Hay Bale Black Powder 

Who knew that smoking grass could be so frustrating. Thanks for another great video.

As a hay grower, I can tell you that the mix in the bale is random. The next bale or batch would be totally different...not to mention the moisture, stage of growth, whatever. A better bet would be straw... probably still not consistant, but better. That aside, your videos are outstanding. Thank you

No idea if the best charcoal for black powder has anything in common with the best charcoal for filtration, but during WW1 tests showed that the best charcoal for gas masks was made from coconut shells. The govt had a special program to buy it wherever it could be found and to buy the best substitutes such as walnut and pecan shells. These would be interesting to test.

Hay and grasses contain a fair amount of silica (essentially glass), which is why grazing animals' teeth wear down so badly, and the "chunks" you saw in the fouling were likely silica deposits.

You can always make a giant toilet paper tube firecracker out of the bad powders.

Thanks for sharing Jake! I get the same comments on milling. Folks seem to think "over milling" is the cause of trouble. I agree, no way you can over mill powder at all. Keep up the good work!

One great advantage to cannons is the touch hole on my six pounder is nearly A 1/4 inch 👍 if we get a misfire (very rare ) we can pour a lot down the tube and unless it's raining she do go boom 💥 great vid chears from England👍🇺🇲🇬🇧

I don't think I've ever seen you have that many dramas with getting it to fire! I really love these videos! Excellent work sir

Went and did some leg work, and dry matter proportions for most prairie hays runs 5-8% silica and 10-15% ash. So the silica problem is pretty much the problem I thought it was going to be... charring is going to convert and remove some components, so I figure offhand that a quarter of your charcoal isn't. On the bright side, it'll be self-cleaning because the silica content will encapsulate solids and prevent it sticking to steel... but it'll plug your touch hole, as you saw, and it'll be abrasive as hell to the barrel.

the fact that hay has a nutritional value for horses didn't give me much confidence, but you never know until you've tried it. Thanks for this. you never know when you might need a source that works at all.

It is incredible how much difference charcoal makes! You could take a lifetime testing all kinds of materials, like cow patties! Grass fed or grain fed? Its limitless to what can be tested. Thank you Jake and crew for your time, efforts and these videos! May your videos remain forever!

OK, so I’m subscribed. Great video; very informative channel! You may already know this, but during the Civil War, black powder was made from straw and hay purposefully for cannons, as these charcoal sources developed less peak pressure, thus leading to less cannons exploding. Therefore, it does not surprise me you had to double the charge to get the same velocity. I’m starting out making my own powder for rifles and pistols, but now this experiment by you is a confirmation of my history research for when I get that civil war cannon I dream of! 😀

I found out a replacement for sulfur, and apparently it can be more powerful as well, at least in pyrotechnics. It uses citric acid and red/brown iron oxide with the ratios being 72% KNO3, 10% C, 14% Citric acid and 4% red/brown iron oxide. The downside being the increased cost of citric acid. As for fouling, that's anyone's guess. Less overall carbon, but more iron oxide. *edited for correct raitos

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you folks investing the time and resources performing tests on powder produced with various charcoal resources. Thank you, thank you.

I don’t believe I’ve seen any other channel that I have watched where they actually practice safety like this one. I noticed that every time the gun misfires, you remain at full ready to ensure that if it hang fires it’s still pointed down range. Other guys immediately return the rifle pretty much under their chin! This is just another (of MANY) reasons I will be recommending this channel to ANYONE interested in getting started shooing black powder!

If nothing else this shows that your shooting skills are superior. Even with all the hang fires i saw no flinching at all.

Nice and time intensive tests you are running! However, if it comes to the charcoal used for Black Powder mixtures it is a fact that charcoal made from buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula) will be unbeatable! The old time powder mills sought out many different woods for charcoal over a couple of hundred years and they ended up with Rhamnus frangula in the 19th Century. Charcoal of this wood will always deliver the highest energy or muzzle velocity. As far as I know it is only the Swiss Powder mill which is still using this excellent wood.

I was wondering when someone was going to make it. Absolute madman.

