Homemade Black Powder Instructional - Minimal Equipment 

It'll cost you about 20$ total for equipment if you get the coffee grinder from a thrift store. The only big cost is your potassium nitrate, which can be cheap if you get it as bulk fertilizer.

​@@kitchen_chemistryI found a pound of potassium nitrate on Amazon for $16

the shed idea sounds like a dream

You're right. I stay away from that in this video. I did do that for making a fuse, but very tentatively because its risky.

I was grinding Potassium Perchlorate with my cheap Walamrt coffee grinderand the motor burnt up causing it to short- out and sent sparks in the mill and it exploded like a hand grenade. I had minor injuries which I can't explain, (Miracle)? I should have blown my hands off. I did some research and found out that after the particles get smaller than 100 mesh, they will explode with a spark or static, with no fuel.

@@hunternedib1119 hence the scare I feel when working with it. Thats amazing you didn't lose your fingers

yes I agree, that'd be ideal. I wanted to make it with minimal equipment though, and in total this much equipment is under 50$ whereas a ballmill itself is over 60$, excluding media.

haha thanks man :)

Willow charcoal is harder to come by I find, I used pine which does yield a lower burning powder but was good enough for fire crackers

@@kitchen_chemistry ah ok, in europe willow is everywhere. great vid, ur firecrackers are awesome

@@bomen330 haha thanks man. Some of the comments have some valid improvements so if you're gonna make some I'd follow their advice. Plus the willow BP and you'd get some insane ones

Sulfur I got from amazon, 99.9% pure for 18$. I dont think theres a cheaper way. The KNO3 is bought from a hydroponics store. If its unavailable where you live, you can make it with potassium chloride (sodium-free salt at the grocery store) and calcium nitrate (fertilizer). Those are the easiest "over the counter" ways to my knowledge

@@kitchen_chemistry I've also seen how to get PN from from the dirt in/under animal pens from several sources, though I haven't tried it yet. Haven't seen a way to get sulphur though, other than buying it.

@@pARabell9mm Train tracks. Sulphur often falls off trains transporting it. Its a biproduct of cleaning natural gas, so its normally transported to some storage facility

There is a mix that you use sugar instead of sulfur and it works pretty good

@@kennethparker2168 Sulfur helps with heating up the reaction though, so it would be the ideal solid if you had access to it

There were jokes? Geez, I thought the whole thing was a joke. It's like, "What not to do." There's stupid safety violations, and just inefficiency. It might "burn," but it'll prolly just be a smoke bomb, nothing more. Kinda like what I made when I was 10, before I learned anything.

Amazon or thrift store. I used a flour strainer (100-120 mesh), but it all depends on how fine you want your charcoal. Ideally finer is better

great idea i'll let u know how it goes

I've made it in a similar method and ran it through my .50 caliber Hawkin rifle from 60 grains up to 120 grains. It wasn't really any more dirty than store bought black powder. Ran it in my .45 caliber single shot pistol and my .44 caliber revolver. Works fine in all of them, would say it was a bit less powerful than store bought.

The stuff he is making won't work in a rifle if it does it would be very slow and week I've been making black powder for years and what I make is as fast and as clean as store bought black powder if not cleaner if your interested in how to make good black powder go to everything black powder on you tube or Hoffman reproduction on you tube they will teach you how to make real black powder

too much money for me right now 😪

Yeah that'd be ideal for lift charges, however I made this BP for firecrackers. I have that video filmed just need to edit it. The powder I made in this video makes some pretty loud ones

make some firecrackers, bit of work but worth the fun!

