I've been pucking with a 1.5 ton hydrolic jack that I built a small frame for and have gotten excellent results. I'm making 1" diameter x 1/4 " thick pucks and my powder is coming out slightly denser that commercial powder. I jack untill I get everything as tight as I can and let it sit for about 20 seconds and then remove the puck. The key is to not try and make pucks that are too large for your pressure source.....I've actually made commercial grade BP with nothing more than a 3" piece of 1/2" id aluminum tubing and a 5" piece of 1/2" od aluminum rod sanded slightly so it slides freely in the tube....(a "star press" used for pyrotechnics)....and a plastic mallet.
Nice man and I made a few pucks and they are solid now that I have an actual tool for them. These little stars if you haven’t seen my other videos I make some very great green and red stars.
What you described about water dissolving the saltpeter is correct but its effect isnt very accurate. It does not coat the other particles evenly. In fact it's the exact opposite. At that point you already should have your powder thoroughly milled. That's about as evenly mixed as you can get it. The water dissolving the saltpeter pulls all that off of all the other particles now when it evaporates out the thing about saltpeter is it it's crystalline it's a salt. It doesn't evaporate evenly depositing the saltpeter on everything equally the saltpeter grows into crystals completely separated from everything else ideally you don't want it to be dissolved because otherwise you're getting a separation of your materials. But there is a way of slightly tweaking your instructions in order to prevent this from happening or at the very least reduce it greatly. Potassium nitrates solubility in water is directly related to the temperature of the water. It's almost insoluble in cold water and hot water it's very soluble so if you use ice cold water with your alcohol they're being very little of the potassium nitrate get dissolved and separate out from everything else.... Just an observation
I'm thinking that it isn't your press that is losing pressure. I just pressed a puck (first puck ever) in my vice as tight as I could. After a few minutes I went to take it out, but before I removed it I re-tightened the press and I found I could now tighten it quite a bit more.
@@buckygoldstein9256 yeah some people use a jack and lift their cars or similar to get pressure and my press isn’t enough pressure to turn my pucks into an almost glass like a 20 ton but it works well enough for my purposes. So did you break them up and do a burn test?
@@E85_STI They're drying at the moment. I started with 400 grams of material (chemicals) and got 12 pucks which weigh 403 grams. Not sure how to account for that as there was some loss from powder sticking to pans, etc. It must be the water I added. I'll weight them again after they dry. How long do you let them dry? I did a burn test after 12 hours of milling and another after 24 hours. The extra time shows an improvement. This is a first time for me and I'm sure I'll come up with better techniques. The die I'm using is made from 2 inch PVC and ABS tubing with a couple of 2 inch round disks, 1 an aluminum disk from the internals of an old disk drive and the other a piece of 2 inch brass that I got from the thrift store for a buck. It looks like it was some machinist student's project, or maybe just end stock waste. I wanted to see if I could even do this before spending a lot of money on equipment that I might not use. ;-)
Very well done video, clear and straightforward explanations. Not a negligible investment here you made ; not every do-it-yourselfer will be able to follow but nonetheless doable with more basic equipment. Thank you
@@texascelt8363 yeah I get what you mean but I always check off camera if it will be a problem but even the dust of the black powder wouldn’t get to the heater as I dampen it but correct no one should have a flame near the Bp
I've been wanting to corn my BP for a long time, but I don't have a press. However, I think I have an idea that might work, and I would need one of those pressure gauges like the one that was under your plates. Where can I get one like yours and what exactly are they called? I thought they were all built into the hydraulic gauge. I don't see any reason why a bottle jack or even a floor jack wouldn't work if I can build some kind of frame for it. As long as I had a gauge to measure the pressure. Thanks for a GREAT video. You got me all excited to build a press! lol
So you can actually build a pressure to force gauge with a harbor freight hydraulic ram but I got this one from woodys for 125. You can definelty use a 3 ton car jack or a bottle jack as long as you can sustain the pressure and hit at least 2k in force. RU-vid diy pressure to force gauge it should be a video with a red harbor freight ram. You just need to bleed it out a lot and buy a guage it’s not very hard.
I got it off Woodys rocks they sell a lot of firework tooling and this tool I have is a 3/8” star plate so they may different sizes and I have another video where I 3d printer a 1/4” in plate and I was able to make tiny stars.
