon source and test every batch with that speed tester.
Willard, great video. Mill time is one of the secrets. You would have to match your speed to the rifling to get the best accuracy. Once you have that, you have a tac driver. It was still a dead deer from what I saw😊. You guys put a lot of effort into this. Thank you
More milling makes sense, the more homogeneous the mix the better it will burn. I wonder if mill time also could impact the level of fouling at all. Great video as usual, keep up the great work!
Yes, it will affect fouling some. Am more homogenous mixture will burn more consistently and completely, leading to more power, less velocity variation, and less unburnt material to foul the weapon. Powder moisture level is the other factor, which when too low prevents much of the fouling from leaving the barrel as it catches on the steel and other fouling, building up rapidly. It also has a minor "steam cleaning" effect in the right concentration, actively removing a portion of prior fouling to limit the rate of buildup to the point that good powder in a good weapon can be used for dozens, or even a few hundred shots before a swab becomes necessary to avoid problems. Ultimately, the only way to rediscover how all of this works IRL is the testing Jake and his guys are doing.
Perhaps this is why the 303 British BP round historically had better velocities. Or even the 45 Long Colt... The possibilities are endless. Great presentation!
Aye, would love to see some more fiddling with blackpowder .303 after he tries Buckthorn and TP with extra long milling time. Maybe also some loads with a Dragoon or Walker clone.
Potential ways to improve efficiency: 1. A slight decrease in the pyrolysis temperature with an increase in its duration in time 2. Displacing oxygen from the pyrolyzer using carbon dioxide (dry ice) or nitrogen before pyrolysis begins to prevent combustion. 3. Prevent air from entering the pyrolyzer during cooling by using a valve (needs thick walls) or nitrogen filling 4. Grinding the powder with a little water 5. increase pressing pressure
I read the comments and noticed some declarations that this was the best black powder channel. Because I was late to the party, I can't second the sentiment but I wholeheartedly agree. Very impressive performance. Your team is comprised of some real thinkers and doers. I am watching the chronograph readout just waiting to see "2000" and we are rooting for you in Wisconsin! My treadmill is in the basement awaiting repurposing into a mill. I only have 5 lbs. of Schuetzen to get through first. Thank you for all the time you put into this.
This is the best and worst part of my Friday. Excellent, high quality, informative, no bs content only to be ruined by having to work and miss the premier every single time.
Down here in the deep south, the humidity is quite the beast. Yall are doing a fantastic job! I think your efforts have been very productive to say the least. I cant wait to see what you do in the next presentation. Thanks guys!
Yeah one thing you can do is dry the nitrate down and mill it on its own in one tumbler for 24 hours while milling the charcoal and sulfur mixed in another tumbler. Then combine the tumblers for the next 24 hours. The nitrate is really the only ingredient that seems to problematically suck up water.
I'm really glad you didn't give up on cottonwood 😊. Living up here in the high desert prairie of Noth central Montana we have plenty of cottonwood and poplar trees! Enjoying all your videos keep doing what you're doing!
Humidity ABSOLUTELY MATTERS. We're having a humid summer and clumping after 8-10 hours of milling became intolerable with reclumping occurring within five minutes. My solution was to buy a 3-gallon vacuum chamber that I hook up to my AC vacuum pump and dry all my materials at once overnight at 29" of vacuum, then take out and quickly weigh each ingredient for a batch and put directly into the mill drum. If the ingredients are dried to this level and the milling drum is air tight, no clumping will occur.
@@jeffersonsharp2292 If you don't already have a vacuum pump, the jungle website sells complete vacuum chamber/pump kits for not much more than a pump alone costs if purchased separately. Get the tempered glass lid, not the acrylic. It's money well spent since you can dry your charcoal without fear of it catching on fire. Be sure and weigh your final mix AFTER drying. Pump it down until it holds a steady vacuum (may take a few minutes while the water vaporizes and creates gas volume), close the valves, turn off the pump and just let it sit for a while. Even a couple of hours makes a huge difference to the clumping.
It kind of makes sense that carbon is carbon regardless of the source....only varying in how large the carbon grains might be. So milling more breaks up the larger grains to equal the smaller ones for equal performance. Obviously there will be a point in the milling where more doesn't increase the power ...very interesting experiments and thank you for doing them.
Charcoal is not really pure carbon, but rather carbohydrate. That's might also be the reason why black powder made with purer carbon, like lampblack or graphite, usually sucks.
Charcoal contains traces of water and silicate, as well as one other I can't recall, when made correctly. The moisture level determines cleanliness in part, while the burn temp is the other half (determined more by the kno3 than the charcoal). The power level is improved primarily by grain formation and consistency along with the sulfer-kno3 ratio. However, the chemical impurities (silicate and the like) can reduce burn rate, temp and consistency as well, if not purified enough. Purification is in the kiln (pyrolisizer) so the kiln time is a balance between burning off just enough moisture and not leaving too many other impurities. This is where wood source makes the biggest difference historically. Some woods make a purer charcoal at ideal moisture levels, others must be dried out more to be sufficiently purified (for power and consistency purposes), making them a bit dirtier than their more ideal couterparts. Mill time maximizes the powder efficiency, burn rate and consistency within chemical limitations, meaning most charcoal should have similar maximum performance, with variable cleanliness at that level. Most should be usably clean, with a few being impossible to sufficiently purify without breaking the carbon down into truely pure carbon, which is too hard to react with other chemicals for the purposes of black powder and will have so little moisture that it becomes functionally useless.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine I don't know how digestible is it, maybe could work as a fiber ;-) And what I meant is the closer you get to using actual pure carbon, the worse the resulting black powder is, at least so it seems.
