Doing some housekeeping I ran across an old magazine, The Black Powder Report, There's an article in the June 1985 issue about canon powder, mostly historical and safety stuff. The author says that in the quest for more power black powder granulations went up to “the size of walnuts and in some cases the size of apples"! There is also mention of the unfortunate death of the Secretary of State who was killed by a burst canon aboard the warship Princeton in Feb. 1844. I couldn't help but compare that gentleman to our current Secretary of State. What a difference. I thought fellow charcoal burners would find this interesting. The point of the article, of course, was that you can not safely substitute finer granulation powder in a muzzleloader without reducing the charge, and that you need to know what you're doing when messing around with black powder.
Canon powder
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- Last Post 29 September 2009
That's interesting. I think the finer the granulation translates to a faster burning rate. Could you perhaps scan the article and post it?
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I remember reading of the burst cannon on board the Princeton which killed the SoS as well as injuring numerous other sailors and civilians. Interestingly I read of this in a history of America published by Time/Life! Of course the detonation could have stemmed from a problem with the black powder used for loading. And it is true that from a modern context, follow-up investigation of the failure would have left a lot to be desired, but I believe it was concluded that the cause of the failure was a fault in the cannon. Similar failures were an ongoing problem as demonstrated by detonations of Parrott rifles during the War Between the States.
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I believe proofing Civil War-era cannon was a try-it-and-see operation. Based on prior experience and some math, ordnance officers probably had a good idea what charge of powder and shot a partricular gun could take, but there was always the possibility of casting flaws in the gun. I remember reading that Monitor's guns had only been proved with 15-lb. powder charges before the fight with Virginia. The guns were later proved with 30-lb. charges. What a difference that would have made in the battle. At one point Monitor fired both guns simultaneously at Virginia, cracking the outer iron armor and splintering the wooden backing on the interior of the ship. Thirty-pound charges might well have blown off parts of the casement. Virginia would have had to surrender or be destroyed.
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DB, you're right. The finer granulation burns faster. Since all black powder is made from the same compound the burn rate is controlled by the size of the particles, or 'granulation'. An example would be a solid 1 lb. block of powder compared to 1 lb. of small pieces, say 2F. The 2F will burn MUCH faster, due to the increased surface area of the powder. That will also produce much higher pressures in a barrel. I'd like to see some of that old powder, I think it was made by Mammoth, in the walnut size granulations. As for scanning the article, I don't have a scanner, but will try to think of something and pm you, I don't want to infringe on anyone's copyrights. I wish we had a Secretary of State that liked to play with cannons.
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In my mis-spent youth as a cadet I fooled some with Civil War-era artillery. We had an original 6 pounder Armstrong mountain gun and fired demonstrations using live ammo at military bases.
A full powder charge for a 6 pounder field gun during the Civil War was 1.5 pounds, which according to Roberts Handbook for Artillery gave 1750 f.p.s., whereas in the lighter mountain gun the service charge was reduced to one pound for 1350 f.p.s. in its shorter barrel.
We used “B” blasting powder in the gun we fired. We did not fire full service charges, but subsonic target loads of about 1000 f.p.s., which required only 1/2 pound of blasting powder behind a composite hollow-based projectile with cast lead cup obturator fixed to the bottom of a concrete filled steel food can. We used a priming charge of 20 grs. of 3F poured down the vent after spiking the foil powder bag with a gimlet, before setting an original friction primer or lighting a quickmatch with a punk.
If “B” blasting powder was unavailable we could still get quite good accuracy up to 200 yards using 1/4 pound of Fg, velocity estimated to be about 700 f.p.s. You could readily watch the projectile arcing downrange, much to the enjoyment of spectators. You could shoot at the 12-inch black of the Army “A” rifle target at 200 yards and hear the projectile zip through the canvas backer with a satisfying “whack!” as a 3 inch wadcutter hole appeared in the bullseye which everyone could see.
Roberts Handbook of Artillery
73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia
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Ed, what is B blasting powder? Like for blowing up mountains in road work? Ever seen walnut sized or even apple sized granulations of black powder?
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Chilean nitrate was not at first considered satisfactory for the manufacture of black powder because it too readily absorbed moisture. Lammot du Pont, an American industrialist, solved this problem and started making sodium nitrate powder in 1858. It became popular in a short time because, although it did not produce as high a quality explosive as potassium nitrate, it was suitable for most mining and construction applications and was much less expensive. To distinguish between them, the potassium nitrate and sodium nitrate versions came to be known as A and B blasting powder respectively. The A powder continued in use for special purposes that required its higher quality, principally for firearms, military devices, and safety fuses.
The B blasting powder we used had a granulation like pea gravel. Larger granulations have been used for mining, but I believe some time ago these were mostly replaced by ANFO mixtures.
73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia
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I just downloaded the handbook: very nice!
Thanks, Ed!
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IIRC, Parrot rifles/guns used during the Civil War were prone to failure.
Weren't the 16” guns on the battle ships loaded with a BP priming charge under a main charge of smokeless?
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You are correct, sir. U.S. Explosive Ordnance, OP 1664, 1947, page 76: “The ignition end of each bag consists of a red-colored quilted pocket containing an ignition charge of black powder".
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I think Jim Shockey Gold and the American Pioneer Powder is sodium nitrate based. 10 ga
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I thought I might add that Rodman formulated a powder design that did not increase pressure - rather it burned with constant pressure as the projectile traveled down the barrel. Here is a link to the article. http://www.cwartillery.org/ve/tjrodman.html His powder was much sought after but was short lived since a nitro based powder soon came in to replace black powder. Cordite was also used but more in Europe than here. I also have a few old cans of C grade pyrodex for use in cannons. The grains are about the size of BB's. It was discovered that it did not perform well for blank charges and I assume it faded away as I haven't seen any since the early 80's. The above article is interesting to read and has a photo of a 20 inch columbiad with a man standing beside it.
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