/k/ - Weapons

>>124
Small related pic before I depart for now

Alright I'm back.
So, the first thing to anything is getting gunpowder.
In many places, like in my country, it's impossible to buy it anywhere. More civilized places have the privilege of getting commercial gunpowder and substitutes like pyrodex.
So I'm forced to go the old fashioned way and make some of my own.
Tutorials all over the net suggest (by mass):
75% Potassium Nitrate (aka KNO3 or salpeter)
15% Charcoal, best kind is from soft woods, activated charcoal is the worst, avoid that completely.
10% Sulphur.
I got all of the ingredients at a gardening store, the salpeter and sulphur was already nicely milled to a powder-like substance.
What I had to do on my own was turn the bits of charcoal into powder and man that sucked.
Salpeter is an alright substance, it doesn't really stick to anything nor does it travel by air in any way. Sulphur got slightly stuck to the improvised-funnel I made out of paper but it was minimal.
But fucking charcoal got all over the damn place. Turning 15 grams of that stuff into powder was messy and bits of it quickly started floating in the air and getting on surfaces. The dirtiest part was funneling it into the final container for mixing (note that before this I had all the ingredients separately so it wouldn't blow up in case of something) because then it got all over the place even more.
The mix looked good apart from tiny tiny bits of yellow sulfur, I don't know if that could have been fixed by mixing it more but for my first time I'd say it's good.
Overall it took me around 2 hours to make 100 grams of gunpowder.
Well, I actually got 96 grams so I lost 4 out of the 15 grams of charcoal when it started floating around and shit.
I tested a small bit out on top of a piece of metal so I don't fuck over any surfaces that should not get fucked over and it went quite good.
There was a bit of residue left, indicating that it could have been a better mix, but it should work.
This powder is way too fine to be used in guns, I'll have to get it granulated, which I'll do on some other batch, which will be slightly time-consuming but rather easy.
See y'all next time.

So I tried to granulate it today but I added too much water so it wasn't granulating at all really. Now it's now drying in a small plastic container on a radiator. I don't know if It'll be good to be put through a sieve today but we'll just have to see.
If it's fucked then I'll make another batch.
We are in the "Cirmaybe" position currently.

It's pretty cool that you were able to make gunpowder. I always wanted to try to make it, but the only attempt I ever did wasn't successful, as it didn't really burn well. Probably had something to do with the purity of the salpeter. Oh well, maybe one day I'll try again

>>128
Thanks for the feedback, anon! So it's been a day but the bits of gunpowder now don't want to ignite at all, I presume that it needs to dry more. I took one of the hardened bits and put it through a sieve, making small irregularly shaped pellets, perhaps those will dry quicker and I'll be able to spark em up sometime soon. What I am slightly worried about is if the pellets are strong enough because they fall apart into dust quite quickly, meaning that they would do the exact same thing if rammed in any gun barrel.
Regarding salpeter I managed to get about 2 pounds of the pure stuff, so my problems could be more stemming from the fact that I didn't grind up the ingredients well enough or I needed to pack the gunpowder REAL tight when I mixed it with water.
I do wish you luck in making your gunpowder if you ever try to do it again!

>>129
Thanks, and good luck to you too. I will be reading this thread

this is quite hilarious and i hope the gunpowder works

>>124
Small update for today, looks like I didn't completely fuck over the powder and it's overall alright, so I have started to look for a muzzLELoader of my own on the interwebz. Powder's a bit slow-ish but I believe that the next batches will be better. Heck, I can try making more again tomorrow.
So far I'm thinking of getting a revolver similar to the one I used in the OP pic. However, I do not know if those niggas will ship to me so I might have to resort to some even more oldschool shit from a different seller such as single shot flintlock or single shot percussion.

>>132
are you gonna wear some civil war teir outfit like the guy in the pic lol

>>133
I haven't got any of that sort of gear so probably not. Also I might go for a repro of a remington revolver, I'll post pics and some other stuff later.

>>134
Forgot to say that pic related is the captcha that I got.