Been waiting for this one, super happy to see the results! I expect most charcoals will be pretty equivalent in potential for velocities once optimal mill times have been determined for a given substance. At that point it’s a matter of selecting for price/availability, cleanliness, and convenience (least milling time). Incredibly useful information you guys are providing, thanks!
id like to see the difference between milled and unmilled under a microscope the background characters always give me a giggle "water powered!.... wow!" lmao
Yep the more you mix and grind the better it gets. When I was into BP rocket engines we would tumble it for 24 hours, pack a sample of 6 motors and test. If no CATO add 8 hours and repeat till there was a CATO, then back off the time 8 hours.
Well there is 'primo' and there is works good enough. For accurate consistent target shooting and hunting use primo like Jakes or swiss or even goex. For other stuff like plinking, cannons or fireworks you can cut some corners imo. The paint can is a fine charcoal maker and you can do a workable damp press with a bottle jack and a heavy object like a pickup truck or just push it through a screen (moistened ball with iso propyl) if you don't need the hard granules. You do need some kind of mill though.🙂
Got to use someone else's powder this weekend at Tewkesbury medieval festival...in a cannon, and it doesn't seem to matter what size powder we used (except big blasting pea size lumps fly burning out to 30yards and could hit the troops on the opposite side). still fascinating to watch you progress and unlock the secrets of powder making 👍🇬🇧🇺🇲
Howdy, first off - hugely appreciative of what y’all do, thank you Jake & Jake’s brother! Have y’all considered doing a 48hr AND a 72hr batch of cottenelle and alder buckthorn? I am very curious to see where the diminished returns kick in with mill time. Perhaps even run a 96hr batch? Seems like y’all have unlocked a fundamental technique lost to time and buried by ignorance that is absolutely essential to the performance of bp. Huge respect boys!
@@wowlodarczyk yes, but if the secret of the power is in the milling time and "Swiss," is the benchmark of high quality BP, then by milling it you will know if it is the best or it can be improved upon.
I actually mill mine for 48 plus and since I started using Cottonelle I always make it with dextrin because I live on the east coast and I hunt in the south so I am pretty much always having issues with humidity. I have a kiln/oven that I use for my charcoal. It’s a heat treat oven that I use when knife making so I keep that process pretty consistent.
Your channel has taken me from, "If you want the best black powder, you have to buy the expensive commercial stuff." To "If you want the best black powder you have to roll your own." I still haven't made any black powder, but if/when I do, your experimental results will inform my setup tremendously. Thank you.
Ceramic materials engineer here, and I just want to say that your videos are awesome, and I can tell you really know your stuff. It makes a lot of sense that milling performance would improve performance since smaller particles with higher specific surface areas can greatly improve reaction kinetics. Increases in time, changing media size and optimization of mill efficiency as you've discussed previously (BTW you were basically dead on the money on how to get a good ball mill run) are all key tools in my industry to make a process that provides the best possible end product.
Maybe the denser the charcoal the longer the milling time to achieve better and faster deflagration, comparing to internal combustion engines, the most homogeneus the air/fuel mixture the cleaner the combustion, More milling time Of BP makes more homogeneus mix promoting a faster and more complete reaction between ingredients, as always really good info and the best BP/muzzleloading channel on YT!!!
The difficulty with getting a good group could have been the heat and it could have been that the more powerful powder took you out of frequency for that barrel. Faster isn’t always better for accuracy. Every rifle has its happy load.
I've been under the weather the past couple of days, and what a wonderful time to discover your channel! I've been watching all day long, and it's helps to keep my mind off of how shitty I feel, lol... Loads of fascinating information here. Thank you for doing what you do!
Lol, I just had a mental image of your next test putting lead balls in low earth orbit....and NASA sending someone out to 'talk' to you. You've discovered something very important and are sharing it with the world. Impressive!
Well I want to thank you, Jake. You are a WEALTH of great information!!😀 I’m pretty proud of myself! I measured out 24.5 grams of 4F goex, dampened it and picked it with a small 20 Ton press and a Rosineer Die…….pumped the jack till it stopped, as you directed and 10:58 ended up with a puck 30MM diameter 19.75 MM long, which by my calculations should be @ 1.76 Grams/CC. As 4F, 50 grains weighed 48.2 grains…….I will check again after I grind the puck. Thank you again for sharing your knowledge with us all!!
Another great video... One can only conclude that the differences from one charcoal to the next is its ability to be milled finely enough to consolidate well with the other ingredients. If that is indeed so, with enough milling most charcoals will make really good fast powder. Worth knowing..... If in doubt, mill the bejesus out of it!
Wow!! First time I spotted vid on "roll yer own"! LOTSA "EXPERTS" can throw chrono numbers/"groupings"/ trajectory charts/"twist rates"/ etc, YET, few, if any, addreses the fact that accuracy begins even before one loads any firearm. So, if you don't have the proper "push", nothing else in the chain of events matter. I have always found the "whys" much more interesting than "dumping" a thousand rounds, so TY for your vid.