Thank you for a really great black powder site. I don't think I will be trying hay bale powder. So far, I have most confidence in your " toilette paper" black powder. Good ignition, good speed, and very reliable.

The thought of charred grass had occurred to me but I was too lazy to try it out, thank you for doing this so we wouldn’t have to.

I can't do what you do where I live, but it's fun to see your experiments.

Skipping trying hay... keep it up. Another great show.

Well you have proven you can make anything shoot! Thanks

making mistakes and doing legwork for all of us and dropping down a wealth of information all the while. May not be able to get a powder setup together yet, but when i do there is so much to draw on here.

Props for hitting that plate damn near every time.....

Thanks for doing these experiments, it must be a ton of work. I'd gladly buy a book.

They shoulda had a whole chapter about this in science class !!!! But I am enjoying a everything black powder education!!!!!

Thanks Jake! Straw charcoal was one I was really curious about. Glad to see you try this.

This is so exciting! Thank you .Allways a great pleasure to watch a new series of " Everything Blackpowder "!

ETBP, We test it so you don't have too. Willard Scotty McBain! Corn cob is still my wonderment? Mountain man

Thank you for sharing this knowledge with us in the last three videos I have learned a lot keep up the excellent work six stars brother

Hopefully people notice your safety when pausing with a no fire and muzzle down range. Thanks for another interesting vid.

Hay is a mixture of plants with seeds. Straw is from 1 plant (usually wheat) with no seed.

I've noticed somethings all the best woods you have tried for charcoal have in common. Balsa, Willow, Alder Buckthorn. 1. They grow very fast. 2. They like to grow in wet area's/climates. 3. Tend to be less dense. Maybe try something like Mangrove wood.

Hay there! You're on to something!

Thanks for all your hard work on this

Thank you Jake. I always like your videos. Love your style and humor.

Ok thank you very much sir teacher. Nice of you to make this video clip with charcoal from grass, bushes and trees from the orchard with fruit trees. To know what we should do, how to improve and repair our black powder. But as you said, it is better to make the charcoal only from pine, alder, willow or red cedar, so that we have a good fuel job in the barrel of the rifle and the pan. Let's also purify the nitrate from micro-nano impurities. To grind with the mill for 48 hours and if we have the opportunity to buy brass balls. To make the grains of gunpowder exactly divided and arranged in 1f, 2f, 3f, 4f in separate containers for each size of gunpowder grains as it should be. Also let's make the ratio of gunpowder 75% saltpeter, 10% sulfur and 15% charcoal and not as I did 70% saltpeter 15% sulfur and 15% charcoal so that the black powder ignites more easily. I wish you all the best. You teach really much better than many other teachers in the world in this activity. Thank you very much for your work and for teaching us. Tell me a bank account or western union address to which I can wire you a modest sum of money. I don't have money because I live in a poor country, but you deserve to send a small token amount of money to you.

Always entertaining and love the experiments.

I’m thankful for people like you, I can get good information that’s trustworthy and reliable with no bias. Thank You

Thanks for the video. Now I remember why I use percussion caps and not flintlocks. Lol

Ty brother that would be aggravating could be worse it could be happening to me lol ty for continually trying to perfect your powder making fixing to go tomorrow and get 50 cal long rifle watching ya'll and couple others make me want to start back at it after 55 years ty

Jake, you do good work. I love it.

Interesting thing about hay/grasses/bamboo: while they are light weight, they are only so because they're more or less hollow in the middle, literally like a straw. If you were to take a grass, cut it open and spread it out flat, you realize you get some pretty dense stuff, with long fibers all in one direction. Some testing I did in college showed it was similar to walnut.

Actually just ordered what i need to make my own black powder. Going to try all sorts of things to get my carbon. Excited to see what works best

Thank-you for the education!

This one i was the most exited

Very nice and i like the toilet paper works better than anything I've ever used for charcoal.

I always look forward to your news videos, keep up the great work!! I have made black powder for many years pretty much like you do. One thing to try, instead of throwing all the fines back into the ball mill, try them in a cap and ball revolver...it works fine!

