DIY Black Powder pistol cartridges

[Ninurta]

I thought, since this is one of the nefarious things I've been up to lately, I'd make a thread about it.

Grace thinks I should go 100% DIY. Does that mean I spend too much on ammo?

First, we'll start with the Hand Cannon:



   

This is Betsy. Betsy loves me. Because Betsy loves me, I choose to feed her. She is a Confederate Griswold and Gunnison revolver, just like my great great grand dads (yeah, multiples) carried as Confederate cavalrymen. The Griswold Works in Georgia made a Confederate copy of the Colt 1851 Navy, with slight differences. This is what Betsy is. The Griswold and Gunnison copy. But she loves me, so it's all OK.

Now to begin with, we have to determine what Betsy likes to eat. She likes combustible cartridges, because they burn up almost entirely, and don't leave her with that bloated feeling. In order to make them, we have to first nitrate the paper we are going to wrap the cartridges with, to make it combustible. You would think that would be difficult, but it's not. You use potassium nitrate, which is pretty commonly available, It is an excellent fertilizer, because it contains nitrogen, which plants love. Fungus also love it, which may be more important. You see, fungus is what breaks down tree stumps and makes them go away. Because of that, potassium nitrate is used as a "stump remover" - it promotes fungal growth for the decomposition of tree stumps. and that is important to our discussion.  it's important because you can go to Lowes and buy it for about 6 bucks a pound. Look for "Spectracide Stump Remover". It's 100% potassium nitrate, and it is found in the garden section, because nitrogen is important for gardens... and getting rid of tree stumps.

It looks like this:



   

Here is a video that shows you how to use this arcane stuff to do it's magic:



So, I nitrated coffee filters, just like Mark did. Now, I wasn't really going for the "authentic" look like he was. I just used the brown ones so Grace could tell my nitrated filters from her white ones, that she uses to make my coffee with. Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but potassium nitrate is also called "saltpeter", and it's called that because it allegedly makes your stiffer not peck up. I don't care to test that theory out.

I also used a tomato cage to dry them on. It was just a convenience. I got it for two bucks at Lowes while I was getting the stump remover. One stone, two birds sort of thing.



   

The tomato cage is what actually limited me to 10 coffee filters at a time, because of the drying space available on one. Given the properties of potassium nitrate as a stump remover, I did not think it prudent to dry it off of the wooden porch hand rail, y'know?

I used, at the start, 1/2 cup of stump remover to 2 cups of water. Then, after all the stump remover dissolved, I added more and stirred it in until it stopped dissolving. that is what us physicist types call "saturation". It didn't take much more than the 1/2 cup to reach saturation. Protip: hot water dissolves more than cold or lukewarm water.

This is what saturation looks like:



   

Unlike Mark, I bought my own dedicated mixing tools. Whereas his missus was gone, and would be none the wiser, I thought it prudent not to mix my nitrating tools with Grace's cooking tools. That "saltpeter" thing, y'know?

T'was a sunny day, so it only took 30 or 45 minutes for the filters to dry. When they dried, they grew a crystalline crust of saltpeter (easier to type than "potassium nitrate", and I'm lazy). I soaked them for about 4 minutes or so.

This is what the crystallization looks like on the filters:



   

So. I dried the filters, folded them into quarters, and stored them in an airtight container for future use. Just so you know, most of the visible crystals fall off of the filters, so if you're gonna fold them, fold them over your saltpeter container, to save it. There is still enough saltpeter soaked into the fibers of the filters to make that shit fizz like a cannon fuse, so it's still good. Yeah, I set some on fire to test it. It didn't stay on fire long before it was entirely ash.

I evaporated the solution to recover the saltpeter. Imagine my surprise when I recovered almost all of it. It really doesn't take that much of it to nitrate paper for cartridges. Imagine my further surprise when I realized I had ordered 5 pounds more of it from a greenhouse, and realized that I would probably never need that much, ever, for the rest of my days.

You should also be made aware that, just as hot water dissolves more of it, making the water cold precipitates it right back out, So I set it in the refrigerator. After a couple hours, when the water got good and cold, great hulking crystals of the saltpeter had formed:

(Well dammit, it won't let me add another attachment!!)

More tomorrow. I will complete this post, and move onward to the actual cartridge making. 

More later.

Nin.

ETA - preview: When I took it out of the fridge, I poured the water off the crystals,set the water in the sun for a bit to warm and evaporate it somewhat, then set it back into the fridge to grow more crystals. Meanwhile, I dried the crystals and added them to the saltepeter pile. Wash, rinse, repeat until there isn't any more water to worry about.

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