It would be very interesting to see how cottonwood does at 72 hours of mill time. Also how the good carbon sources do with 48 and 72 hours of milling. Thanks for helping out the community with all of your experimentation.
to make this finding scientific make a batch of charcoal from a source that has been very consistent. take a sample out after milling for 24 hours to act as a control and then every 12 hours after that until all is used. that way you can chart the difference between mill time and see if the improvement is linear, exponential, or has diminishing returns. the idiot in me wants to see what a batch of balsa milled for 168 hours will do. great video
I would suggest to try to take into consideration changes in relative humidity of the air during milling. I would be very surprised if air humidity didn't have a hyge impact on black powder performance.
Have you already tracked and generated an ambient temperature graph for some of your favorite powders? You might learn temperature stability influencing your data to some effect. Hotter temps makes powder burn faster. Love this channel! Thanks for sharing!
This is such awesome information! Thanks for all your work and sharing this. Would love to see more on mill times with other carbon sources as well as trying to find the sweet spot on mill time. I Was also wondering if different sources have different mill time sweet spots.
Jake thank you and your brother so much for your willingness to share your hard work and knowledge you are acquiring in this field. again, thank you so much,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Fantastic discovery. Funny how this sort of thing opens up more possibility. Which leads us to suspect, the best of the bunch (Cottonelle or buckthorn) might be significantly improved. I guess we'll be finding out! It's my guess that the burn uniformity has improved a lot with the increased milling. The particles of powder are probably more like shore rock along Lake Superior after a thousand years of swashing back and forth and grinding itself smooth.
I love your videos. I have a BP rifle and revolver, and my son has a revolver, but we only shoot them perhaps once a year at the most, however, I still find your videos amazing!
Perhaps this is why light woods like balsa give better results. Light wood is more fragile, so it grinds more easily, simulating a longer milling time. A dense wood charcoal can produce good BP if milled for a long time.
I’ve brought this up before, but I think it would greatly benefit you. Your ability to improve the potential of black powder performance is unique and legendary. No corporate entity, just some can-do American attitude akin to a southern Tony Stark of primitive firearms. I think you could turn a profit selling your own blackpowder online and highlight the making of it via your channel. Many supporters would buy it just by its familiarity let alone witnessing the process of exactly how their purchase was made. Just my two cents. Great video as always!
@@richbattaglia5350 I think MK is just bringing up the point when you go from making it for yourself as a hobby there are virtually no regulations. When you go to selling it aka commercial there are loads of regulations and permits. Kind of like making your own barely pop or liquor.
The point is valid. My contention is who this is coming from. Is this person sincere? I’ve seen otherwise with many others, so you will forgive me if I have doubt.
Great video and I am looking forward to seeing what the extended mill time does to the alderbuckthorn and the cottonell, both should make for very interesting videos to me or as a single video if you choose to do both in one video.
Id be interested in seeing your data juxtaposed to the Janka scale. It might shed some light on the process. Youll probably need more data yet but this is science. Great work!
Thanks for promising results! Now would be interesting to see Cottonelle powder milled for 72 hours since that toilet paper is probably the easiest to get and the most consistent source of charcoal for DIY makers..
In Volume 1 of Bill Ofca's Technique in Fire, he states that "small particle size is important to good chemical reaction. The smaller the particle size, the greater the specific area, hence the most complete and fastest reaction."
This is Science! You guys are awesome. My request is a comparison (serie?). Your worst vs best powder, both in four "grades": 24, 36, 48 and 72 hours; all through the chronograph and on paper. And no, I can not do my own damn video, I'm Italian and making antique muzzleloader's propellant at home is completely illegal here.
Try willow at 48 hours. Bamboo is not needed. Bamboo does not grow in the middle latitudes, but willow and cottonwood grow in abundance. I think it's best to take three materials: willow, cottonwood and buckthorn. Make coal out of them. Then load the powder into the mill and take samples from it every 12 hours. Mill as long as you can (48 or 72 hours). Then perform speed tests and draw graphs based on the results of these tests. Then you can clearly see how the speed changes from the grinding time for each material. This will allow you to determine whether it is possible to achieve the same results for different materials simply by changing the processing time or for each of them there is a limit above which it is impossible to rise at any processing time. This is called the scientific approach.
For my 2 cents the point deminitioning returns issue is a thought to pursue. Cotton wood at 60 hrs than 72 just for the science. It is interesting for sure the effects of mill time. Mountain man
Did you know that in dry milling method you get size like 15 microns top ? On the other hand wet milling you get nano particles ! Guess which powder gonna be the winner!😊😊 An excellent solvent is pure alcohol or isopropyl alcohol the potassium nitrate is almost not soluble with it and when it's dry it leaves nothing behind because of the purity (99.9% isopropyl alcohol) of course there are some issues with this process first your ball mill must be waterproof the other issue is that isopropyl alcohol is a bit expensive so you can let it dry and take the product! Also is a flammable liquid and you must be protect it from the Bruss motors of your mill! Imagine if the microns is so fast what the heck the nanoparticles can do 😉 try it with alder buckthorn in 72 hours and post it here !👌👌
@@Everythingblackpowder i tried that way long ago, but i don't tell you the results, i want to have your fun and happiness of discover it yourself! But i can give you some tips about the process if you want!
@@luuk-out-below9804 wait my friend, Willard is a guy that we know and have a face to show, as for you (no offence)how do i know you are trolling fishing around for info to make something bad? Your Chanel is locked 🤔 so the beans will stay in the basket for now...
