doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Homemade Powder

Many yrs ago in one of Nash Buckinhams stories, he mentioned that Fred Kimble had made his own powder which he "Cooked" up on the stove, referred to it as a "Brown Powder". I recently read a story which brought this to mind. A man was reminicing about his grandmother, whom he said had Squirrel & Gravy every morning for breakfast. She shot her own squirrel with a flintlock rifle for which she also made her powder. This powder was made from a combination of saltpeter, which she obtained from chicken manure, & cooked up on her stove with a mixture of Sugar. It seemed a large amount of work, but she had little actual cash, & cooked off about a lb at a time which lasted her for quite a while as all she used it for was "Breakfast squirrels". She measured it into her rifle with a thimble he said.

Many years ago, there was a story about a guy who went back to nature with his family, in the "Foxfire" series of books, if I am not mistaken. They lead as primitive a lifestyle as one can imagine, high up in the mountains of Northern California. In the series, he shared pretty much all the aspects of how he had done it, right down to how he made the little bit of money he needed. I have no idea how his story ended, but, he chose a flintlock rifle, because it limited the store bought aspects of his shooting to about nill. He could and did produce his own powder, and a receipe was included for those wanting to try it. Seems to me he recovered one ingredient from the ashes in his fires. He also noted that he had found a green stone about the size of a baseball near a river bottom, that made excellent spark. He later learned it was jade, and quite valuable, but, was mostly consumed by that point. He really didn't care, either.
He had a wife, and kids, and I have often wondered how the story ended. He had been at it for about a decade when the story was published.
Best,
Ted

Miller, your post brought back some choice vignettes of days many years ago when as a young kid interested in guns and chemistry, I would buy pound after pound of saltpeter (75 cents per pound) and mix it with a variety of ingredients including sugar. Commercial black powder for sporting purposes wasn't sold anywhere nearby but every once in a while I got my hands on some "black pellet powder" that someone's dad or graddad brought home from the mines years before. Pellet powder was compressed black powder with a slightly different formulation, obsolete in the mines when I was a kid due to risk of setting off methane. Miners often brought extra caps and powder home and my own grandfather had a stash of stuff in the wood cellar for the 4th of July and use around the property. When I did get my hands on pellet powder we would use it in regular and homemade muzzleloading guns. Also used the homemade mixes for the same purposes.

Yep I cooked ingredients on the stove and did some other stupid things. Fortunately never got hurt. That was during the start of the space race and NASA, and almost all the young guys were building homemade rockets. I had a homemade "matchlock" muzzleloader that was set off with a wooden kitchen match driven forward by a lock powered with rubber bands. A little innovation there.

The sugar mixture mix you asked about would burn comparatively slowly, not as well as regular black powder. I remember reading about "brown powder" in a book and as I recall it was made from a different type of charcoal. It was considered somewhat stronger than regular black powder although I'm pretty sure it didn't have sugar in the formula.

Sadly, days gone by. Not that long ago really. My friends and I had some good clean fun and never did anything destructive with our homemade stuff. My experiences during that time frame set the stage for my education, career and hobbies. I bought the saltpeter in a drug store and I often think about that when in modern drug stores picking up meds, etc. Can you imagine the alarms that would ring if a 12 or 13 year old kid walked into a store today and asked for saltpeter? Besides the police there would be calls to the mental health people and social agencies to figure out what he's up to and how his parents went wrong in his upbringing. Hey, I think you can still buy saltpeter in small quantities in farm feed and fertilizer stores. It hasn't been in drug stores in years. The fertilizer grade is probably NaNO3 versus KNO3 but it will still work okay.

Thanks for the memories. Silvers

For folks interested in such, seek out an offical US Army Field Manual Titled "Improvised Munitions". It contains techniques for making your own Gun Powder, and primers - along with other more dangerous items. The nice thing about this FM, is that these processes were tested by the Army for some level of safety and effectiveness.

The "Foxfire" series of books was a collection of factual stories and experiences of the mountain people of rural North Carolina, not Northern California. There is a Foxfire museum in one of the little towns, I have been there and marveled at some of the old mountian ways. I bought the entire series of books and still have them. I think that certain types of charcoal could have been the ingredient pulled from their fires for their home made powders. The books also recounted the making of lye soap from the ashes of fires, extracting the lye by pouring water through the ashes. Very interesting books, but it's North Carolina.

How many books in the series? I have at least three and would like to know which one it's found in, without spending hours leafing through them and finding I did not have the right copy.

Many years ago? Surely not - I'm not old enough to remember "many years ago", and I remember spending many hours in the "Foxfire" series...

Anywhoo... I remember looking into the homemade blackpowder idea, umm..., several years ago, and one of the ingredients was "stale urine". I also remember thinking that this was just one step too far. I mean, you might convince me to pee in a bucket to make my own blackpowder, but if you tell me I then have to hide it under the porch for a year to let it get stale (?)!
I'll find another outlet for my need to get "back to nature..." Besides, I don't have a porch.

I'm not kidding. Search "gunpowder" and "stale urine" together - see what comes up.

There is a article in one of the old GUN DIGEST that gives instructions on making homemade powder. I believe the name of the article was something like "Black powder could have been any color." I know it did mention using vitamin C tablets as one of the ingredients.

My lifetime buddy who is the science teacher at the local jr. high school and he also home made powder over the stovetop. A few years back he burned-up the apartment and was evacuated for that reason. To help him out, we asked him to move in with us while he looked for a new place. During his stay, I came home one day and found an odd odor in the house that traced to the guest bedroom down stairs, as it turn out he was distilling liquor in the guestroom. Anyway, we had a buddy chat over his home brew and the conversation lead to a point where I asked why he is engross by this backwoods lifestyle and he told me it was inspired by some books he read..... that’s the first time I heard of the “Foxfire stories”.

Quite a few pyro hobbyists make their own BP and have contests to see who makes the best. It is to pyrotechny what flour is to baking. They judge by how high a standard charge will propel a golf ball from a standard mortar. With the finest grades of sulfur and potassium nitrate and good electric ball mills and sieves, the key to their success is the charcoal. They make their own from various types of wood. They make BP that will outperform commercial.