Yes, so they sell that piece and the extractor but I made one and it works great but you do have to be careful on the extractor with pressure as it will break.
Crazy idea... What happens if you puck your powder into properly sided cylinders for reloading, for example loading 38 special with black powder for cowboy action loads
Never thought about that but the good thing about making black powder is I can change the ratios and make it as powerful for that kind of use. Are you into reloading?
@@E85_STI yes lol but I was thinking more about grid down stuff, .38 special actually responds well to black powder loads being as it started as a black powder cartridge originally. I was just wondering what the energy density would be as a puck charge vs a loose powder charge. 🤔🤔 Just an odd thought. I wonder if it would even ignite reliably, and how it would effect the burn rate
@@countryguywithcamera oh well the puck burns much slower but the reasoning behind the puck is we crush it and it makes larger granules and it’s loosely loaded into a shell for a lift powder. If you burn a puck it burns very slow.
@@E85_STI I knew the reasoning for picking the powder was just curious if it could be used in that form of course the pressure associated with being in a live round might cause a different reaction, thanks for the response ☺️
@@countryguywithcamera If you wanted to make pucks to load into a cylindrical cartridge case you'd need to leave a central tube up the middle so that the primer flash could propagate up the entire core and set it all alight at once, much like Hornady does w/ their BP pellet loading system. The core opens up as it burns, which means the surface area increases as the pellet burns, which compensates slightly for the increased bore volume as the bullet progresses down the barrel so that the pressure driving it doesn't fall off as quickly. But it's probably easier to compress and then corn the powder [the puck isn't "corning," it's the breaking up the puck into grains which are then sized that is "corning."]
The shiny aspect is obtain with graphite. But graphite is facultative. This is ONLY for aesthetic and this lower the powder strength. Graphite is a very bad source of carbon. If you make BP with graphit instead of charcoal (willow or same tree family - or Balsa is good), you get an awfull BP. If you want the MAXIMUM of power, NEVER use any way to make "look better" your powder. We don't care the aesthetic, we burn it.
The star plate that I have is a 3/8 inch and I got it off woodys rocks. In another video I have a cylindrical type die and that one is off Amazon for 30 dollars or so and that one makes pucks.
@@E85_STI Thank you, I already had the cylinder one from your other video on the way and it should arrive today. I like the idea of maybe using the small pucks for straight use in muzzleloaders and not having to grind.
@@jimv.661 yeah I think it would be neater and stay all together for loading. I hope you end up liking the cylinder press as I really like mine for what I do.
@@E85_STI I received the cylinder today. Well made. Also obtained a small tumbler to use for ball mill. Now I just need to make some charcoal as I previously obtained potassium nitrate and sulfur.
@@E85_STI makes sense Have you tried screen cutting like stars. I lately have been rolling out a big patty about the same width as the screen size and push the bp through the screen on a 4 mesh and have very little fines and the bonus is you could toss it in a big mixing bowl and roll to the shine you mentioned. You could use a little graphite to but personally have not. So far thats the most consistent method to get big batches of good bp quickly
@@pa-pyro2804 I haven’t tried cutting out stars like that but I did want to at first but then I decided to buy this starter star kit and now I just make the cylinders. I 3d printed a puck tool and I made a small 2 inch bp puck but I ordered a new aluminum die because I don’t trust the printed one.
Yes I have used them as pellets. I have used them for a homemade Roman candle and I have also used a small fuse and launched them with a sling shot and they fall and look really nice. I have a video somewhere on my channel showing the sling shot launching method.
@@E85_STI The fireworks sound interesting however, I was more interested in using with revolvers and rifles. And, how they stack up to store-bought if usable
Dextrin is basically a "glue" that people have to use that don't use pressure to make black powder. If you just push the damp mixture through a screen, you will need some kind of binder (glue) to keep the 3 ingredients from separating. You also end up with a much lighter powder than corned powder.
@@far_shot9233 I don't know as I have never tried that or heard of anyone trying that. But it means you have an extra ingredient in your powder that is unneeded.
I have the Corning process off camera and I pressed some bp pucks here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XyGuT3kdYbg.html and I broke them up on a screen.