I'm not surprised that mill time makes a difference, but I would have thought that after 24 hours it would be as finely mixed as it could be. When I get around to trying this I'm going to try the brass hexagon pieces and see if that helps any. Keep on experimenting. Thanks
Also I've been wondering if time of year the wood is harvested would make any kind of difference. Being in Ohio we have sap runs for maple syrup in the spring but know from heating with wood for the first twenty years of my life that wood cut during winter didn't have to dry as long because the sap was already out of it. But if wood was harvested in spring, the sap has a lot of sugars and I'm sure other stuff in it. Just a thought. I'll let you know when I get some drops of hex cut and see if I have enough for two. About how much do you think you will need
Have you ever done a proper CIA method with no milling, just properly pre grinding the charcoal and disolving everything in water with alcohol at the end and then compressed and grinded it? If so, what was the outcome? Thanks for all these vids. Definitely one of my favorite channels, you are the paul harrel of blackpowder in case you don't know that.
he has older videos on the 'CIA' method. doesn't use that method anymore. th-cam.com/video/u7msEfWXdQU/w-d-xo.html and th-cam.com/video/CTHypmamzFg/w-d-xo.html
Luckily for us, this question over mill time is leading to a lot of exciting vids! So many carbon sources to mill and so many times to choose! Will be good to see your best performing 24hr mill done at 48hr and 72hr and maybe some of the less impressive sources run for that length of time because it might go from an ok/not great powder to something very usable
Informative as usual! I make BP for pyro by milling the heck out of the charcoal by itself and screen-mixing it with milled sulfur and nitrate. Pressed to 1.75, it beats Goex by a bit. I mill the charcoal with small stainless steel media like 5/16". It would be cool to see what result you guys would get doing something similar.
You are actually making powder that is more powerful than factory ever cleaner,but the best part is that you're sharing your knowledge with us...thanks.
You bet
@@EverythingblackpowderHey would you be able to show us some finer details on your ball mill. I’ve been looking into ball mill efficiency and it seems complicated. I’d like to know the size of your drum, the volume of balls and the volume of powder. Also the speed at which you spin it. Eg, is your drum half full of balls? Quarter full?….
Thanks!
Love your channel btw. You do great vids!
@@daveleigh4359 Look in his past videos.
Jake WE NEED TO KNOW, COTTONELLE 72H!
That's an Ultra Comfortable idea.
@@PBVaderGood one. Lol
Yes we need to know!
This!
Came here to say this
Very interesting. The best channel on black powder DIY.
@@miguelalmazanalhambra2958 thank you
By far.
I second that.
Ditto
I bet he has forgotten more about making bp than most people will ever know
I would like to see how the old standbys, Eastern Red Cedar and Willow would do when milled for 48 hours. Especially the willow.
I would have thought sometime in history, some absent-minded BP maker would have forgotten to turn off his mill and discovered this earlier. Great results! I'm ready for it to get back down into the chilly 90's.
They probably did.
Might have but wasn't doing any record keeping on how strong it was, so just thought "huh this batch feels like it has extra kick, wonder why"
Where these guys know exactly how long they milled and exactly what they used for the carbon source and test every batch with that speed tester.
Strange times where we are excited for 90° weather. Bring it on!
Willard, great video. Mill time is one of the secrets. You would have to match your speed to the rifling to get the best accuracy. Once you have that, you have a tac driver.
It was still a dead deer from what I saw😊. You guys put a lot of effort into this. Thank you
Thank you
More milling makes sense, the more homogeneous the mix the better it will burn. I wonder if mill time also could impact the level of fouling at all. Great video as usual, keep up the great work!
Thank you
Yes, it will affect fouling some. Am more homogenous mixture will burn more consistently and completely, leading to more power, less velocity variation, and less unburnt material to foul the weapon. Powder moisture level is the other factor, which when too low prevents much of the fouling from leaving the barrel as it catches on the steel and other fouling, building up rapidly. It also has a minor "steam cleaning" effect in the right concentration, actively removing a portion of prior fouling to limit the rate of buildup to the point that good powder in a good weapon can be used for dozens, or even a few hundred shots before a swab becomes necessary to avoid problems.
Ultimately, the only way to rediscover how all of this works IRL is the testing Jake and his guys are doing.
Mill it at 24 hour increments until you see no increase in velocity. Good videos!
Perhaps this is why the 303 British BP round historically had better velocities. Or even the 45 Long Colt... The possibilities are endless. Great presentation!
Aye, would love to see some more fiddling with blackpowder .303 after he tries Buckthorn and TP with extra long milling time. Maybe also some loads with a Dragoon or Walker clone.
Potential ways to improve efficiency:
1. A slight decrease in the pyrolysis temperature with an increase in its duration in time
2. Displacing oxygen from the pyrolyzer using carbon dioxide (dry ice) or nitrogen before pyrolysis begins to prevent combustion.
3. Prevent air from entering the pyrolyzer during cooling by using a valve (needs thick walls) or nitrogen filling
4. Grinding the powder with a little water
5. increase pressing pressure
Imo feed the tumbler with Argon from the weld cart..
I read the comments and noticed some declarations that this was the best black powder channel. Because I was late to the party, I can't second the sentiment but I wholeheartedly agree. Very impressive performance. Your team is comprised of some real thinkers and doers. I am watching the chronograph readout just waiting to see "2000" and we are rooting for you in Wisconsin! My treadmill is in the basement awaiting repurposing into a mill. I only have 5 lbs. of Schuetzen to get through first. Thank you for all the time you put into this.
Thank you
Need.the recipe!
