Firearms History, Technology & Development Propellants Black Powder - II
Firearms History, Technology & Development Propellants Black Powder - II
Firearms History, Technology & Development Propellants Black Powder - II
About Me
The Editor Black powder pressed into cakes of uniform density
View my complete profile The cakes could then be broken into grains or corns and these grains could
then be sorted into standardized sizes by passing them through various
sieves. This whole process was a major improvement, because it fixes all
the problems enumerated earlier. In fact, all black powder manufactured
Popular Posts to this day is still corned.
What are the
differences between
AK-47, AKM, AK-56,
AK-74 and AK-101?
The AK family of assault
rifles are pretty
widespread around the world, because
of their lower cost of manufacturing,
lower tooling costs, ...
Revolvers: Pepper-Box
Revolver
The first repeating
revolver type weapons
and predecessors of
modern revolvers are Different containers of corned black powder sorted by grain size
called pepper-box revolvers. The name
has to do with the ... The Europeans experimented with manufacturing various grain sizes and
Hammer Fired vs. Striker determined that larger grains are more suitable for larger guns and
Fired cannons and smaller grains, which are quick burning, are more suitable for
In the world of modern pistols. Hence, they were the first to produce different types of
firearms which use gunpowder, each of uniform grain sizes. Because of this uniformity and
centerfire cartridges , consistency, European gunpowder was generally regarded as higher quality
there are two major than gunpowder manufactured in America or Asia. However, not all
types of mechanisms used to trigger the European countries were producing quality black powder. W.W. Greener's
cartridge prim... book, The Gun and its Development from the mid 1850s, mentions that
Pistols: Derringers powder in England is of various grades and makers like Curtis & Harvey and
The name "derringer" is Pigou, Wilks & Lawrence make some quality powders. He says that a grain
often associated with a size classified as "African" is very good for export purposes, but cautions to
class of pistols that are buy a powder marked "Brazil" designed for export to South America saying
small and designed to be that it looks very attractive because it is highly glazed, but is actually a
carried in a coat pocket, very poor quality powder. Apparently, the South Americans valued its shiny
woman... looks more than its shooting properties and the author mentions that the
Rifling: Manufacturing: only reason to buy this is for trading purposes. He says that Spanish powder
Button Rifling quality varies upon locality and that the Swedes and Norwegians make
In our last post, we very good quality powder, but unfortunately in limited quantities for their
studied a method of own markets only. He also says that German powders also vary depending
rifling called Broach on locality, but some are very high quality, sometimes even exceeding the
Rifling . Now we will finest English powders of the time. He classifies the powders made by the
study another method of rifling called French (and all the French possessions at the time) to be the worst quality
Button Rifling ....
and full of dust, due to the fact that the manufacture of black powder was
Concealed Weapons
a monopoly held by the French government at that time and they didn't
In our last post about allow imports of black powder from other countries either.
combined firearms , two
of the examples (the
By the 1750s, the ratio of 15:3:2 by weight (i.e. 75% potassium nitrate, 15%
whip pistol and King
charcoal and 10% sulfur) was becoming common in most of Europe and by
Henry VIII's mace) are
also examples of a conce...
1800, it was the ratio used around the world and is still the standard today.
Testing Firearms: Proof
Test The process of manufacturing corned black powder is still the same, except
that since the 1800s, the process of grinding and mixing the materials has
The first type of testing
we will study is the
been largely automated. In the early 1800s, the common type of mill used
Proof Test . The idea for grinding was the edge runner mill. This is an ancient type of mill that
behind such a test is to was invented in China in the 5th century AD and spread to Europe about
verify the strength of the barrel, 800 years later. It was commonly used for hulling rice and crushing ore. It
breech and ... consists of one or more heavy disks set on their edges and a circular lower
Shotguns: Actions and Designs milling trough or tray. The disks roll around the trough in a circular path
The early history of true shotguns and crush everything in their way.
Metal Treatments:
Browning and Bluing
Since the early days of
gun-making, people
were looking for
different ways to better
protect the iron and steel parts of their
weapons. Ther...
Actions: Lever Action
In the last post , we
studied a popular
mechanism called the
bolt-action . Now we
will study another
mechanism that is also still being
used...
These mills were usually driven by water power and therefore the powder
factories were located close to rivers. Edge runner mills are still used in
food processing today and are seen in some chocolate factories.
Most modern processes use a ball mill to do the job. It consists of a hollow
cylinder into which the raw materials are put in. There are also a number
of balls made of lead, brass or bronze put into the cylinder. These
materials are chosen because they are non-sparking in nature. The
materials are put in the cylinder and water or alcohol is added to keep it
wet. The cylinder is then closed and rotated about its axis for about 3
hours.
The balls rub among themselves and grind up the raw materials between
them into a fine powder. After some time, the cylinder is opened and the
ground up material is extracted. In some cases, the three ingredients are
ground up separately and then combined later. In other cases, the three
ingredients are put into the mill simultaneously and ground up together.
The three powdered ingredients are mixed together when wet and then
pressed into cakes, which are dried and then broken up into grains which
are sorted by sieves into various standardized sizes.
Black powder was the only propellant used between the 1200s to the late
1800s or so. One of the problems with black powder is that it leaves behind
a lot of residue, which means that guns need to be cleaned every few shots
or so. The invention of smokeless powders in the late 1800s reduced the
need for black powder, since smokeless powders burn cleaner and with
more power than black powder. These days, the only users of black powder
are those that wish to hunt with weapons similar to what their ancestors
used.
Posted by The Editor at 10:36 PM
Labels: Black Powder, Gunpowder, Propellants
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