Making your own gun powder in a post apocalyptic society

[Ghost Buster]

I don't think it can realistically be done, but there are a lot of people who seem to strongly disagree with me. Charcoal could be made easily enough, but I can't see how you could make your own potassium nitrate, or acquire sulfur.

So please, someone who disagrees with me on this issue, explain in detail, how to make your own gun powder using nothing but local natural resources.

[Rolf]

Pretty simple, Gun Runners and guy in Goodsprings will restock powder relatively often, notes Rolf. All one has to do after this is collect scrap metal, primers and find ammunition bench, if one has high enough "Repair" skill one should be able to create certain ammunition types, "Hand Loader" perk adds more ammunition types and others can be unlocked through quests, explains Rolf.

[Ghost Buster]

Originally Posted by Rolf

Pretty simple, Gun Runners and guy in Goodsprings will restock powder relatively often, notes Rolf. All one has to do after this is collect scrap metal, primers and find ammunition bench, if one has high enough "Repair" skill one should be able to create certain ammunition types, "Hand Loader" perk adds more ammunition types and others can be unlocked through quests, explains Rolf.

That isn't answering my question in the slightest. I lolled at repair skill though.

[Sir Cornwell]

Why not go with smokeless modern rather than old school powder?

Sure greater chemical knowledge would come in to play but it's not rocket science.

[Ghost Buster]

smokeless, smokeful, whatever. Explain in extreme detail, how to go about making your own powder from natural resources.

[Ph0x]

Sulfur and SaltPiter are mined.

[Ghost Buster]

Originally Posted by phox

Sulfur and SaltPiter are mined.

According to p6867 they can easily be made in your backyard.

[Sir Cornwell]

Originally Posted by Ghost Buster

smokeless, smokeful, whatever. Explain in extreme detail, how to go about making your own powder from natural resources.

You need cellulose for nitrocellulose I wonder where one could find that?

Perhaps one could look under manure piles for nitrate.

[Ghost Buster]

Originally Posted by Sir Cornwell

You need cellulose for nitrocellulose I wonder where one could find that?

Perhaps one could look under manure piles for nitrate.

How would one extract the nitrates using natural resources?

[Mutant Funk Drink]

I've always wanted to know this kind of thing, but I never looked it up.

I'm not sure where to get sulfur or how to make/mine saltpeter, but Grant's Stump Remover is basically pure saltpeter. So if you can raid the hardware stores in a post apocalyptic world, you might be good for a little while.

[Sir Cornwell]

Into the 19th century, niter-beds were prepared by mixing manure with either mortar or wood ashes, common earth and organic materials such as straw to give porosity to a compost pile typically 1.5×2×5 meters in size.[9] The heap was usually under a cover from the rain, kept moist with urine, turned often to accelerate the decomposition, then finally leached with water after approximately one year, to remove the soluble calcium nitrate. Dung-heaps were a particularly common source: they contain ammonia from the decomposition of urea and other nitrogenous materials. It then undergoes bacterial oxidation (first by means of the Nitrosomonas bacteria) to produce (calcium) nitrite, and then (by means of the Spirobacter bacteria) to produce (calcium) nitrate. It is then converted to potassium nitrate by filtering through the potash of wood ashes.

Do you want all your research done for you, Mr. S. Sufficient? One can't prepare for everything that might happen in a future unknown.

Learn skills that suit you. Team up with reliables.

[Spence_tron]

Have any of you guys been in a brick wine cellar before? A lot of them have tons of saltpeter (potassium nitrate) just building up on the walls as mineral-rich moisture from the ground seeps in and evaporates off the walls. You can scrape up pounds of it some places, and the phenomenon isn't restricted to man-made structures either.

Sulfur can be found naturally near hot springs, and is pretty plentiful in North America. Impure sulfur can be purified easily too. Sulfur is also in a low ratio in black powder, and can likely be substituted/omitted yielding a weaker black powder. The thing about sulfur though is that once you have it, you can make sulfuric acid. And once you have (concentrated) sulfuric acid (and a nitrate) you can make nitric acid.... meaning you can now make nitrocellulose (base component of smokeless powder). Then nitroglycerin is just a stones throw away, allowing you to make double base smokeless powder.

[Sir Cornwell]

Old school gunpowder fouls modern weapons. I think you'd soon be sorry if you used it.