U say 77..13 ..10?😊
@@AirsoftEli2000 77 parts kno3, 13 parts charcoal and 10 parts sulfur.
Finally cottonell 72h milled powder.
Nope
@@Everythingblackpowder 🤯
My favourite black powder artist, I look forward to this every week sir. Thank you.
Thank you
This is the best and worst part of my Friday. Excellent, high quality, informative, no bs content only to be ruined by having to work and miss the premier every single time.
Sorry you missed it
@@Everythingblackpowder im the one sorry. watching it twice now to make up for the lost time
@@davisk1234I feel you, I miss it every time too.
I could tell from the first shot that it was gonna be fast. The way it looked and sounded gave it away. Great job and video!
Down here in the deep south, the humidity is quite the beast. Yall are doing a fantastic job! I think your efforts have been very productive to say the least. I cant wait to see what you do in the next presentation. Thanks guys!
Yeah one thing you can do is dry the nitrate down and mill it on its own in one tumbler for 24 hours while milling the charcoal and sulfur mixed in another tumbler. Then combine the tumblers for the next 24 hours. The nitrate is really the only ingredient that seems to problematically suck up water.
Thank you
You produce the best powder making and testing videos around! This is excellent technical experimentation.
And you are having fun!
Thank you
The best DIY BP channel ever
Thank you
Wow. That was an excellent demonstration! Thank you for sharing, your knowledge took our 4th of July cannon to the penultimate level!
Thank you very much!
I'm really glad you didn't give up on cottonwood 😊. Living up here in the high desert prairie of Noth central Montana we have plenty of cottonwood and poplar trees! Enjoying all your videos keep doing what you're doing!
Humidity ABSOLUTELY MATTERS. We're having a humid summer and clumping after 8-10 hours of milling became intolerable with reclumping occurring within five minutes. My solution was to buy a 3-gallon vacuum chamber that I hook up to my AC vacuum pump and dry all my materials at once overnight at 29" of vacuum, then take out and quickly weigh each ingredient for a batch and put directly into the mill drum. If the ingredients are dried to this level and the milling drum is air tight, no clumping will occur.
Good info, thanks. I have been considering building a vacuum drum. Good to know I'm not necessarily way out in the weeds on that.
@@jeffersonsharp2292 If you don't already have a vacuum pump, the jungle website sells complete vacuum chamber/pump kits for not much more than a pump alone costs if purchased separately. Get the tempered glass lid, not the acrylic. It's money well spent since you can dry your charcoal without fear of it catching on fire. Be sure and weigh your final mix AFTER drying. Pump it down until it holds a steady vacuum (may take a few minutes while the water vaporizes and creates gas volume), close the valves, turn off the pump and just let it sit for a while. Even a couple of hours makes a huge difference to the clumping.
Definitely my favorite black powder channel. Plus we get Jake as a bonus.
Ah I bet you say that to all the black powder channels. 😉
@@Everythingblackpowder 🤭
Will Jake I can't thank you enough for all this black powder development you have been working on thoroughly enjoy your videos
Thanks
Amazing work guys! Can’t wait to see what happens with the Buckthorn using your new methods.
Thanks Ben, we are working on that
Thank you. I have been making bp for about 5 years. Your videos have made my powder better. Thank you.
Glad to hear it. Thank you
It kind of makes sense that carbon is carbon regardless of the source....only varying in how large the carbon grains might be. So milling more breaks up the larger grains to equal the smaller ones for equal performance. Obviously there will be a point in the milling where more doesn't increase the power ...very interesting experiments and thank you for doing them.
Thank you
Charcoal is not really pure carbon, but rather carbohydrate. That's might also be the reason why black powder made with purer carbon, like lampblack or graphite, usually sucks.
@@_muody Carbohydrates? Does that mean that muskets will make me gain weight? Lampblack isn't pure carbon though, it's a petroleum product.
Charcoal contains traces of water and silicate, as well as one other I can't recall, when made correctly. The moisture level determines cleanliness in part, while the burn temp is the other half (determined more by the kno3 than the charcoal). The power level is improved primarily by grain formation and consistency along with the sulfer-kno3 ratio. However, the chemical impurities (silicate and the like) can reduce burn rate, temp and consistency as well, if not purified enough. Purification is in the kiln (pyrolisizer) so the kiln time is a balance between burning off just enough moisture and not leaving too many other impurities. This is where wood source makes the biggest difference historically. Some woods make a purer charcoal at ideal moisture levels, others must be dried out more to be sufficiently purified (for power and consistency purposes), making them a bit dirtier than their more ideal couterparts. Mill time maximizes the powder efficiency, burn rate and consistency within chemical limitations, meaning most charcoal should have similar maximum performance, with variable cleanliness at that level. Most should be usably clean, with a few being impossible to sufficiently purify without breaking the carbon down into truely pure carbon, which is too hard to react with other chemicals for the purposes of black powder and will have so little moisture that it becomes functionally useless.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine I don't know how digestible is it, maybe could work as a fiber ;-) And what I meant is the closer you get to using actual pure carbon, the worse the resulting black powder is, at least so it seems.
Congratulations on a successful formulation of powder that is the equivalent of Swiss. Excellent videos! Accuracy is good too.
@@richardsims1805 thank you. I’m sure the accuracy is better than that one test shows.
Just from what I can tell from watching your others it looks like that stuff fires off really quick, no hesitation at all.