Informative and great video Jake! 👍

I actually plug your events into my calendar app, and I set alarms for them. 😊

Horse hay, grass. Cow hay, legumes. Cheap hay, weed combo. Each version will have different species. I'm not sure, but this may cause different powder reaction. Thanks for your information. You've opened my eyes on black powder. I'm sure that you've saved quite a few people from having accidents.

Enjoyed this 👍👍👍👍

Having burned my fair share of old haybales I had a pretty good idea of how this would go lol Hay packed together basically just smolders, it doesn't really burn until you get a bunch of air into it

One of the last developments in black powder was flax straw.......and it was chared to a lesser degree...called brown powder, heard it was superior....the choice for cannon grains, it palletized well and smoked less but came on the eve of smokeless so little more was made.

Jake, while you are on this quest....try wasp next or hornets nest.....you are still the man!

Love your vids

Good Friday!

Still hoping to see a test of Bounty paper towels. Im loving these charcoal test videos!

I experienced the same issue with the old GOEX on high humid days. I had to constantly clean to keep it firing.

I'd love to see a video where you try different powder charges to see the point where the increase in velocity stops regardless of powder increase.

Great work mate - the experimentation and shared knowledge is priceless. I've often read/heard that softer, faster growing fibrous woods potentially make better charcoal - so .... don't laugh... but what about bamboo - it grows really quickly, has a well defined fiber structure and it is quite soft as it grows before maturing ... just putting it out there .... lol :)

After shooting your rifle and seeing how amazing it is. I am Offended by that hay powder.

Thanks !

Cows make grass clippings. You should try making antique muzzleloading propellant from well aged cow grass clippings.

Coffee filters, bleached and Unbleached would be an interesting experiment due to their high content of tough cellulose.

"You see the chunkies over there?" - Sir, no need to insult your audience like that 😂

Hey Jake, the hay powder didn’t do as well as the shit ticket stuff. But meself like many others, appreciate all your research that helps we your fans! The 24 hour hay stuff you could call SlowEX, just an idea. Many Thanks and Many Blessings and always check your balls before milling! DaveyJO in Pennsylvania

Rationality is the reason I watch your work . And it's much safer than those guys trying to find the left amount of tannerite in black powder substitute . 😮 While claiming to be real hillbillies . I would get serious about stopping that but figure that problem will take care of itself soon enough 😢 Thanks for your work guys and someday hillbillies may hold heads high again . At least , when the bullets are going the right way again . T/C/E

Almost up to 100K subscribers Jake!

Hey, Hey ...... What this taught me was, if using Hay Bale Black Powder during a bear attack, I should probably polish up on my "grinning down a bear" skills 🐻

It works at least, this could make a good "teaching how to sort with some problems related to muzzleloading" it prooves not all soft and fluffy charcoals works as good

Fantastic video! Success often comes unexpectedly, but hay just wasn't making the grade. In the comments to one of your videos, you mentioned coconut husk as a possible carbon source. I thought it a comical suggestion, thanks to the musings of Monty Python, but upon further reading, it isn't so comical. If you can find enough of it or eat enough coconuts, coconut husk is supposedly a viable starting point for charcoal. Also, an expired German patent, DE2328010A1, starts with peat. Apparently, coked peat produces some hot and fast charcoal. So, I suppose you can pick from your own coconut palms or step out to your private peat bog and have fun! Thank you for the entertaining and informative videos!

Like this show lots .id watch one everyday Want one of those rifles. And want to load up my 45 colt.got most of the stuff. Am i feeding my horse and cows silica ? Didnt know that. Bad daddy.

Just putting it here. Animal charcoal. Is carbonized animal bones. It's used as a black pigment. Could be the worst BP element but it's so hard-core

Awesome. I was voting for grass clippings...i'm surprised it even worked as well as it did. Grass is a vegetative matter and doesn't have the rigid cell structure of wood, ie...it doesn't retain the voids after being charred and milled. Pretty cool that it worked as good as it did...now try some pinecones...i think those could make the best of all.

