Warning: these procedures create a low explosive. You can hurt yourself or others if you do something stupid.

When I was in a situation where I had lost my home I had to move into temporary housing for a bit. I could not take my firework chemicals with me. I needed to dispose of them. The method I choose to use was to just ignite the burnables and dispose of them that way.

I would move across the road to a safe location, pour a pound or more of BP on the ground. Add a slow fuse. Weigh the fuse down with rocks to keep it stretched out. Light the end of the fuse and move away. 30 to 60 seconds later the pile would go up with a POOF and a cloud of smoke along with a flash of light. No BOOM. Very safe.

The guy I was working with asked to do a pile. I kept working on what I needed to do. Even though he had watched me weigh the fuse down to stretch it out, he just stuck the fuse in the pile like a birthday candle. When he lit the fuse sparks from the fuse landed on the pile and it went off.

He suffered major burns. His sunglasses melted. All exposed skin was blistered. EMS was called. He was transported to the local hospital and from there a life flight took him to the regional burn center.

THIS STUFF IS DANGEROUS. BE CAREFUL.

There are only three components that go into black powder:

• 75% Potassium Nitrate (KNO3)
• 10% Sulfur
• 15% Carbon

All percentages are given BY WEIGHT. While KNO3 makes up 75% of the BP mixture it is not the largest by volume. That goes to carbon.

You will need to source some of these but can make the carbon. The cheapest choice is to buy the KNO3 in pellet form. This is used for many things. One of which is making fuel from vegetable oils. If you wanted you could get a 55 gallon drum of the stuff delivered to you.

Pure sulfur is also easy to purchase. It is used in many processes.

Making carbon is actually making charcoal. Not “charcoal briquettes” but actual charcoal. To make charcoal you need a good hardwood, a heat source and an air tight container.

What you are going to do, in essence, is to cook your hardwood into charcoal. Start by turning your hardwood into small chunks. You want as much surface area as possible without making chips or sawdust. Once this is done you need to cook it.

Find an airtight metal can. I purchased an empty paint can from the hardware store. Poke one small hole in the center of the lid. Fill the container with your hardwood. Then put the lid with hole back on.

As the wood cooks it will emit gasses. The hole allows those gasses to escape. The gasses also displace all of the oxygen inside the can. One of the cool things you can do is actually light the gasses that are escaping on fire.

You cook your wood until no more gas is escaping.

If you did everything correctly you should have no ash in the can and lots of charcoal. You might still have some wood inside that charcoal.

Now that you have these, you need to processes them into something usable. For that you will need a mill. The best option for that is to purchase a ball mill. You want a ball mill that is non sparking. That means that you need to avoid plastics that might build up an electrical charge. Remember the life flight above but add to it a BOOM when the spark sets off your mixture will it is contained.

For the best black powder you want a homogeneous mixture. The smaller the particles of the mixture the more homogeneous the mixture will be when mixed properly.

To this end we want to turn our three components into a fine powder. In general, at this stage you want a powder that will pass through a #100 sieve. The following is an example of grading sieves. There are other options that are cheaper. You will need grading sieves at different sizes.

3

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One of the nice thing about the type of sieve listed above is that you can put your material at the top and sift it. Each finer mesh will stop your material and you end up with your powder properly graded.

To make this powder you have to mill the KNO3, Sulfur, and Carbon. There are different ways of doing this. I’m only going to describe the method using the ball mill as I feel this is the safest method.

You need to put your material into the ball mill with some sort of media. You might be tempted to use lead balls. DON’T. At this stage you are best served with a non-sparking material that is hard. I chose to use stainless steel balls. You need a mix of balls from about 1/4″ to 3/4″ inch in diameter. You can find these for sale on Amazon and other sources.

The amount of raw material and media is dependent on the size of your ball mill.

Once loaded and sealed, run your mill until the raw material is a fine powder. Pass it through your #100 sieve. Anything that doesn’t pass through goes back into the mill for another run. Once all your material passes through your sieve carefully package it in an airtight container. You don’t want it to absorb water from the air.

Now wash your ball mill and media. Make sure there is no residue left behind and then let it dry. You do not want the different chemicals to mix while milling.