Been waiting for this one, super happy to see the results! I expect most charcoals will be pretty equivalent in potential for velocities once optimal mill times have been determined for a given substance. At that point it’s a matter of selecting for price/availability, cleanliness, and convenience (least milling time). Incredibly useful information you guys are providing, thanks!
Thank you
Now this is the science I came looking for
id like to see the difference between milled and unmilled under a microscope
the background characters always give me a giggle "water powered!.... wow!" lmao
Wow that's fast. Love to see that in a 45 colt.
Yep the more you mix and grind the better it gets. When I was into BP rocket engines we would tumble it for 24 hours, pack a sample of 6 motors and test. If no CATO add 8 hours and repeat till there was a CATO, then back off the time 8 hours.
What is CATO.
@@BRENDANTHERED In rockets, CATO is the acronym for Catastrophe At Take Off.
@luuk-out-below9804 Thanks for replying, I had thought to look it up myself but figured it might be nice for others who are wondering the same.
@@BRENDANTHERED no problem.
I wondered what Cato was too, thanks for answering
hell yeah ! Now i just need to be equipped with a pyrolyser, a mill and a press.
Well there is 'primo' and there is works good enough. For accurate consistent target shooting and hunting use primo like Jakes or swiss or even goex. For other stuff like plinking, cannons or fireworks you can cut some corners imo. The paint can is a fine charcoal maker and you can do a workable damp press with a bottle jack and a heavy object like a pickup truck or just push it through a screen (moistened ball with iso propyl) if you don't need the hard granules. You do need some kind of mill though.🙂
Got to use someone else's powder this weekend at Tewkesbury medieval festival...in a cannon, and it doesn't seem to matter what size powder we used (except big blasting pea size lumps fly burning out to 30yards and could hit the troops on the opposite side). still fascinating to watch you progress and unlock the secrets of powder making 👍🇬🇧🇺🇲
Ive been dreaming about finding such an excellent channel on black powder. You guys are the best.
Howdy, first off - hugely appreciative of what y’all do, thank you Jake & Jake’s brother!
Have y’all considered doing a 48hr AND a 72hr batch of cottenelle and alder buckthorn?
I am very curious to see where the diminished returns kick in with mill time. Perhaps even run a 96hr batch?
Seems like y’all have unlocked a fundamental technique lost to time and buried by ignorance that is absolutely essential to the performance of bp.
Huge respect boys!
If milling makes it better, then mill Swiss for an extra 24 hours to see if it gives the magic 2,000 FPS!
I second this. Give swiss another 24 hours or even 48 just to see what it does.
the idea is to replace Swiss, actually :)
@@wowlodarczyk It'd still be interesting to learn what you'd get.
@@wowlodarczyk yes, but if the secret of the power is in the milling time and "Swiss," is the benchmark of high quality BP, then by milling it you will know if it is the best or it can be improved upon.
Looking forward to the future 48hr mills versus older 24hr comparisons.
I actually mill mine for 48 plus and since I started using Cottonelle I always make it with dextrin because I live on the east coast and I hunt in the south so I am pretty much always having issues with humidity. I have a kiln/oven that I use for my charcoal. It’s a heat treat oven that I use when knife making so I keep that process pretty consistent.
Your channel has taken me from, "If you want the best black powder, you have to buy the expensive commercial stuff." To "If you want the best black powder you have to roll your own." I still haven't made any black powder, but if/when I do, your experimental results will inform my setup tremendously. Thank you.
Thank you
Ceramic materials engineer here, and I just want to say that your videos are awesome, and I can tell you really know your stuff.
It makes a lot of sense that milling performance would improve performance since smaller particles with higher specific surface areas can greatly improve reaction kinetics. Increases in time, changing media size and optimization of mill efficiency as you've discussed previously (BTW you were basically dead on the money on how to get a good ball mill run) are all key tools in my industry to make a process that provides the best possible end product.
Thank you very much
Great content I’m getting closer to being able to get on this train. And I cannot wait to start
Glad to hear that
You could tell by the zip and recoil the of the 1st shot before the chronograph reading that it had the goods
Maybe the denser the charcoal the longer the milling time to achieve better and faster deflagration, comparing to internal combustion engines, the most homogeneus the air/fuel mixture the cleaner the combustion, More milling time Of BP makes more homogeneus mix promoting a faster and more complete reaction between ingredients, as always really good info and the best BP/muzzleloading channel on YT!!!
Thank you
I will never make bp but I love watching you guys. Thank you🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠
Thank you
The difficulty with getting a good group could have been the heat and it could have been that the more powerful powder took you out of frequency for that barrel. Faster isn’t always better for accuracy. Every rifle has its happy load.
Thanks for sharing your projects. Interesting and informative, and always fun.
I've been under the weather the past couple of days, and what a wonderful time to discover your channel! I've been watching all day long, and it's helps to keep my mind off of how shitty I feel, lol... Loads of fascinating information here. Thank you for doing what you do!
Glad to hear it. Hope you feel better soon
Lol, I just had a mental image of your next test putting lead balls in low earth orbit....and NASA sending someone out to 'talk' to you. You've discovered something very important and are sharing it with the world. Impressive!
Thank you
Oh heck yeah! Another video on making powder! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Well I want to thank you, Jake. You are a WEALTH of great information!!😀
I’m pretty proud of myself! I measured out 24.5 grams of 4F goex, dampened it and picked it with a small 20 Ton press and a Rosineer Die…….pumped the jack till it stopped, as you directed and 10:58 ended up with a puck 30MM diameter 19.75 MM long, which by my calculations should be @ 1.76 Grams/CC.