Thanks :)

Ball bill from harbor freight is 60$ excluding shipping. Willow charcoal is hard to find and you need to buy it. "minimal equipment" means minimal equipment. I spent 20$ on equipment, and the only other costs were sulphur and potassium nitrate. I do agree thought, that willow charcoal and ball milling is optimal if you're willing to spend the money

Its good enough for my purposes. If you want to use BP in a rocket, you'd need to granulate it, mill it, and use softer wood for charcoal. The point of this video was to show that you can make BP with "Minimal Equipment" which I ended up using for firecrackers

haha no 😅

Lol check the first video on my channel

Check hydroponics/fertilizer/plant stores. If not, then you can get calcium nitrate and mix it with potassium chloride, and freeze the solution to form crystals of potassium nitrate

👀

I found that the sulfur is really hard to sift because its so heavy and hard to get into small enough chunks, thats why I combined it in the coffee grinder

You are lucky there isn't too much structural violence over videos like this; it's an undervalued video. The charcoal can damage a blender.

Ball mills are expensive and this was done with "minimal equipment"

i bought my ball mill with 70$. it's a rocktumbler and use marbles or ceramic balls as milling media@@kitchen_chemistry

You can make it from calcium nitrate and potassium chloride

@@kitchen_chemistry thanks man I appreciate it

You can buy it at most hardware stores stump remover or just order it online. I get mine online order 10 pounds at a time for like $20 dollars

@@texascelt8363 Yeah, unfortunately its banned in some places because its a precursor. Although a bit more expensive, it can still be easily made

@@kitchen_chemistry yup I figure eventually it will be banned everywhere that's why I stock up on plenty of it to last me the rest of my life and probably my kids and grandkids too lol

Absolutely. If I had an empty paint can, I would've done that.

I would place some silica packs in there if I had any. However, the rest of my potassium nitrate will be used to make nitric acid for future projects I have in mind

Desiccant packs?

@@donoberloh yes, they suck the moisture out of the air. KNO3 is hygroscopic, meaning it grabs moisture from the air which is bad for BP. Using other substances to grab the moisture first increases the quality of ur oxidizer

electric hot plate, low heat on a pan for an hour stir every 15 min and the nitrate will be completely dry.

I agree that you need a ballmill for great black powder, however, even the cheapest ball mills that work are ~60$ when you include the price for medium. "Minimal Equipment" means minimal equipment. This BP works for firecrackers, which is what I needed it for. Obviously if you want it for a gun you'd invest in equipment.

@@kitchen_chemistry Thank you for your reply! No drama, fire crackers, rockets and fireworks don't need so much investment in work and gear. I made my ballmill with a beer keg (yes it's big!) a motor from a air conditioner, 4 rollerblade wheel, iron bar, 4 pulleys and wood work. A ball mill is also usefull to powder any other stuff needed (lead oxide now for me as i am making batteries..) Good luck and keep making BP it's the cheapest and best hobby in the world!

@@Frogmobile52 absolutely. I'll probably invest in a ball mill for dark aluminum once i create a chlorate/perchlorate electrolysis cell (for use as flash powder)

@@kitchen_chemistry my ballmill:ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lmd2DAfxPO4.html my chlorate cell ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nJb030ddB1s.html

@@Frogmobile52 Good job man, i'm planning on making some titanium substrate cobalt/manganese MMO anodes by decomposing their nitrates on etched titanium. The accomplishment of making a sturdy anode is worth more to me than the chemicals lol. I'm thinking of making an induction heater to heat the titanium to high enough temperatures, if not maybe a heat gun-powdered furnace in the future, I'd make a lead dioxide anode which are by far the best for perchlorates which are more desirable (I want all 10 fingers by the time I'm 30)

I find it needs to be completely burnt. Have u had success with it partially burnt?

@@kitchen_chemistry make the coal in a can with a small vent hole when the smoke stops venting from the hole take it off the heat and plug the hole then leave it too completely cool . I find young willow branches between 1&2 inches thick the best . Have a go and see what you think.

@@kelvinsparks4651 I've heard of that method, but i'm pretty sure it only works with soft wood yeah? Willow firewood is hard to find where i'm at

@kitchen_chemistry it will work with all woods but the harder the wood the longer it takes. If you can't get willow try birch ,Hazel or alder , they are the next best that I've found.

Actually, gunpowder is barely even an explosive. You can hit it with a hammer, even heat it up to over 200c without it exploding. According to various sources, it ignites when heated over 400c or when exposed to a flame. However, in the video I only place charcoal in the oven, which is even safer.