Thanks for the fun vid

I’ve seen charred grass that has a “shiny” appearance. I think the gaps between the blades and the holes in the stalks give it a low bulk density, and it just has fewer small pores.

If memory serves the cocoa powder was partially charred rye stalks, and that stuff was supposed to be fairly powerful.

i noticed a difference when i got my vevor tumbler and quit using the harbor freight one!! by the way if you're still interested in different charcoal sources i had an old timer tell me that corn cobs can make descent powder but you have to let them weather and dry out real good!

I once wonder what charcoal from a cottonwood tree would turn out like but I never tried it yet! I had a man tell me river breech wood made into charcoal and I never tried it either. But I did try the toilet paper and it works. And I made charcoal from corn cods and it did pretty good.

English books says exactly about rye straw(other like wheat are poor) as great alternative to wilow, I’ll try to buy rye straw and make black powder with it.

Hay that's cool!

Glad I'm not the only one with hang fire issues, Great Video though. I still would like to see you use BAMBOO T.P for your carbon source at some point, again thanks for another awesome video!

Commit my neighbor said his grandfather used wax Myrtle wood to make his charcoal for black powder and he said it worked great! I know one thing about it dry wax Myrtle burns hot and has white ashes when burned up and really fine white ash is left!

Try a bag of buckwheat hull mulch. Probably get it at a garden center. You’ll pay through the nose if you buy it as pillow stuffing. It’s super lightweight.

For a serious suggestion, egg cartons. For a goofy one, cigarette butts.

i did ask to try corn charcoal on another comment, i gave it a bit more thought... corn kernels can and have been used as fuel for coal forges, because its just that energy dense! and it could be a good way to show what difference the density of the carbon source makes. by making a batch with unpopped corn, and the other with charred popped popcorn/feed corn. hot air popcorn machines would avoid making it oily. and in that test, you would know that both have the exact same composition, just a different density.

Consistent

You guys ever think of trying sage brush, the gray stuff less creosote if that matters, lots around, here anyway. Eastern Montana is full of it. Love to watch you guys, I've been shooting smoke poles since 1969 love the flint

I think I read years ago that straw contains silica. That's probably what you're seeing as those flakes.

I love this series. Thanks for keeping it going. How about lufa?

One of these days you should do newspaper or phone books

Thanks for your great videos. I was always surprised by the zero failure rate in your other videos, this stuff makes up for that .... My theory was actually that fast growing plants may not acquire many other minerals and be quite pure carbon. Would be nice if one here in your audience had access to a gas chromatograph and you could each time send in samples to get "a look inside" what the composition of the charcoal really is. The other thing, ..., I would guess things like hay, which people had in abundance in the last 400 years or so was already tried. If that was a real game changer it would already been used and heard of. For the military a better powder back in the day would have had many advantages, number of shots on the man, more supply in one cargo, higher production quantity in shots per time, ... Maybe your best chances lay in the exotics continuing the line of researchers from the past using what was not available to them. This is exactly what lead to the discovery you made with the toilet paper.

Somebody beat me to this observation, but the problem could be phytoliths, particles of silica that help with structural rigidity, and may offer some defense against the herbivores, who have evolved specialized teeth to cope with the problem. Although I find it counterintuitive that they wouldn't also create difficulty loading if they're interfering with combustion. I expect you'd get accelerated bore wear from prolonged use of phytolith-contaminated powder.

I can see where straw would make poor powder. It has no substance, no mass, so I can see where it would be weak. I would almost bet it was dirtier than you think, but being so soft it cleaned right up with just a little pressure. That may help explain some of the ignition issues as well.

Thanks Guy's!!

Hemp Hurd animal bedding, sold in 50lbs bags, has 50% more cellulose than any other natural source.

Damn, I was really hopeful for this one; I'm happy it at least runs kinda clean. If I could ask for anything, I would like to see two separate batches: One pressed in your 20t as you would normally, and one pressed a lot less (say to 12t if you can measure that out). I'm interested in seeing how much of a difference that make in terms of spread.

Grass clippings or CLIBBINS?!?! GOBLESS HOSS!!!!!!!!