Now, if you want to use a muzzle-loader and be real old school? Then you'd be fine. Probably wouldn't want to go against modern weapons/loads, but hunting would be OK.

[Ghost Buster]

Originally Posted by Sir Cornwell

Do you want all your research done for you, Mr. S. Sufficient? One can't prepare for everything that might happen in a future unknown.

Learn skills that suit you. Team up with reliables.

Oh ya, that seems simple, and error proof.

And hey, if you mess it up, the process only takes about a year. I'm sure you could easily perfect that method.

I would be absolutely astonished if anyone could successfully use that method to make potassium nitrate. Also you didn't fully answer the question. Where do you get the sulfur from?

E: I do thank you for the response, but this thread was more about practical ways to make gun powder, not a method that has a slim to none chance of actually working.

[Ghost Buster]

Originally Posted by Sir Cornwell

Old school gunpowder fouls modern weapons. I think you'd soon be sorry if you used it.

Now, if you want to use a muzzle-loader and be real old school? Then you'd be fine. Probably wouldn't want to go against modern weapons/loads, but hunting would be OK.

Seriously? lol... Seems like an awful lot of effort just to get a muzzle-loader.

[Spence_tron]

Muzzle loader/musket type firearms could probably run on a variety of gas-producing pyrotechnic compounds (abet less efficiently and/or more dangerously). Fuels are plentiful, charcoals, metal powders, plastics, flour, sugar, and even ascorbic acid have been used in pyrotechnic applications before. Some produce greater volumes of gas than others upon combustion, making them better suited for pushing projectiles. Oxidizers can be either collected from natural deposits, or be synthesized from potash/via electrolysis.


I find it *really* hard to imagine that we would throw away hundreds of years of technological advancement simply because the procurement of the materials becomes more difficult.

[Mantikore]

There was an article on old totse as well as textfiles.com/anarchy regarding the creation and extraction of nitrates from soil. These are very old articles though, and i question their reliability. Nevertheless, nitrates do exist in soil, particularly in soil where beans have grown (or any other kind of plant that has symbiosis with nitrogen fixing bacteria).

Personally, I think electrolysis of chlorates/perchlorates is probably more realistic, where the precursor substance is just table salt (and perhaps the KCl 'health salt', although that will be hard to find). An understanding of the rig is important, and it needs to run for a long time to yield large quantities.

Nitrocellulose might be possible, but in the past, the materials are hard to come by in large quantities. The nitric acid via H2SO4+NO3- method would seem to be the only way. The Ostwald process and Birkeland Eyde process wont really be feasable.

[Sir Cornwell]

Is anyone seriously thinking of using gunpowder in their 1911? Maybe use it as a last resort in a revolver but auto pistols wouldn't like it.

No doubt someone has tried it.

Though: what of primers? That has me phased. Propellant seems "easy" in comparison.

[Mantikore]

Also: dont forget about flame weapons. If im imagining how a post apoc world might take place, ethanol based fuels might work wonders. A reliable, mobile, decently ranged flamethrower system is way too heavy to operate due to the probably lack of pressurising system, even with a small team, but might work for larger vehicles (siege towers?) or short ranged small arms/destruction devices.

[r.bonesmith]

Originally Posted by Rolf

Pretty simple, Gun Runners and guy in Goodsprings will restock powder relatively often, notes Rolf. All one has to do after this is collect scrap metal, primers and find ammunition bench, if one has high enough "Repair" skill one should be able to create certain ammunition types, "Hand Loader" perk adds more ammunition types and others can be unlocked through quests, explains Rolf.

You know, I leave for a a month or two, then come back, and you're still being the same fucking retard. I can't be the only one is annoyed by your stupidity, but I just wanted to go on the record and say you're fucking stupid and I hate that this is what the internet is coming to dude. I gave up talking about myself in the third person in junior high shortly after I stopped visiting The Green Dragon Inn IRC.

I found this on wikipedia . . .

"A variation on this process, using only urine, straw and wood ash, is described by LeConte in 1862. Stale urine is placed in a container of straw and is allowed to "sour" (bacterially ferment) for many months, after which water is used to wash the resulting chemical salts from the straw. The process is completed by filtering the liquid through wood ashes, then air-drying in the sun.[9] The nitrate source in this process is calcium nitrate produced by bacterial action on the nitrogenous urea and ammonia from urine, combined with calcium from urine. This calcium nitrate salt is converted again in the standard way to soluble potassium nitrate, using potassium carbonate from potash."

