DIY Black Powder pistol cartridges

[Ninurta]

So the cap-maker punch arrived today. I punched out a few caps to see if it works ok.

here is the punch and the raw materials I used:




I punched out a few caps with it, using strips of the Miller beer can. The strip cut from the can is on the left, showing the holes the caps were punched out of, then a few of the caps, and the punch on the right:




It took about 5 seconds per cap to punch them out. Line up the aluminum strip, slap the plunger (I just used my hand instead of a rubber mallet to slap it), and then tip the punch up to drop the cap out of it. Move on to the next.

The caps were most definitely not pretty, especially when compared with a machine made cap, which is the cute one on the right, not the ugly one on the left:




But in the end, they fit the pistol nipples well, and gave no signs of trying to fall off:







So there it is. They're not pretty, but so long as they work, they'll do. I fit a cap to a nipple on the cylinder, and it fit and refused to fall off. I rotated the cylinder through a few full rotations, and the cap always cleared the recoil shield, and did not impede the cylinder from rotating freely.

I told my son about it, and he said "well damn! You mold your own bullets, and you make your own caps... you gonna make the powder, too?" heh, heh, heh... you betcher ass I am! I can make a little over 9 pounds of powder, enough powder for around 3750 shots, for 25 bucks, a substantial savings over store bought powder or online ordering. I also avoid the hazardous material shipping fees that way. I gave 30 bucks PER POUND for Triple Seven black powder substitute, and real black powder costs about the same or a bit more, and it's harder to find. So, for around 25 bucks, I can make roughly 275 dollars worth of black powder, and avoid the shipping fees, so why not?

Black powder is 15 parts by weight of potassium nitrate, 3 parts charcoal (also by weight, but charcoal weighs a lot less than potassium nitrate per unit of volume, so the volume measure looks bigger, which is what makes black powder black), and 2 parts sulfur. Potassium nitrate can be made at home as well, but I'm not gonna fool with it as long as I can just buy it in bulk. Charcoal can be made at home from wood (willow is best for black powder) using a retort made out of a coffee can or a paint can. I dunno how to get the sulfur yet without buying it, but I bet there is a way, and I bet I eventually find what that way is.

After mixing the ingredients, the powder has to be "milled" - tumble mixed in a rock tumbler with a bunch of lead balls (lead to avoid sparks, 'cause sparks are a real bad idea when dealing with black powder) for at least 6 hours, but not more than a day, and then "corned" - wet into a doughy mass and grated through a screen to get a uniform grain size, then dried and canned or kegged up to keep moisture out.

As regular ammo gets harder to find and more expensive, I'm diversifying, thinking laterally. I've said it dozens of times - you cannot disarm a man who is determined to remain armed.

Currently, black powder supplies are getting scarce, too. BP revolvers are almost impossible to find, and almost everywhere is out of proper bullet molds. I don't know if it's because other folks are getting this idea too as ammo dries up, or if there are other, more inimical forces at work. I've been trying to find a double cavity Lee mold for .375 round balls, with no luck. If you can find one at all, it's being sold at scalper prices, and I'm not paying them. That mold should sell for, at most, 25 dollars. I can't find one at all for less than 35, and most places that claim to have one are charging 50 to 75 dollars, WAY too damned much... and on top of that, they are fly-by-night, and can't be trusted that the mold really is .375, instead of a mold for a .44 (most popular caliber for black powder revolvers these days). There is no way to cram a .44 ball into a .36 chamber, so I'm not taking any chances on wasting way too much money.

So there you have it. If I have to, I can stick with my home-made conical bullets, home-made caps, and home-made powder, and still light up the night at will.

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