Wonder Bread, builds bodies nine different ways - and rifle powder kind of is one of them. Actually, I'd rather shoot it than eat it. I can't even call it real bread.
Wonder bread and grain box processed foods usually have 28% wood cellulose filler, listed as “fiber”. Basically indigestible material. Wonder bread is just 72% short is being toilet paper. “Not the worst powder” were the words used I think, it’s almost wood, so it should be shoot able. Suggested products to make charcoal. Corn cobs, chopsticks construction paper (the kid stuff), willow leaves (or any kind of leaf)
Now that you have started on this journey of black powder exploration it got me thinking. Old white linen bed sheets that have been washed many times over should be free of most impurities that may have been present when new(ish). Worth a shot.
I had an old buddy 50 yrs ago who used to compress his powder a bit by tossing a big heavy brass ramrod down on it hard until twanged and jumped up a foot or so where he skillfully caugth
I mentioned this before but I think I'll keep mentioning it in hopes it gains some kind of traction. I'd like to see activated carbon like is used in fish tank and tap water filters. It's basically the opposite structure as carbon black. It's basically charcoal that's been treated with acid to make it super micro porous and dramatically increase its surface area. I know people want to find super cheap options, but, I really think this could be really high performing.
Burns super slow. In short it's too clean per se. Charcoal fit for pyro use has a couple of impurities that are required to function and so many of them that it's more magic than science. My suspicion though is the metal oxides in the form of ash can act as a catalyst both in the formation of charcoal and during the burning of the finished product, and that the charcoal has a high phenol/creosote content (in spite of them being volatiles.)
I live in Finland and they are the top coffee drinking country in the world. "1. Finland - 12 kg/26 lbs - Finland is the world's biggest consumer of coffee on a per-person basis. The average Finn drinks nearly four cups a day. Coffee is so popular in Finland that two 10-minute coffee breaks are legally mandated for Finnish workers." so if black powder made with used coffee beans is OK well I think I know what I going to be doing?
Many bread companies do put plasticizers and countless other chemicals in their bread. It amazes me what we're all so willing to eat these days. There really shouldn't be anything in bread that smells like chemicals or especially plastic when it's burned to the point of being charcoal.
Reading through the ingredients in Wonder bread, I see no such plastcizers, and can't find any credible references to them. Would you care to elaborate your statement?
@@Deveyus I didn't say Wonder bread specifically, and at one point people were boycotting Subway for having them in their bread. Just google "plasticizers in bread". It's that easy. I just did it in two seconds and found articles on it, so there's no reason you can't. They're actually in many foods and not just bread/wheat containing foods... and also, just because something is a "plasticizer" does not mean it's made out of a dangerous chemical. There are natural chemicals that are used as plasticizers... but being "natural" does not guarantee that they're safe either though.
I'm loving this series. Totally didn't see this one coming. and its telltale of your solid procedure that you can even make wonderbread powder shoot just 100fps shy of Goex. Even damn wonderbread gets a fair shake! Keep on going.
Corn I think would be very dirty. I used to burn corn for heat for my house for about 4-5 years, and it would only take about a day and I would have a clinker in the burn box about the size of a brick, and when it cooled it was very hard, until it absorbed moisture from the air, at which time it would fall apart. Wood pellets would burn, and the ash blow out of the burn box and I could run a week to week and 1/2 before having to vacuum it out.
Man ,this is just getting plumb entertaining. ! BUT shows that we can make bang bang self defense Dust out of about anything . Some better than others but will still make the bad guys oil light come on. Thanks for a GREAT channel. M. B.
Keep them coming my man! I am LOVING this series! Great job on giving everything a fair shake! We know the sap in pine doesn't make the best powder, but they did use fat wood for the sulfur content. If you get REALLY bored I guess you could make charcoal out of fat wood to see how it works.
As a mechanic i would love to see you use shop towels, not clean ones either. Randomly used shop towels. Maybe with some grease, oil, anti-freeze, whatever you wiped up. I'd also like to see you make brown powder, where you don't fully char the wood. On another note, thinking back to your Duplex load. I've heard of people using flash paper as part of it. Either instead of the smokeless powder, or as a wad to separate the two powders.
I bet cornstarch or plain old bamboo would make some light and fluffy charcoal! It’s funny that other carbon sources like bread starch make usable powder, but the chemistry makes sense. Tree cellulose and wonderbread starch are both made from nothing but glucose rings, just connected in a different orientation. These vids are awesome!