As far as sulphur goes it's common around hotsprings I know that. Go to places that the earth smokes at and that smell. I live in Alaska and we have no shortage of hotsprings but if you live in an area that is not so volcanically active you might be out of luck. I know most of the western north american continent has a lot of hotsprings.

I know that Drano and Liquid plumber and the like contain sulfuric acid, so if you add a base to drain cleaner maybe sulfur would precipitate out of the resulting solution? After it finishes boiling and bubbling as acids and base tend to do.

[DiStOrTiOn]

Originally Posted by Sir Cornwell

Why not go with smokeless modern rather than old school powder?

Sure greater chemical knowledge would come in to play but it's not rocket science.

making nitroglycerin is not very easy in a post-apocalyptic, non-arctic environment that doesn't have electricity to generate ice/cooling for the reaction

Originally Posted by Sir Cornwell

You need cellulose for nitrocellulose I wonder where one could find that?

Perhaps one could look under manure piles for nitrate.

cellulose is the bulk mass of wooded plants. It shouldn't be too hard to do a chemical extraction from sawdust. Or, cotton is pretty much synonymous with pure cellulose. You could make a single-based smokeless powder just by nitrating your t-shirts.

nitrocellulose powder without the nitroglycerin is somewhat unstable and very corrosive, but it's probably still better than black powder

[r.bonesmith]

One more quick note, it's not like we are looking for something we can use with an AR-15. I somehow think that blackpowder would work fine for a rifled 12 gauge shotgun with lead slugs.

[Sir Cornwell]

How would you set off the propellant?

Drill a hole in the breech and touch it off with a match?

[DiStOrTiOn]

Originally Posted by Mutant Funk Drink

I've always wanted to know this kind of thing, but I never looked it up.

I'm not sure where to get sulfur or how to make/mine saltpeter, but Grant's Stump Remover is basically pure saltpeter. So if you can raid the hardware stores in a post apocalyptic world, you might be good for a little while.

Sulfur can often be scooped from volcanic hotspots and used directly without refinement. Or charcoal and nitrate alone can be used as a propellant without the sulfur, since most people don't have a volcano in their neighborhood.

[DiStOrTiOn]

Originally Posted by Sir Cornwell

How would you set off the propellant?

Armstrong powder can be made pretty easily and also be made relatively stable. You could reform a used primer and put that in there.


Some azides are also relatively easy to make. Modern primers use lead azide IIRC. You could salvage the sodium azide from car airbags since they already have stabilizers added to the compound, then scrape powder off it and put into a used primer. I reckon the stack of sodium azide wafers in one car airbag should be enough to reload the primers for 5,000-20,000 rounds

[benny vader]

Originally Posted by Sir Cornwell

Though: what of primers? That has me phased. Propellant seems "easy" in comparison.

Forget primers and caps. All you need are some flints and a zippo.

Flintlocks mechanism can easily be DIYed into most modern arms. And when eventually you run out of flints, just downgrade it into matchlocks. Just remove the flint wheel and use a smouldering rope in its place instead.

[p6867]

Originally Posted by Ghost Buster

lol you make me sound so mysterious.

In all seriousness I would like a detailed guide on how to make your own gun powder (e: in a post apocalyptic setting). I know a little chemistry, not much, and the the chem I know is based on a having a lab with everything available, not having to make the shit yourself with natural resources. I'd appreciate an actual response in the gun powder thread.

And also, the bigger issue here, is making your own primers, which I don't think is remotely feasible. Although I admit I'm no primer except.

Being a chemist isn't just seeing a recipe and following it, it's about knowing what you can substitute for what to get either the same product or the same results. I can make a smokeless powder, that will be non corrosive using readily available items. I'm not going to try and explain 5 years of a chemical engineering education to you in this post because it's impossible.