Repeat the process for the other three chemicals. When you are milling the charcoal you might find bits of wood that has not carbonized. Just return them to your charcoal can to wait for your next run.

Remember to wear a mask while working with powders this fine. They will get into your lungs if you don’t.

Now that you have the three powders you need to measure them carefully by weight.

I choose to use a triple beam scale. This is accurate to 0.1 grams. Our reloading scales are normally good to 0.1gr. 154 grains per gram if I did my math correctly.

This means that your reloading scale is more than accurate enough. What might be an issue is the total amount that you can weigh on your scale or the volume you can hold in your scale. Just be aware.

If you are using any type of scale, make sure you tare your scale and container.

You should now have 3 airtight containers full of powdered chemicals. You should have a spotlessly clean ball mill.

Take your stainless steel media and put it in a safe place. Think of this as removing ammunition when you are working with a firearm and don’t want an accidental boom.

Now you need to mix the three chemicals. Use your scale and measure out 7.5g of your powdered KNO3. 1.0g of Sulfur. and 1.5g of Carbon/charcoal into your mill.

Add your non-sparking media to the ball mill. If you use a hard lead balls you will turn your KNO3 gray which means there is lead transferred. I don’t like the lead ball method. Brass works very well, does not spark. It is expensive. The one most people use is ceramic. It should not spark but there are arguments within the fireworks community as to the truth of this. Finally there is non-sparking stainless steel. The prefered stainless steel alloys for this are 304 and 316.

Remember, if there is a spark in your ball mill at this point, it will go boom.

Now the safety part of the next step.

Get yourself a long extension cord, 100ft is best. Run it out a 100ft from where power is away from all buildings and people. Make sure that the cord is NOT energized. Do NOT plug in the extension cord. Put your jar on the ball mill drive and turn on the ball mill.

NOTHING SHOULD HAPPEN

If the ball mill starts up, turn it off and go unplug the extension cord.

Now that the mill is on but not running, go back to the other end of the extension cord and plug it in. This should turn the mill on. You might be able to hear it running. Hopefully you don’t see it running.

Remember all those videos of idiots putting tannerite inside things and then shooting said things only to find that there is stuff flying at high speeds towards them? You just filled a jar with an explosive and projectiles. If it goes boom things WILL fly. Don’t be where said speeding things can hit you.

Let the mill run for about an hour. You want a good homogeneous mixture.

This mixture is very flammable. If you put a spark to it, it will flash. Don’t do it!

If you want to test a small amount make sure it is a small amount and you use something that keeps you at a distance when you light the powder.

This is NOT gunpowder this is PB “meal”! There are a couple of more steps.

The meal must be turned into actual gunpowder. This is done by pressing it into pucks and then processing the pucks.

Take your black powder meal and add a small amount of water to it. You want just enough water to be able to press it into pucks. If you put enough water in that it looks wet, you’ve added to much.

No, I can’t tell you how much.

KNO3 is water soluble. This means that as you add water to your BP meal the KNO3 will dissolve into the water. When you press your puck any excess water will be squeezed out and this will carry away some of your KNO3 which changes the ratios of your BP.

One method used is to spritz a fine mist over the powder. One spritz might be enough for this amount of BP meal.

Now you need to make your puck.

You need a container to hold the puck. I used a piece of 2″ PVC pipe that was about 2.5 inches long. I put this on a piece of aluminum, 1/4″ thick and about 5in square. I put a small round piece of wood inside the pipe at the bottom and then added my BP meal on top until there was about an 3/4 to an inch of powder there.

Now I put another wooden round over the top that fits snuggle in the pipe.

Today, because I have a machine shop, I would take a 1/2 sheet of aluminum and mill it to have a boss in the center that exactly fit the pipe. I would make an aluminum plug that would exactly fit the pipe and use that instead of working with wood.

Now press the pipe. I used a big C-Clamp the first time. Today I would use my arbor press. You want to squeeze this hard enough that it sticks together on its own. You can use something like this cheese press to compress your puck.

This is a fancy press that is designed to provide a constant pressure. You don’t need all that fancy. You just need a long lever and a single down rod to press into the top plate of the puck mold.