As 4F, 50 grains weighed 48.2 grains…….I will check again after I grind the puck.
Thank you again for sharing your knowledge with us all!!
Fast and ignition ! Am impressed
You men are doing wonderful things for us black powder fellows.
Thank you
Another great video...
One can only conclude that the differences from one charcoal to the next is its ability to be milled finely enough to consolidate well with the other ingredients. If that is indeed so, with enough milling most charcoals will make really good fast powder. Worth knowing..... If in doubt, mill the bejesus out of it!
Well said
Offer still stands, I'll send you all the basswood you would need so you can try it out as a charcoal source 👍💪
Your videos keep getting better all the time! I can't wait to see the 48 hour Cottonelle!
Good work and thanks for sharing your knowledge. Much appreciated.
Another very interesting turn of events!
Wow!! First time I spotted vid on "roll yer own"! LOTSA "EXPERTS" can throw chrono numbers/"groupings"/ trajectory charts/"twist rates"/ etc, YET, few, if any, addreses the fact that accuracy begins even before one loads any firearm. So, if you don't have the proper "push", nothing else in the chain of events matter. I have always found the "whys" much more interesting than "dumping" a thousand rounds, so TY for your vid.
I’m impressed. You are having a great time and making us all smarter doing it. Thank you! I need to put a press together.
Thank you
It would be very interesting to see how cottonwood does at 72 hours of mill time. Also how the good carbon sources do with 48 and 72 hours of milling. Thanks for helping out the community with all of your experimentation.
to make this finding scientific make a batch of charcoal from a source that has been very consistent. take a sample out after milling for 24 hours to act as a control and then every 12 hours after that until all is used. that way you can chart the difference between mill time and see if the improvement is linear, exponential, or has diminishing returns.
the idiot in me wants to see what a batch of balsa milled for 168 hours will do.
great video
I would suggest to try to take into consideration changes in relative humidity of the air during milling. I would be very surprised if air humidity didn't have a hyge impact on black powder performance.
Have you already tracked and generated an ambient temperature graph for some of your favorite powders? You might learn temperature stability influencing your data to some effect. Hotter temps makes powder burn faster. Love this channel! Thanks for sharing!
Hey Jake, thanks again for such a thorough presentation - you are a priceless resource for us plebs :) cheers
You bet
This is such awesome information! Thanks for all your work and sharing this. Would love to see more on mill times with other carbon sources as well as trying to find the sweet spot on mill time. I Was also wondering if different sources have different mill time sweet spots.
Jake thank you and your brother so much for your willingness to share your hard work and knowledge you are acquiring in this field. again, thank you so much,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
@@olskool3967 you bet
Fantastic discovery.
Funny how this sort of thing opens up more possibility. Which leads us to suspect, the best of the bunch (Cottonelle or buckthorn) might be significantly improved. I guess we'll be finding out!
It's my guess that the burn uniformity has improved a lot with the increased milling. The particles of powder are probably more like shore rock along Lake Superior after a thousand years of swashing back and forth and grinding itself smooth.
WOW !! I just love you guys you are the best there is on the tube.
Thank you
I love your videos. I have a BP rifle and revolver, and my son has a revolver, but we only shoot them perhaps once a year at the most, however, I still find your videos amazing!
“Don’t worry boss, it could happen to anybody.” Am I the only one that caught the Captain Ron quote ? Lol
Yes! So far you’re the only one. Well done!
Great show it's appreciated.now i know what my batch is going to be .. fantastic.
Jake, I enjoy watching your channel each week. I think this is an awesome breakthrough. There will come a time when this knowledge will save lives.
Perhaps this is why light woods like balsa give better results. Light wood is more fragile, so it grinds more easily, simulating a longer milling time. A dense wood charcoal can produce good BP if milled for a long time.
I’ve brought this up before, but I think it would greatly benefit you.
Your ability to improve the potential of black powder performance is unique and legendary. No corporate entity, just some can-do American attitude akin to a southern Tony Stark of primitive firearms. I think you could turn a profit selling your own blackpowder online and highlight the making of it via your channel.
Many supporters would buy it just by its familiarity let alone witnessing the process of exactly how their purchase was made.
Just my two cents.
Great video as always!
That opens a whole new can of worms. The laws around selling BP are interesting.
And who are you supposed to be?
Nothing.
@@richbattaglia5350 I think MK is just bringing up the point when you go from making it for yourself as a hobby there are virtually no regulations. When you go to selling it aka commercial there are loads of regulations and permits. Kind of like making your own barely pop or liquor.
The point is valid.
My contention is who this is coming from. Is this person sincere? I’ve seen otherwise with many others, so you will forgive me if I have doubt.
I would suggest using unbleached tp to reduce the yellow-green residue in the barrel after firing.
Your bro Derek “nooo way” hahah looks like a good time with the buds
It’s always a good time to
Yep...
Now I'm impressed!
Damn fine job!
Thank you
Great video and I am looking forward to seeing what the extended mill time does to the alderbuckthorn and the cottonell, both should make for very interesting videos to me or as a single video if you choose to do both in one video.
Longer times milling makes a way better mix more finely mix...who knew ...gonna try it too...rock on
cut the sidewalls out of old tires to hang your steel with last way way longer .. it does deaden the sound but dissipates the energy better
Id be interested in seeing your data juxtaposed to the Janka scale. It might shed some light on the process. Youll probably need more data yet but this is science. Great work!