Also, trade will never die. Someone will always have the raw materials that make modern life work and they'll want to trade them for other things. While the area right near the sulfur mine might sell the sulfur cheap and it'll get more expensive the farther away we are, it is acquirable.
making sulfur from readily available chemicals

making sulphur - YouTube

making sulphur - YouTube
Video: click to display

extracting sulfur from fertilizer
making potassium nitrate

Chemistry: Make Potassium Nitrate - YouTube

Chemistry: Make Potassium Nitrate - YouTube
Video: click to display

extracting sulfur from fertilizer

How to Separate Sulfur from Garden Fertilizer - YouTube

How to Separate Sulfur from Garden Fertilizer - YouTube
Video: click to display

There are a billion sources for everything. When i lived in Nevada i'd find Uranium all the time. I'm pretty sure we'll figure out how to get more fucking sulfur. It is in the ground, all over the place. There are billions of tons of sodium Thiosulfate in the world. Humans are pretty cool, we'll figure it out.

[benny vader]

Originally Posted by r.bonesmith

I gave up talking about myself in the third person in junior high shortly after I stopped visiting The Green Dragon Inn IRC. .....

I hope they bring back draft and then, as a new recruit, you'd have to refer yourself in 3rd person at all time all the time.

[Ghost Buster]

I don't think you could make your own primers that shit seems really hard.

But besides that, distortion are you saying you could essentially make a variant of smokeless powder using nothing but sawdust?? If so that's pretty awesome. Care to explain that process a little better?

I actually like the shotgun match idea too, its simple and would probably work. Literal matches wouldn't be available but you could carry a torch made out of wood and birchbark and just light sticks off of that and then use them to set off the custom shotgun shells, which I imagine could be reloaded fairly easily.

[p6867]

Originally Posted by benny vader

I hope they bring back draft and then, as a new recruit, you'd have to refer yourself in 3rd person at all time all the time.

I hope you just go back to being the methematician so no one accidentally responds to your shitty posts seriously.

[Ghost Buster]

Originally Posted by p6867

Being a chemist isn't just seeing a recipe and following it, it's about knowing what you can substitute for what to get either the same product or the same results. I can make a smokeless powder, that will be non corrosive using readily available items. I'm not going to try and explain 5 years of a chemical engineering education to you in this post because it's impossible.

Also, trade will never die. Someone will always have the raw materials that make modern life work and they'll want to trade them for other things. While the area right near the sulfur mine might sell the sulfur cheap and it'll get more expensive the farther away we are, it is acquirable.
making sulfur from readily available chemicals
making sulphur - YouTube
extracting sulfur from fertilizer
making potassium nitrate
Chemistry: Make Potassium Nitrate - YouTube
extracting sulfur from fertilizer
How to Separate Sulfur from Garden Fertilizer - YouTube
There are a billion sources for everything. When i lived in Nevada i'd find Uranium all the time. I'm pretty sure we'll figure out how to get more fucking sulfur. It is in the ground, all over the place. There are billions of tons of sodium Thiosulfate in the world. Humans are pretty cool, we'll figure it out.

I appreciate your reply, but using cold packs, 'no salt', and fertilizer to make smokeless powder simply isn't practical. Yes I'm sure it could be done, but in the situation I'm imagining, you're not going to have access to any of those things. You won't be able to get cold packs, modern fertilizer, or 'no salt'. And if you were to stock up on them now, you might as well just stock up on powder.

I'm looking more for things like sawdust, which everyone could easily get. If distortion is right and sawdust can be used to make a smokeless powder, that is by far the most realistic suggestion yet said ITT.

and also I don't think you get the full extent of the situation I'm envisioning. If anyone can get sulfur, they are not going to just share it. There are also no nature sulfur locations near me. Not any that could be mined without modern techniques anyways. Someone isn't gonna travel for 9 months on horse back to bring over a load of sulfur and then just give it to me, its gonna be every clan for themselves in the beginning.

[p6867]

What i'm saying ghost buster is that i can make gun powder out of fucking anything. I could use bisquick. I could use hay, I could use mulch. I can use my own piss and shit. I was trying to show you the massive variety of sources i can acquire the chemicals we use right now for this purpose. No shit i'm not going to stock up on cold packs, but there are millions of sources for these chemicals, and i don't need to use the same ones, I can mix and match and use some parts of one tech, and some parts of another. If we're not talking smokeless powder, i can make that with my own body fluids and the pile of old leaves in my courtyard. I can outfit it for a revolver or lever, pump or bolt action rifle or shotgun and make paper casings for it in a few hours for a decent supply.