Because the BP meal is damp it is MOSTLY safe from sparks. This is fairly safe as things go.

Now you need to dry your pucks. Place them on a screen to sun dry. You want both the top and bottom exposed to air and you want to do this in a location where there is no chance of a spark. I’ve used a furnace filter but an actual window screen is better.

Now you have a bunch of very dry and hard pucks of BP. And it is actual Black Powder now.

But it isn’t really usable, what you need now is to create granules that can be used as you want.

Take one of your pucks and put it in a spark proof baggy to control where stuff goes. Now using non-sparking equipment hammer that puck lightly until it breaks up.

I use a wooden mallet and zip lock bags on an aluminum block.

Hammer until you have grains of black powder that are about what you want.

Your Black Powder is sorted into different grades:

• Whaling – 4 mesh (4.74 mm)
• Cannon – 6 mesh (3.35 mm)
• Saluting – 10 mesh (2 mm)
• Fg – 12 mesh (1.7 mm)
• FFg – 16 mesh (1.18 mm)
• FFFg – 20 mesh (.85 mm)
• FFFFg – 40 mesh (.47 mm)
• FFFFFg – 75mesh (.149 mm)

To make our meal we used 100mesh. For FFFFg you will need a 40 mesh and a 75 mesh sieve. The grains of BP that pass through the 40 mesh but not through the 75 mesh are FFFFg black powder.

You need two sieves in order to properly grade you powder.

The smaller the size of your powder, the faster it burns.

And there you have it. How to make black powder.

When last I did this I purchased my KNO3 from a company that was selling equipment and supplies for bio-diesel. His issue was that 10#s was a small amount. Other than that, no issues. I picked up the sulfur from someplace, it was no big deal. I grabbed the hardwood from the firewood pile to make it.

It took about 3 days to go through the entire process. Once I was done I used the powder to make BP rockets and a couple of BP salutes, types of fireworks.

Be safe if you try this. You are the responsible person. You shouldn’t take advise from randos on the web.

Early we wrote about Ivan Antonyuk et all appealing to the Supreme Court to have the second circuit courts stay in the case vacated. The stay pending appeal to the second circuit court means that the state of NY can infringe via the CCIA until the second circuit court hears the case and decides.

If the second circuit court decides for the state, then the case then has to be appealed to the Supreme Court where it needs to be granted certiorari. The second circuit court could put off hearing the appeal for years.

Unfortunately the second circuit court is overseen by associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She is very anti-gun and is very much a political appointment. Listening to her arguments and questions is painful. There was a chance that she wouldn’t hear this request because there are procedural reasons why should could ignore it.

Then something amazing happened. Yesterday Justice Sotomayor told the state of New York they must have their response filed by 1600 January 3, 2023. This is FAST.

This means that the state of New York is working overtime right now to prepare that response. 13 days from the original filing till the response is due.

This doesn’t mean that the decision will happen rapidly. It does mean that the Supreme Court has taken notice. We could hear a response as early as the 4th or 5th of January.

The state could request an extension, it is unlikely to be granted. It is also likely that the state will wait until the last minute to file in order to delay the proceedings as long as possible.

Still, it is good news.

When I was a kid the term for somebody that crossed the border illegally was “illegal alien”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary “alien” means “a foreigner, especially one who is not a naturalized citizen of the country where they are living.
” And “Illegal” just means that they are not hear with the permission of the government.

The narrative went into action “people aren’t illegal”. “Nobody is illegal”. Everything was about making a well defined term with well defined and understood meaning to become unacceptable.

Terms used were “alien”, “undocumented worker”, “worker”, “asylum seekers”, “undocumented migrant”, and finally “migrant”.

So today if you say “I don’t want illegal aliens to invade our country” you will be meet with ridicule and scorn. “Why are you against extraterrestrials?” “Are you afraid some alien is going to probe you?”

All of this is designed to confuse communications.

“Undocumented worker” is designed to make you think that all illegal aliens are actually working here in the U.S. Or at least looking for work. While it is true that it is difficult to find American citizens that are willing to work for the wages that illegals will, this is not a reason to allow illegals into the country.