Love this channel and all the info. It is just unfortunate that making BP is stupidly illegal in Canada
Yes we want to see. An additional 200fps is just crazy! What a difference a day can make. Im looking forward to 48 hour TP.
Thanks for promising results! Now would be interesting to see Cottonelle powder milled for 72 hours since that toilet paper is probably the easiest to get and the most consistent source of charcoal for DIY makers..
You have just outlined the next series of tests!!! 😊👍
Eagerly awaiting your next video!!!
In Volume 1 of Bill Ofca's Technique in Fire, he states that "small particle size is important to good chemical reaction. The smaller the particle size, the greater the specific area, hence the most complete and fastest reaction."
Fantastic results, i think revisiting the worst carbon source and testing at 72hrs would be a great data point.
This is Science! You guys are awesome.
My request is a comparison (serie?). Your worst vs best powder, both in four "grades": 24, 36, 48 and 72 hours; all through the chronograph and on paper.
And no, I can not do my own damn video, I'm Italian and making antique muzzleloader's propellant at home is completely illegal here.
Try willow at 48 hours. Bamboo is not needed. Bamboo does not grow in the middle latitudes, but willow and cottonwood grow in abundance. I think it's best to take three materials: willow, cottonwood and buckthorn. Make coal out of them. Then load the powder into the mill and take samples from it every 12 hours. Mill as long as you can (48 or 72 hours). Then perform speed tests and draw graphs based on the results of these tests. Then you can clearly see how the speed changes from the grinding time for each material. This will allow you to determine whether it is possible to achieve the same results for different materials simply by changing the processing time or for each of them there is a limit above which it is impossible to rise at any processing time. This is called the scientific approach.
For my 2 cents the point deminitioning returns issue is a thought to pursue. Cotton wood at 60 hrs than 72 just for the science. It is interesting for sure the effects of mill time.
Mountain man
Did you know that in dry milling method you get size like 15 microns top ? On the other hand wet milling you get nano particles ! Guess which powder gonna be the winner!😊😊 An excellent solvent is pure alcohol or isopropyl alcohol the potassium nitrate is almost not soluble with it and when it's dry it leaves nothing behind because of the purity (99.9% isopropyl alcohol) of course there are some issues with this process first your ball mill must be waterproof the other issue is that isopropyl alcohol is a bit expensive so you can let it dry and take the product! Also is a flammable liquid and you must be protect it from the Bruss motors of your mill! Imagine if the microns is so fast what the heck the nanoparticles can do 😉 try it with alder buckthorn in 72 hours and post it here !👌👌
Funny you should mention that. We are experimenting with wet milling right now in an effort to reduce the mill time. We are using denatured alcohol.
@@Everythingblackpowder i tried that way long ago, but i don't tell you the results, i want to have your fun and happiness of discover it yourself! But i can give you some tips about the process if you want!
@@Everythingblackpowder so you can make perfect results, otherwise you will pass this legendary method by saying "it was just a wasting time "
@@willowpine2604 Spill the beans man, we are all scientist here!
@@luuk-out-below9804 wait my friend, Willard is a guy that we know and have a face to show, as for you (no offence)how do i know you are trolling fishing around for info to make something bad? Your Chanel is locked 🤔 so the beans will stay in the basket for now...
I'm not surprised that mill time makes a difference, but I would have thought that after 24 hours it would be as finely mixed as it could be. When I get around to trying this I'm going to try the brass hexagon pieces and see if that helps any. Keep on experimenting.
Thanks
Do you know where I can find those brass hexagons? I would like to buy some
@@Everythingblackpowder I am just going to cut some off bar stock drops.
Also I've been wondering if time of year the wood is harvested would make any kind of difference. Being in Ohio we have sap runs for maple syrup in the spring but know from heating with wood for the first twenty years of my life that wood cut during winter didn't have to dry as long because the sap was already out of it. But if wood was harvested in spring, the sap has a lot of sugars and I'm sure other stuff in it. Just a thought. I'll let you know when I get some drops of hex cut and see if I have enough for two. About how much do you think you will need
Another great video by a true scientist. Great series, most comprehensive on the topic.
Outstanding sir thank you for sharing this six stars
Thank you
Have you ever done a proper CIA method with no milling, just properly pre grinding the charcoal and disolving everything in water with alcohol at the end and then compressed and grinded it? If so, what was the outcome?
Thanks for all these vids. Definitely one of my favorite channels, you are the paul harrel of blackpowder in case you don't know that.
he has older videos on the 'CIA' method. doesn't use that method anymore. th-cam.com/video/u7msEfWXdQU/w-d-xo.html and th-cam.com/video/CTHypmamzFg/w-d-xo.html
Luckily for us, this question over mill time is leading to a lot of exciting vids!
So many carbon sources to mill and so many times to choose!
Will be good to see your best performing 24hr mill done at 48hr and 72hr and maybe some of the less impressive sources run for that length of time because it might go from an ok/not great powder to something very usable
Great video Jake, it would absolutely be worth trying alder buckthorn and cottonwood milled for 72 hours. the results could be even more surprising
Informative as usual! I make BP for pyro by milling the heck out of the charcoal by itself and screen-mixing it with milled sulfur and nitrate. Pressed to 1.75, it beats Goex by a bit. I mill the charcoal with small stainless steel media like 5/16".
It would be cool to see what result you guys would get doing something similar.