[Ghost Buster]

Originally Posted by p6867

What i'm saying ghost buster is that i can make gun powder out of fucking anything. I could use bisquick. I could use hay, I could use mulch. I can use my own piss and shit. I was trying to show you the massive variety of sources i can acquire the chemicals we use right now for this purpose. No shit i'm not going to stock up on cold packs, but there are millions of sources for these chemicals, and i don't need to use the same ones, I can mix and match and use some parts of one tech, and some parts of another. If we're not talking smokeless powder, i can make that with my own body fluids and the pile of old leaves in my courtyard. I can outfit it for a revolver or lever, pump or bolt action rifle or shotgun and make paper casings for it in a few hours for a decent supply.

Can you provide a guide on how to do it with those things? That's kind of the point of this thread. (hay, shit, piss, and mulch are all valid ingredients as per the thread question. We seem to be going around in circles here, and you never really end up answering the question. Ya ya, you don't wanna explain chemistry to me, fair enough, how about writing a basic tek using, hay shit and piss. Or any other ingredients you could find in a forest.

Lets go back to saw dust which distortion mentioned.

Could you make a smokeless powder out of saw dust? If yes, how would you do it? Like I said, that seems to be the best practical suggestion so far if its true. And I'm not trying to be a dick, but I wanna know how to make some sort of gun powder out of commonly available natural resources. From my point of view, its almost like you are refusing to answer the question, but constantly saying how easy it is. Please stop doing that. Its not helpful. I get it, you can make powder. Please explain how I can make powder.

[benny vader]

Originally Posted by p6867

....t i can make gun powder out of .. my own piss and shit. ...

vids of you making gunpowder out of your own piss and shits or i say bullshit.

[DiStOrTiOn]

Originally Posted by benny vader

Forget primers and caps. All you need are some flints and a zippo.

Flintlocks mechanism can easily be DIYed into most modern arms. And when eventually you run out of flints, just downgrade it into matchlocks. Just remove the flint wheel and use a smouldering rope in its place instead.

I don't think flintlocks can't be used on smokeless powders. IIRC they need quite a bit of compression to be effective. Black powder works because I think it actually produces a much larger volume of gas than SP

[Spence_tron]

^ Naw, Smokeless' burn rate is dependent on solid confinement, while black powder's burn rate is not. Smokeless actually produces more gasses by ratio.

[DiStOrTiOn]

Originally Posted by Ghost Buster

I don't think you could make your own primers that shit seems really hard.

It would be hard to make the primer casings unless you had a tabletop lathe to turn and bore round stock. But re-using already made primer cases shouldn't be too hard, you'd need only to re-flatten the strike face with something like a punch or flat metal dowel (So probably the same thing you'd be using to pop them out of the brass casing)

But besides that, distortion are you saying you could essentially make a variant of smokeless powder using nothing but sawdust?? If so that's pretty awesome. Care to explain that process a little better?

No you couldn't use straight sawdust to make nitrocellulose. It's just a source to extract cellulose from and it should be a last resort if you have no cotton on hand (which is pure enough to use straight for turning into nitrocellulose). You might be able to make other propellants straight from the sawdust, perhaps by mixing it with highly concentrated H2O2 (like 30-80%). I don't really know of any though. Sawdust would also make a good substrate for soaking up and stabilizing nitroglycerin, and you could perhaps use that in small quantities as a substitute for SP/gun powder.

[1983]

I'll have to look up the information at home and I'm not sure if it's been mentioned yet but "red" and "White" powder gun powder.

Downside of these powders is it's extremely corrosive to your gun.

If memory serves me the red powder is made using rust (iron oxide).

Feel free to dig up the info somewhere but it's just something I'm putting out there.

For a cheaper alternative think along the lines of numatic air guns. If you have an air compressor you could probably run it off a belt attached to an old bike, windmill, or water wheel to recharge your weapon.

Al

[DiStOrTiOn]

Originally Posted by 1983

I'll have to look up the information at home and I'm not sure if it's been mentioned yet but "red" and "White" powder gun powder.

Downside of these powders is it's extremely corrosive to your gun.

If memory serves me the red powder is made using rust (iron oxide).

Feel free to dig up the info somewhere but it's just something I'm putting out there.

For a cheaper alternative think along the lines of numatic air guns. If you have an air compressor you could probably run it off a belt attached to an old bike, windmill, or water wheel to recharge your weapon.

Al

that?

[1983]

Originally Posted by DiStOrTiOn

that?

Looks about right.

Al