Today being against the swarm of people crossing the southern border is being “racist” or against “migrants”. This is not the case at all.

In 2020 President Trump used a law designed to protect the country in times of pandemics from being flooded with sick people. Title 42. This allowed him to send those that were captured back to Mexico. It allowed him to stop the people claiming asylum from making that claim.

Remember, that if you are escaping a bad place, you should be claiming asylum in the first country you escape too. Yes, there are exceptions for the scenarios where you are escaping a bad place (U.S.S.R.) and have to pass through other bad places (East Germany) before you get to a safe place. (West Germany). This is not the case of those that were able to safely walk north through multiple countries before claiming asylum in the United States.

Nobody on the left would claim it was ok for us to move those illegal aliens to Canada and have them seek asylum there.

Unfortunately we are being invaded through our southern border. The state of Arizona is being sued because the started stacking containers near the southern border which was acting like a real fence. There is more money being funneled to Ukraine and the IRS than there is to border protections.

Because of this we end up with entitled bullshit like the following.

When Vladimir Castellanos learned that COVID-19 restrictions blocking him and other migrants from claiming asylum at the U.S. border with Mexico may not be terminated this week, he said he felt deceived.

Castellanos and his brother are Venezuelans, and they were among dozens of migrants gathered on both sides of the Rio Grande on Monday night in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas, with some lighting small fires to keep warm as temperatures dropped toward freezing.

They had traveled there in anticipation that the COVID-19 restrictions, known as Title 42, would be lifted on Wednesday as ordered by a U.S. court. Title 42 allows U.S. authorities to rapidly expel migrants to Mexico and other countries without a chance to seek U.S. asylum.

But in a last-minute move, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed Title 42 to remain in place temporarily while a legal challenge by Republican state attorneys general seeking to extend the measures is decided.

Here is a man that was somehow able to travel all the way from Venezuela to the southern border. He didn’t bother to attempt to apply for asylum at anypoint in his travels. He didn’t bother to try to apply for asylum in any of the normal ways.

He expected to travel to the southern border, cross it illegally. Then turn himself in and ask for asylum. The problem is that he and the millions of other illegal aliens like him don’t actually qualify for asylum. Being a citizen of a poor country, a third world shit hole, does NOT make you qualified for asylum.

There are particular rules.

And if you are going to become a productive member of the US society, which is in doubt, why didn’t you do that in your own country.

Frustration among migrants at U.S.-Mexico border as COVID restrictions remain

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -When Vladimir Castellanos learned that COVID-19 restrictions blocking him and other migrants from claiming asylum at the U.S. border with Mexico may not be terminated this week, he said he felt deceived. Castellanos and his brother are Venezuelans, and th…

I have sat at home with my mother and my brother looking at a sad Christmas tree. It was sad because my father was deployed and would not be home for Christmas. We would be at my grandparents on Christmas day and all would be brighter but still, my father was away fighting in a war.

In 1941, days before Christmas the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Men and boys by the thousands lined up to join up. They were gone before Christmas. The first of many years without husbands, fathers, sons and brothers being away for the holidays. Families gathered around the Christmas table and said prayers for the safety of their loved ones, away fighting the war.

That Christmas a song by Irving Berlin was aired on the Kraft Music Hall.

Thousands of miles away from home, men huddled around small fires trying to stay warm. They ate what they could. They dreamed of being home with their families if for only that one night. Further back from the front line, men sat under cover eating K-rats and wishing they were home and that the food was better. They dreamed of the meals they shared with their loved ones only a few short years ago.

If they were lucky, it wasn’t just K-rats, sometimes it was real food, turkey or ham. Something to remind them of home.

One of the small comforts was music. The radio would play music. By Christmas of 1943 the song was often requested by troops at USO shows where the singer was performing.

I hesitated about doing it because invariably it caused such a nostalgic yearning among the men, that it made them sad. Heaven knows, I didn’t come that far to make them sad. For this reason, several times I tried to cut it out of the show, but these guys just hollered for it.

My great uncle flew missions of Europe during WWII and was shot down. He recalled that the men hated the song but had to listen to it. It brought out so many hard memories. Other veterans of WWII have told me the same thing when asked.