Try dry sample of quaking aspen . No bark or heart wood . Light , no resin , burns fast , burns clean , burns hot . Here in northern Maine folks call it biscuit wood . Might be hard to get charcoal out of it .
Ditto. I have used Bigtooth Aspen here in Central Indiana and it makes a fast powder, about 70 fps faster than GOEX. No problem making charcoal with it.
Looking over the suggestions, I think a likely choice would be corn stalks; fast growing with a pithy center. Also like coffee bean/grounds just for what it could smell like. My fastest powders so far are Sycamore, Staghorn Sumac, and Big leaf Willow.
I live in an area of Texas that has two native woods that might be interesting to see if it was worth a darn. Mesquite and Mountain Juniper. The Mesquite is used mainly for BBQ wood and the Mountain Juniper is mostly used for fence post since it has high rot resistance. Both woods burn extremely hot. As always I have enjoyed your presentations.
man, that crust joke got me good, if you're this funny and talented enough to make black powder out of all this strange stuff, I might just need to subscribe!
Almost anything that can be charred (tecnically called pyrolisis) can make charcoal; some not suitable for BP but some others are way better, maybe a mix with balsa and that specific toilet paper could make the best compromise between clean and powerful BP, but if there were some R/C club near you could have some balsa from crashed RC planes. As far as i know "wonder" bread adds some corn syrup to their mix, maybe another brand that don't add sweetener can make a little better BP. Thanks for sharing and as always the best videos!
Okay you definitely have me wanting a flintlock and making my own powder. I never thought that charcoal would make that big a difference. Im going to start with Basswood. Please keep this going! This is interesting and fascinating to say the least. Corn husks and cobs should definitely be on the list as well as popcorn. If you can stand the smell. I'm thinking corn stalk might be the ticket?
Awesome! These are my favorite vids... I can't wait for the Scotts... Maybe pine cones or lawn grass would be good... Dried lawn grass would be really interesting for obvious reasons... Thanks
You said it did that to embarrass you when your rifle flashed ithe pan. I think you did it on purpose to demonstrate your steely nerves and super human, rock steady holding ability. If not for the rising pan smoke, l would have thought the video was paused. That muzzle remained absolutely motionless! Respect!
I stumble across a booklet (35 pages) giving a small history of how they (Pouderie D’Aubonne S.A.) make Swiss BP. Of note is the following: "The wood is aged for 3 years prior to being used to make charcoal in the plant. The Alder Buckthorn is cut in late winter just after the sap rose in the tree with the thawing of the ground. The sap at that time of year being rich in sugar which the tree had stored in its root system. This sugar acting as food for the tree while it sets out flowers and develops leaves to the point where they would produce the sugar the tree needs for growth. This sugar remains in the wood after it has dried. The finished charcoal, in addition to having carbonized cellulose would also contain some caramelized sugar. Simple experiments have shown that this inclusion of caramelized sugar is of benefit in the charcoal in the finished powder." "Charring conditions. Sporting powder. 300 to 320 degrees Centigrade (572 - 608 F) for 8 hours which gives a fixed carbon content of about 65% in the finished charcoal."
Voting again for pure fluff pulp from a cellulose mill with no glues etc.. for you to try as a carbon source. Aside from that though this video was excellent as always and I really enjoy watching you try weird carbon sources even if they do end up sucking it's still fun to see how they turned out.
Looking forward to the used coffee grounds test because my granddad told me once about how they used to collect used coffee grounds for the war effort. "Really?" "Yes, they used them to make the black powder for hand grenades..." Thinking back on it with a lifetime of learning since then, I think it's more likely they were used to make activated charcoal because lots of need for purification & filtration at industrial scales of making chemicals to make the explosives to win the war. But who knows? We will, after your test!
Dried flowers sounds like the most hippie boom boom dust ever, I like it. Grass on the other hand is free so it's very interesting to see how it performs as self defense dark sand.
I would be quite interested to see how charcoal made from lawn grass would work. Just any old grass that you might cut, be it from your lawn, range, Or anywhere else. Edit- Alternatively. Charcoal made from tree bark, No specific kind of bark, Any will do
Great video Jake, you are teaching us all that we can make bp out of anything, just that much of it isn't what you want in a flinter or percussion. We are warming up here so I will be trying some different char in the not so near future, not much else to do.
Love the video. I know it takes a lot of effort for evey BP run. It would be good to come up with a charcoal test. That way you can just make a BP run only for the charcoal that passes. Looks like folks have hundreds of recommendations. Appreciate all the hard work.
I always just use spruce, mostly because I use a lot of spruce at work and always have plenty of drops piled up. But I do really enjoy these videos, thanks for taking the time to try out various materials and sharing the results.
