As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter....
When I embarked upon the study of gunpowders according to the English method, it was due to a question which arose from the memoirs of Col. Charles Mayer, a German American buffalo hunter, who was featured in The English Blend, published here exclusively.
Col. Mayer expressed that British powders were superior to American powders in burning wetter, with more energy and the fouling in the barrel was softer, while the American powers burned hot and dry with a hard fouling.
I noted in this study that the British used a heavier measure of charcoal in their gunpowder:
England at Royal Waltham Abby, Nitre 75, Charcoal 15, Sulfur 10
American powders were Nitre 75, Charcoal 12.5, Sulfur 12.5
This fact pointed to the reality that charcoal holds more water and could point to the reason British powders were different than Americans. In Inspiration I also asked if the type of charcoal used could also due to dynamics in wood or what might have been used, produce a different gunpowder product.
William Greener addresses this formula as a British gunmaker thankfully in actually listing the best woods for different types of gunpowder, so indeed as speculated here, gunpowder does differ according to the types of wood which are utilized.
The charcoal formerly used was made in the common way, by pits, which must have been seen by almost every one. The method is now to distil the wood in cast-iron cylinders, extracting the pyroligneous acid, &c., by heating them red hot, and allowing all other volatile matter to evaporate, the charcoal only being retained in the cylinder or retorts; hence arises the name cylinder gunpowder. The best charcoal for sporting powders is the black dog wood; Government use willow and alder. Any charcoal does for common powders. Charcoal is ground in the same way as the nitre . Sulphur is purified simply by fusing, and when in that state, skimming off the impurities: it is cooled and pulverised in the same way as the other two ingredients.
William Greener. Gunnery in 1858 / Being a Treatise on Rifles, Cannon, and Sporting Arms
Here we find the secret of British powders in black dog wood made the best hunting powders, while the crown was using willow and alder for it's cannons and apparently heavy muskets.
The Cornaceae genus of plants are hard tough woods, which are shrubs or small trees. I question in this if perhaps there is some type of resinous oil also involved to produce a softer fouling in the bores of firearms.
The process for making gunpowder is vital in this too, as the compression of the powder adds to burning rates as it is ground. The English of the 1858 era compressed fine grain powders heavily, but the larger shotgun powders were compressed lightly. Mr. Greener advocated the like compression of the larger powders, for uniformity in burning, as the larger powders lightly compressed burned fast and required measuring by weight and not volume to attain proper charges.
"The three ingredients, after being carefully weighed in their due proportions, are sifted into a large trough , and well mixed together by the hands. They are then conveyed to the powder mill. This is a large circular trough, having a smooth iron bed, in which two millstones, secured to a horizontal axis, revolve, traversing each other, and making nine or ten revolutions in a minute.
The powder is mixed with a small quantity of water put on the bed of the mill, and there kept subject to the pressure of the stones; and if we calculate the weight of the two millstones at six tons, it follows that in four or five hours’ incorporation on this bed, it subjects the ingredients to the action of full 10,000 tons. It is this long-continued grinding, compounding, and blending together of the mixture, that alone renders it useful and good. After this intimate mixing, it is conveyed away in the shape of mill-cake, and firmly pressed between plates of copper. Bramah’s press has been introduced of late years— we should say with a good deal of improvement to the powder, as will be shown hereafter— and by its means the mass is more compressed and in thinner cakes. It is then broken into small pieces with wooden mallets, and taken to the corning- house, where it is granulated, “by putting it into sieves, the bottoms of which are made of bullocks’ hides, prepared like parchment, and perforated with holes about two-tenths of an inch in diameter; from twenty to thirty of these sieves are secured to a large frame, moving on an eccentric axis , or crank , of six inches throw; two pieces of lignum vitæ, six inches in diameter, and two inches or more in thickness, are placed on the broken press-cakes in each sieve.
The machinery being then put in rapid motion, the discs of lignum vitæ (called balls) pressing upon the powder, and striking against the sides of the sieves, force it through the apertures, in grains of various sizes, on to the floor, from whence it is removed, and again sifted through finer sieves of wire , to separate the dust and classify the grain.
