Thread: Black Powder Supply

Where does one acquire black powder? After buying a flintlock muzzle loader kit, doing all the finishing in a traditional manner I think its only fitting that i use black powder. However as per usual i took upon this task without proper research and didnt realise how hard it would be to attain black powder, well at least in all the hunting shops here in Taranaki.

Is it worth hunting around for or should i just settle for the modern substitutes?

Have you tried wilsonshunting in Whanganui.
They often have a wide range of stuff.

I wouldn't rely on their website as it is not kept up to date but give them a call.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Blac...hrome&ie=UTF-8

The modern substitutes will be hopeless in a flintlock

There will be plenty of BP hoarded in your district.
You just need to dig a little

Contact Holly Smoke via their website and ask who in your area might have stocks.
We are lucky to have a world class BP commercial manufacturer in NZ

Buy some 2 or 3 FG powder.
You can grind it finer for pan priming rather than buying 4 FG specially

Good luck

Originally Posted by akaroa1

The modern substitutes will be hopeless in a flintlock

There will be plenty of BP hoarded in your district.
You just need to dig a little

Contact Holly Smoke via their website and ask who in your area might have stocks.
We are lucky to have a world class BP commercial manufacturer in NZ

Buy some 2 or 3 FG powder.
You can grind it finer for pan priming rather than buying 4 FG specially

Good luck

Holly Smoke comes in 1kg containers
Hence don't buy 4 FG for printing because 1kg would last you multiple lifetimes of pan priming !

If you really wanted to jump headfirst down the rabbit hole, I think there was someone on here making their own BP. I'm sure they'll chime in sooner or later.

If you really wanted to jump headfirst down the rabbit hole, I think there was someone on here making their own BP. I'm sure they'll chime in sooner or later.

PS Nice job on your kitset.

Keep posting and get in touch when you can send PMs....making your own is piece of piss( and you don't HAVE to use irine either) only three ingredients needed charcoal you make yourself from willows,sulphur you get from garden centre/ hydroponic supplies who will also have the third ingredient.....my tag line is the % there of lol

Impressive Anvil,looks like a nice one. Seems a decent length barrel on your rifle,so 1.5F or 2FG should be about right if its.50 or larger. You can grind up your own priming charge from the main charge powder. Its nice to have a propper flintlock " doser" for priming the pan but you can get around that.

Yep there's a few around making black powder, its somewhat involved but not complex.

the long story made short is,
75% charcoal, 15% charcoal, 10% sulphur, milled in a ball mill with non sparking media, can be done without a ball mill but will be very dirty and pretty slow.

that gives you black powder, but being fines its probably not what you want to be shooting,

you have two main ways to get your F grades of powder, either compress the BP with a hydraulic press and some custom made dies, then grind and sieve with appropriately sized mesh, this is the method best used for firearms

alternatively add dextrin to you mix and then wet with isopropyl alcohol until you get a ball of black powder than you then grate through correctly sized mesh, then allow to dry.

the dextrin method produces grains that aren't as dense nor as hard so its more common with pyrotechnics, theres a whole lot of reading to be done online about both methods though, I'd direct you to the "everything black powder" youtube channel if you wanted to learn more.

Martin attends most antique arms events and does a powder run at the same time.
Making it is a worthwhile exercise to understand the process.
Home made is really best suited to muzzle loaders as the volume of the charge doesn't matter like in a cartridge. My home made powder was granulated through a mouli and volume for volume was 70 % lighter than commercial. Compared to smokeless BP is quite cheap and smells better

When we were kids the brew we concocted and tried to blow things up with was 75% saltpeter (spelling?), 15% charcoal, 15% sulphur.
I got the sulphur from the local fertiliser works, the rest I cannot remember.
Fortunately we never blew ourselves up.
Us kids had other nasties too eg phoshorous (stolen from school lab), and magnesium ribbon.

If you do want to go down the BP home made rabit hole look at https://www.youtube.com/@Everythingblackpowder

Belive it or not carbonised toilet papaer makes the best BP.

Holy Smoke is the good stuff. Clean burning (relative to others), reasonable power too. Made in NZ, so easier to get. Try contacting Martin at pyroworks@pyroworks.co.nz

Originally Posted by PeteD

Have you tried wilsonshunting in Whanganui.
They often have a wide range of stuff.

I wouldn't rely on their website as it is not kept up to date but give them a call.

I will be heading down in a couple of weeks so i will give him a bell thanks!