If I remember right, I think that in England, the Alder tree was much used for gunpowder charcoal, also where it grew was not too close to human habitations (towns).
Powdered cotton flocking as used in fiberglass fill is real cotton, just ground up in small partials. I heard it comes from the left over fuzz on cotton seed as it is being processed. It looks like bleached wheat flower with bigger pieces than actual dust. I plan to make nitrocellulose out of it. I was thinking it might make a really good single source and clean charcoal.
Thank you I have subscribed and liked each video very entertaining. You have motivated me into shooting my black powder rifle again. Thank you and stay safe!!!
Great Mucker ,, I love your humour ,and especially your tenacious approach to all the testing , your doing great work for the BP community, I would like to see if there is any life left in those coffee grounds . Best regards. Reg
It’s amazing to me just how much difference your charcoal source has on the performance of the powder. I wonder what would be had from the dead roadside grasses we have around here in SWLA.
Used coffee grounds seems like a good experiment. Plentiful and in common use. If it is effective it would provide another use besides a soil amendment. Enjoying the videos.
Charcoal is a hydrocarbon. So when you make your “carbon source”, it will always have residual oils left in it, varying in weights. With most of the light weight gases and oils being already burned off. Washing carcoal removed the lightest oils first, which are the easiest to light and leaves rhe heavier oils that are hard to burn. When you got the carbon black, its all the heavies. Same with sugar or others. Different oils and amounts come in different woods, and my guess is the best black powder is made from “gasoline not motor oil” types of terpenes
So supposedly the purest form of carbon is made from powdered sugar that you mix with sulfuric acid and the sulfuric acid heats it so much that it burns it and leaves nothing but pure carbon I wonder how well that would work Ethan Edit: as soon as I made this comment you mentioned sugar lol
I remember seeing some completely charred tortillas on my dads grill after he forgot them in a barbecue. If youre continuing these wacky black powder recipes id like to see how well this works.
Love this series! I was thinking an interesting source of carbon would be cat-tails (not the meow kind). They are largely a dense mat of very tiny cellulose tendrils, on a small central core. When I was young, I used to like fluffing them up into a big ball and then tossing a match at them and watching it go poof!
I made some antique firearms propellant using Angle soft TP and some with the Cottenelle. The Cottenelle out preforms the Angle soft and is not as dirty.
after having tried several woods and toilet paper, I will soon try pine cones, I am trying the .308 (like your British .303 I really liked it) I ordered a refill kit and a bullet mold I follow you closely, it's passionate
I have no experience with making or using bp, just here for the fun of the channel. But i've read pine cones are mostly used in pyrotechnics to make tiger tail effects. Lots of long burning sparks. Read online it fouls like hell.
Well, I would suggest starch again, that appears to be very clean and has some formula like CH2OH-O-OH ... this may even be good to use directly but would require quite some experimenting for the mix. When charred I would guess only the Carbon part would be left and the main part of it will gas out. Yield may be very low. So this should come out 90+% Carbon maybe? Alder Buckthorn was/is popular for Black Powder due to its low ash which likely means high carbon. The Toast had likely lots of funny stuff in it which ended up as ash obstructing the deflagration. The ingredients list has salt and several calcium things in it.
I love this channel I was at a friends house who carves Tiki’s out of palm trees he was burning the scrap pieces in his fire pit the night before, I picked up a piece of it Al charred up and almost charcoal it was light and I wondered how that would do in BP
@@WonderfulWinoI don’t think there’s a such thing as “way too clean” . I think you meant to say way too lean . Possibly but how would that have anything to do with the stoichiometric ratio which is what determines lean or rich?
Looking forward to your density video! Maybe you can delve into how to adjust the weight/volume if the batch is way off? I suppose a powder could be re-pucked at possibly a higher pressure to even out the ratio?
Wow, always entertaining, & really enjoy your clips as very informative. No matter how bad always show it. Eg, miss fire for #3. Could have edited it but didnt. Great work. Cant wait to see whats next.👍
Another idea for a carbon source…….basswood. Basswood is used by carvers because it is consistently dense and soft enough to easily carve with hand tools. It’s not prohibitively expensive and it’s easy to get. Give ‘er a try 😁
I had watched the video yesterday and today I was opening a package and remembered you asking for ideas. So, If you haven't thought about it or someone else hasn't mentioned it, how about plain brown cardboard boxing material. Looking forward to your Scott toilet paper video, because that is what I have. Waiting on items so I can build a ball mill and get started making my own. Have already made some slow fuse for my cannon kit that came today.