Should be OK if the oven is warmed to about 110C and the power is turned OFF. Then put the powder in and leave until the oven is cold.

@@KathrynLiz1 That's smart to leave the oven off. I've dried fuses and granules, but have never turned the oven off. Instead I make sure that convection bake is off to prevent any gunpowder from floating around. Next time I'll probably do that though so thanks :)

i wish. i got a 10$ metal stand that my phone falls of 50% of the time lol

@@kitchen_chemistry There are phone clamps that fit a tripod, I've got one.

Gunpowder is quite safe, there are reports of soldiers using it as seasoning because everything in it is edible. However, it was annoying dealing with gunpowder under my fingernails...

🤣 no i just keep a lab making energetics in my basement a secret

dead serious thats how it came when i bought it

And that's fine, the title isnt "best quality BP," its "Homemade BP with Minimal Equipment." Minimal equipment means, unfortunately, minimal equipment. Thus, no expensive equipment was used. I spent 20$ on equipment from a thrift store, discluding the cost of chemicals

@@kitchen_chemistry Thats truth....😆....Thanks for reply

home depot, get a galvinized pipe and with a cap and drill a hole in it, you can create a makeshift flintlock if you add a spark tray

@@kitchen_chemistry or two caps and make a pipe bomb

@@usnchief1339 DEA doesnt like that unfortunately

"minimal equipment" is in the title. If you'd like to expand, go ahead. I enjoy making energetics, but use BP for firecrackers.

@@kitchen_chemistry eventually I would ball mill the mixture with glass marbles. The better mixed and the finer the individual particles, the better. I guess some people would consider it unsafe, but I don’t think you have to worry about that with black powder. Sorry, you did say that, I hope I didn’t sound like a total A hole.

@@madmattdigs9518 Absolutely you're right. Ball milling BP is quite safe with glass marbles, and it would increase the burn rate a ton. I tried making a ball mill, but it broke after ~30 hours of running. I'll probably invest in one once I need powdered aluminum And no worries, you're all good.

@@kitchen_chemistry This is kind of funny but when I was a kid, if you went into any big drugstore, the used to sell jars of saltpeter. It was used for veterinary use I guess as a diuretic. I remember reading the label and there were instructions for how much to give horses and cows. Something like that… then in the same aisle they sold bottles of sublimed sulfur. It was called “flowers of sulfur”. But it was just a very fine powder sulfur. Which people would use in a bath for your skin. So, yeah, I used to go to the drugstore and get 2 of the 3 ingredients just like that. And even though I was a kid, no one ever questioned me about buying them. There was no reason to… then I would just use charcoal from my parents barbecue grill. The coals that were already mostly burnt worked the best. They were already soft and crushed up very easily. From reading old books at the library I learned that for explosive purposes, it was common to use a more even mix. Instead of 75% saltpeter, they used more like 50%. So, more charcoal and sulfur, less KNO3. But when I tried to do that, it actually burned slower. And that discrepancy drove me crazy. What I eventually learned was that you had to mix the ingredients on a molecular level. Very fine and very well mixed. And very dry. And you actually had to hard press it together wet, then dry it, and granulate it. Anyway, I had a lot of fun playing with that, and trying to increase the burn rate. Because really well made, it’s almost as fast as flash powder. Like if you buy it professionally made, for cannons or black powder rifles. It’s just really hard to do that yourself at home.

​@@madmattdigs9518 Can't do that anymore haha. My dad has similar stories. You'd be interested in something called "yellow powder," sometimes called "fulminating mix." It's supposed to be a forgotten energetic mix, found in "Ure's Dictionary of Chemistry, first American edition, Philadelphia, 1821" or in a PDF online which I cant say the name of (RU-vid has disabled comment sections on my past videos). Its copyrighted in 1998 by Dirk Goldmann, so not too hard to find if you search for it. As a side note, I have actually used this BP to make a rifle shooting a marble at >90m/s muzzle velocity, measured using some basic physics.