One man works two sieves at a time, by turning a handle and eccentric crank ; the sieves being fixed to a frame, which is suspended over a bin by four ropes from the ceiling.”
William Greener. Gunnery in 1858 / Being a Treatise on Rifles, Cannon, and Sporting Arms
After this a glazing process is implemented on the powder to keep it from wearing to a powder in friction against the other grains and from it easily catching fire. The process of glazing is not explained other than, 200 pound lots are placed in a barrel rotating 40 revolutions per minute.
It is then dried at 140 degrees, allowed to cool slowly and then sifted a final time to be free of dust and then packaged.
An interesting thing of black powder is that if one had a cake of this which was unbroken and compressed, one could light it up, and it would burn rapidly but not explode, due to the density of the cake. The same powder ground, being less dense would explode in granulated form. It is a unique thing of black powder from smokeless powder, as smokeless powder in granulated form burns while black powder in granulated form detonates, but if smokeless powder is placed in a confined chamber, it will explode.
Dr. Ure, makes a telling comment on the ratio of charcoal to sulfur also in testing, in the more sulphur in the ratio, the more sulfuric acid would be generated, and makes the point in sulfur retards the powder power to a degree and increasing the charcoal actually enhances the force the powder is capable of throwing a projectile.
“It is obvious that the more sulphur, the more sulphurous acid will be generated , and the less forcibly explosive will be the gunpowder . This was confirmed by the experiments at Essonne, where the gunpowder that contained twelve of sulphur, twelve of charcoal, in 100 parts, did not throw the proof shell so far as that which contained only nine of sulphur and fifteen of charcoal."
William Greener. Gunnery in 1858 / Being a Treatise on Rifles, Cannon, and Sporting Arms
In the base structure of this, we find the realities of what Charles Mayer was focusing on in his judgment that English powders were superior to American powders, due to softer fouling and greater pressures generated. The conclusion is the British were using black dog wood, and something in their genus was producing a better powder.
In addition, the granulation of the powder does matter in transfer of energy. In logical estimation, the English powder was burning slower than the American powders, which meant that instead of burning within 18 inches of the barrel, the English powders were burning more slowing in the entire barrel length, which allowed for a sustained thrust and pushing of the air in the rifle barrel whose resistance would impede the projectile's flight.
The problem though with charcoal in higher volumes was the British had humid colonies and charcoal would absorb more moisture. On the Kansas plains, in most conditions this would be arid air, so the higher British ratio would not have an effect.
Most readers will have stopped reading by now or dismissed this as unimportant, but this is the million dollar knowledge which cost lives and nations their liberty, and it is being lost. In a meltdown, it is going to take an incredible number of years for just the geologists to find potassium nitrate and sulfur, to combine with a chemist who will know the correct proportions, along with a kiln operator who knows what wood would make the best charcoal.
It will require also experts in milling and smelting. One has to know how to grind this cake into a powder after compressing it to not blow your head off, and guns require lead things to throw out of their barrels.
There are not going to be books to be opened up nor e books to consult. It is going to require a great deal of time to simply recreate a firearm, and that is a reality where all sorts of things from grains to being made into flour are going to require a knowledge not common any longer either.
All of this important and if it was not for me, this information would not be distilled into the public which can no find the donate button as they are too arrogant and ignorant to comprehend what all is being spoken of here, as this is vital knowledge which must be impregnated into the common thought.
"Gunpowder, though astonishing in its effect, and tremendous in power, may nevertheless be controlled within a limited sphere, and bounds put upon its destructive energy. The following curious experiment, first tried at Woolwich on a small scale , has since been carried out to a great extent. Screw into each end of the breech part of a gun-barrel a well-fitted plug; drill a communication, and put in a nipple; having filled the barrel with powder, screw in the breech, and fire a cap on it, and the explosive fluid will escape by the small orifice like steam from a pipe."
William Greener. Gunnery in 1858 / Being a Treatise on Rifles, Cannon, and Sporting Arms
Yes you thought gunpowder produced gas when detonated, but it does not. It produces an explosive fluid. It is viscosity which is produced and not vapours alone.
agtG