I have heard of a very old charcoal source and I thought I would ask if you have tried it, and that is black walnut shell. From the information I heard, black walnut shell is very dense and makes a very nice charcoal for small, tiny actually, forges used about 200 years ago, maybe more. The tiny forges were made and used to produce small metal castings in shops where they didn't want to fire up the normal forge, as it would be too much heat for tiny projects, but they still needed a decent heat to melt regular metals, zinc, lead, tin, and etc. I found the information while researching small forges for my small projects, and when I learned about the walnut shell, a candle light flickered on. If you don't have an easy access to walnut shell, I happen to live in an area where I am surrounded by black walnut trees, which is why I call my farm the Walnut Grove Farm, and I also have these minions that shuck, clean, and stack the shells for drying, and I could send you a bag of shells to test!
The shells of nuts typically contain lots of lignin. While it will produce a char with high calorific value good for forging, I doubt it will work well in BP.
Sir: thank you for the videos I have been pondering the charcoal made from the alder buck thorn the Swiss may be using a sub species or a different Species. Just like the different willows there is so many subspecies if that makes sense!
I would like to see brown paper sack material used I have been getting some of that used as packing in boxes. Keep up the great work you make very interesting.
From the pressure used to seat each additional ball, and the increase in velocity after each additional reload, I would suggest that you are pushing incompletely burned powder residue onto the fresh powder. Just a thought.
With TP turning out pretty good.... It makes sense to go down the rabbit hole with cheaper TP. Some of the industrial stuff you find at Sam's club (or people can walk away with from work or public bathrooms..) could be interesting. You know the John Wayne TP; It is rough, gruff and don't take shit off anyone. I would also suggest since TP turned out well. 1. Paper towels. I would suggest starting off cheap and see how it is. There are also industrial brown paper towels and white ones you see in public bathrooms, sams club.... 2. Scrap paper someone who works in an office could get close to the printer, copiers.... i.e. FREE paper with some ink on it. 3. FREE cardboard boxes. Your wife orders from Amazon, you get the box to play with. ;-) 4. If your grocery store has them for free... Paper grocery bags. Again, this is a FREE source for some people. If it isn't free for you, don't.
Excellent information as always. I wonder if the chemical smell is from the preservatives? As several others have mentioned grass clippings/hay/straw would be interesting. That's something most everyone would have access to and somewhat inexpensive.
Another very interesting and informative Video, thanks for that! I would still like you to do a test of some BAMBOO TOILET paper. And for something different how about using some old, dried bones or some leather?? Love your videos keep up the awesome work , cant wait for your next one!!
Not surprised at the performance if Swiss vs GOEX as it definitely feels "snappier" when shooting it. Interesting series. Don't feel like making my own video so--subscribed.
It seems that almost anything that will char will make powder that works, just some not that well. So interesting .... thanks for all your time and effort to inform us....... I am told that pine cones work well... haven't tried them yet. 🙂
The weird "car fire" smell may be from Azodicarbonamide, which is used to whiten bread and also to make foamed foamed plastic like yoga mats, hence the infamous Subway "yoga mat bread" articles. Not to bore you too much with chemistry, but amides tend to have weird smells when they decompose. I am not a professional chemist, so this is just an educated guess.
I’d think coconut husk should work for a Good charcoal and probably was used in the past at some time In the past . If you can get hemp stocks It probably make a dense charcoal tho
Just found your channel a couple of weeks ago. I have watched many off your videos and have a comment about your noting the Swiss powder is shinier than the others and performs better than all but your Cottonelle charcoal. Historically, black powder made from sodium nitrate supposedly out performs black powder made with potassium nitrate. HOWEVER, the sodium nitrate based powder absorbs moisture quickly from the air, thus slowing the burn rate. It was found that coating it with graphite slowed the moisture absorption dramatically but slowed the sodium nitrate based powder burn rate to about equal to potassium based powder. With modern processing and packaging, I suspect that the Swiss powder is Sodium based, and the others are potassium based. One way to test, is the sodium based powder should burn with a yellow or yellower flame. Put a line of powder on the ground and have your observers quite a distance away so the brightness of the flame does not keep the color receptors in your eyes from seeing the base color. Just a thought from an old man that has a wide education background. SEMPER FI
I dump my coffee grounds in my gardens every day, and since watching your series on alternate charcoal, I keep thinking, about it. It's free, in fact, Starbucks often have bags of it that are free to people that want it in their gardens. Their shit is all different kinds, and may not be as good as straight coffee. Where do we vote?