A song so bitter sweet. To hurt so much to hear and remember yet to bring back those memories of what waited at home. The love that still kindled around the Christmas tree. The love of family. To know that those back home were praying for that soldier.

It is past Christmas this year. Still take the time to think of those that are still deployed, that are spending this holiday season far from home.

I never served in the military. My job was to support the US Army by keeping computers alive and well and by helping to build better software to keep our troops safer and to allow them to kill our enemies before they were killed.

I thank each of you that served. I’ve known to many veterans that left a part of themselves behind. Again, thank you.

Quote is from an interview given by Bing Crosby

I’m taking today off.

I hope y’ll had a great Christmas. I hope your prayers are answered. I hope you and yours have a wonderful new years.

May freedom ring.

-AWA

On Friday, Dec 23rd, 2022 Assistant attorney general Harry B. Wilson argued before Harney County Judge Robert S. Raschio to lift his temporary restraining order holding the purchase permit requirement of Measure 114.

This is the case which saw the state appealing to the state supreme court of Oregon on an emergency appeal and having it firmly squashed. Interesting Updates on Bruen Cases At that point the case goes back to the county court to be heard.

At this time all parts of Measure 114 are being held by injunctions issued by the county court. This is interesting because the only place to appeal from the county court is to the state supreme court. The state may argue that the case should be moved to federal court but that hasn’t happened yet.

Because the case is not within the federal court system there is no appeal to the 9th circus court. The 9th circuit court is very much an anti-gun court. The twists they have put on cases to rule that every state gun infringement is famous. The state could appeal the denial of the state supreme court to the US Supreme Court but I don’t really think that the state wants the US Supreme court to step into any part of the Measure 114 fight.

As is normal with the infringers, the argument is that their particular infringement “will save lives” and “is constitutional”. In this particular case they are also arguing that the plaintiffs (good guys) didn’t directly challenge the universal background checks and thus the court shouldn’t be ruling on it.

The question wasn’t asked is a reoccuring theme in looking at Supreme Court decisions. It is also that way in appellate court decisions. There are times when the court will hear a pleading to take the case and they will reform the question. When the case is finally argued it is always about one or more specific questions.

In some cases we’ve seen this in 2A issues. The circuit courts changed the question in order to be able to rule in favor of the infringing state.

The State’s argument is that there is a “loophole” that allows prohibited persons from buying firearms from FFLs (and others). The argument is that sometimes the Oregon State Police get so busy that they can’t reply to Oregon State Police Firearms Instant Check System (OSICS) within the 3 days required by federal law.

Continuing the argument the state says that in the last 4 years they have stopped around 6,600 prohibited people from purchasing firearms from FFL. “from illegally buying guns” as the AG puts it.

From published data OSICS seems to be running around 0.9% denials. Out of every 1000 people filling out the state version of a 4473 (which could be the federal version), 9 people were denied (or investigated, it is unclear from the reports).

Of course there are no easy to find references to number of people that were prosecuted for attempting to purchase a firearm from an FFL that were denied. There is a fair bit of antidotal data that says that there are many more people incorrectly denied than there are actual prohibited persons attempting to buy firearms from FFLs.

My LGS FFL has told me that he has had a number of people get all the way to filling out the 4473 and when they looked at the form just walked out of the store. It happens.

The AG continues his argument that because they OSICS gets the answer back within minutes for a “significant percentage of background checks” that there should be no real issue in allowing more time for all the others. The actual numbers on “significant” is somewhere between 38% and 41%. Which means that more than half of the people asking for permission to exercise the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are subjected to a more intensive background check.

And those 60% would have their rights denied.

The lawyer for the plaintiffs (good guys) rightfully points out that because Measure 114 has no limits on how long it can take for the OSICS to get back to the FFL, that it can easily become a defacto gun purchase ban. Does anybody really trust the government at this point.

Why does it take the ATF upwards of 90 days to give permission to buy a muffler? Sometimes longer. The number of stories of people waiting years to take possession of their NFA items could fill this blog.

It all comes back to the same thing, infringing gun grabbers want to take guns from the law abiding and leave only the police and criminals with guns.

And remember, when you need a man with a gun, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.