>>135
And I'm back sooner than I expected, I wanted to post some of the channels I watch for muzzLELoaders
>britishmuzzleloaders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9v-6Ro-MOk
(Obviously) british fella who posts mostly about british guns, usually rifles.
>capandball
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8AyZZ9ElgU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBUBGR_TbCs
Usually does videos on the more expensive range of modern reproductions of muzzleloading guns. Good presentation and informative, though he is a huge Pedersoli shill.
>blackie thomas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glz2OSks5Vk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vGq10TFar8
Does a range of videos, some of them address percussion guns, more amateur-ish than the previously mentioned channels, but can offer more practical advice.
>duelist1954
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItpFBsrSfao
Repro and antique gun reviews, shooting, similar amateur vibe as blackie thomas but I like how informative these videos are.
I hope this small list can help people who are interested about learning more about specific stuff.

>>136
Found a small video which could help me and other pyromaniacs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf1mCiAodl0
Short version for making good powder would be
>Mix ingredients
>mill them or grind them as finely as you can
>add some sort of solvent (like water)
>pack that shit real tight
>after it's hardened get it granulated through a sieve or some sort of mesh

>>137
That guy sounds like a magician

>>138
Learn from him and also become a pyromancer, anon.
So, yet another small update. I made my second 100 gram batch of gunpowder, this time I ground up everything as good as I could, but what I noticed was that even despite what I did, I could still see bits of sulfur in there. I added the solvent (plain tapwater) and mixed it, and just squeezed it together with my hands as tight as I could, only then the sulfur bits disappeared, so the water part evidently is very important to the process. So now there is a 100 gram "snowball" of gunpowder drying on the radiator and it's going to be about 3 days before it becomes dry enough.

Just checking in, I haven't blown myself up. I forgot to say that I split up the big ball because it was not drying on the inside into smaller bits, it dried quite quickly after that. Afterwards, I grated some of the powder blocks through a metal sieve and the resulting powder was alright. It certainly wasn't commercial-grade gunpowder that just goes POOF and disappears into smoke within a second, but it's an improvement.

late merry xmas anons, I have not yet blown myself into smithereens, until next time.

>>150
kek, please keep us updated anon, interested in getting a blunderbuss

righty-o im back, I tried a little bit of gunpowder (20 grams=~300 grains, which is about as much that's need for 6 .58cal musket shots) on new years eve. I rolled it up in foil and attached a sparkler as the fuse. I added a bit of some bright burning powder I got from disassembling birthday cake candles and wrapped it all with tape.
i unfortunately dont have any footage, but instead of blowing up it melted the aluminum foil and the tape, and made a pretty large incredibly bright fire. was pretty to be honest.
>>151
>interested in getting a blunderbuss
heck yeah pardner, i'll make an elaborate post in the coming days about blunderbusses especially if yer buying a repro

>>151
>>154
Alright im back with a new track
>buying blunderbusses 101
First thing's first, pretty much all black powder blunderbusses on the market are made in india, you may be able to find 1 or 2 made by Pedersoli in Italy, but they are rare and expensive and mostly meant for shooting blank salutes.
Indian black powder guns in general work alright, some people refer to them as "99% kits" meaning that you may have to switch out a spring or a different part to make it fully functional. Some people claim they are unsafe, but I've been able to find only a single report of an indian-made musket blowing up and it was due to user error, by using around 3-5 times more powder than the maximum allowed load and I read the 3 different researches on the specific case and all of them noted a very weird pattern regarding the powder residues, so who knows, maybe not pure black powder was used.
More about the quality of em, they are made alright, but it's made in india, so don't expect too much, outside will be more or less good but once you unscew the lockplate you'll see how unfinished it looks on the inside, dont expect "luxury".
tl;dr indian blunderbusses work good and are safe, just look out if they are in functional order off-the-shelf so it's best to buy them when you can actually hold them in your hands and see it live.
I have bought an Italian made rifled musket since I started this thread and I will post pics at some point. The bore had some surface rust but a little bit of WD-40 fixed it up.
Anyhow, I hope ya will enjoy entering the world of black powder shootin' fella!