Scott’s Toilet Paper Black Powder

a few months ago we did a presentation where we used toilet paper as a carbon source for antique muzzle loading propellant and by mostly luck it worked out exceptionally well in fact it ended up being the most powerful and cleanest black powder that we had made so far now in that particular video we used cottonil Comfort Care simply because that's what I happen to have on hand but since then I've gotten hundreds of comments requesting all different kinds of things and in particular when it comes to toilet paper Scott is the number one requested now I'm not uh too sure about Scott's toilet paper for its intended use but as far as a carbon source for muzzle loading propellant it seemed to be a pretty decent Choice it's very thin in fact it's transparent you can see through it which I would imagine is probably not good for its intended use but as far as making charcoal out of it it works and chars up quite nicely so I charred this stuff up the same way I've done all of the toilet paper I remove the first layer of paper because I don't want that glue strip I don't know what it is but I don't want it and I remove the cardboard tube out of the center and I Char it up in my wood stove like I've been doing for quite some time now I liked the cotton nail and I still prefer that when it comes to making antique muzzle loading propellant because one roll of cotton L completely charred minus the tube of course makes 26.8 or so grams of charcoal which works well because I make 200 gram batches at a ratio of 77 1331 so 13 G of charcoal time 2 is 26 gr so one roll of charcoal or toilet paper charred that is will do a 200 gam batch which works out pretty well the Scots did not work out that way it's a little bit lighter it comes out to I think 22 point something so you don't get one roll per 200 Grand batch I needed two rolls not quite two rolls but you understand what I mean to do 200 Grand batches all of my tests are done in 200 batches at a ratio of 77 1310 now I've gotten a lot of comments since we've been doing this series on H carbon sources about why I don't show how to make it well it's kind of a long drawn out process um I'm gonna do I'm working on it right now uh an entire video of the process we use now because if you go back and watch my old videos I don't even make powder like that anymore I've changed almost everything so I'm going to do a whole another video on that particular topic but all of the powders we made are charred in my wood stove and the way I do it is I have my fire going when it's pretty much nothing but coals I take my material I put it in my favorite paint can with a hole on top I put it in there and I leave it there all night until the next morning and I find this works quite well I understand to a lot of the tech Weenies and number nerds that it's not exactly very controlled I understand that but it's really as opposed to doing it over a Open Flame or a propane um stove or something like that that you'd use to uh you know fry a turkey or something outside this is kind of a set it and forget it way to do it it really works out quite well but yes I understand it's not as controlled as we would like it to be understood all of my nitrates are purified uh I'll go over that in the long video uh all of my my charcoal is made the same way the sulfur I buy is 99% pure technical grade I don't bother to refine the sulfur I find it works just fine all of my ratios are 77 1310 that's 77 Parts pottassium nitrate 13 Parts charcoal and 10 parts sulfur all of the powders are milled for 24 hours in my tread ball mill using solid brass media now I seem to be the only one in this camp that doesn't use lead I don't like lead in my experience lead makes dirty powder now I know plenty of folks and have met plenty of people and even friends of mine that use lead and they say it works just fine for them and that's fine I'm glad to hear it but personally brass makes cleaner powder and I've done a lot of tests on that and I think it really boils down to what your standards are I guess but anyway brass media that's what I use it's compressed to a ratio of 1.74 this stuff in particular I think was 1.74 and glazed for four hours the glazing process is something that um I'm not really sold on now glazing is after your powder is compressed broken up and sorted by size you put it in a ball Milling jar with no media just the powder sorted by size and you roll it for several hours if you look at Swiss black powder and see how absolutely shiny and smooth it is it's because their stuff is glazed till the cows come home I don't like glazing my powder that much because one I find it's not really necessary two it hampers the performance it actually slows down the velocity because it slows down the burn rate um and I don't want slower burning powder I haven't really noticed it burns any cleaner uh but it definitely will slow it down a little bit not by a tremendous amount but you know 50 60 80 feet per second on average something like that so I only glaze my powder just a little bit just enough to knock the sharp edges off and smooth it out just a little bit and that's how I make all of my powder and that's how this stuff is made along with all of the other stuff you've seen me test in the last probably year that's how all my stuff is made so here is the Scots toilet paper charcoal all right so here's our Scots 3F 168 1686 all right that was not not as fast as the cotton L it's right on par with goex yes it's right on par with goex but you know we still got a good two three more shots to go well I doubt it'll magically pick up 100 feet per second never can't tell but if it did that would if it did that'd just be a a mark against it for spread so so you're saying there's a chance yes hey all right someone else is out good for them all right shot number two with the Scots 1670 nope not looking good afraid not yeah so I wonder what about the Cel is it could just be so ideal it it could just be the uh you know it might have just been a a particularly good batch of wood pulp you know that was just a better blend well this is one of the things that I was concerned about with using toilet paper as a carbon source is you have no idea what you're going to get exactly you you cuz they get eucalyptus pulp they get you know Birch and you know all kinds of stuff I've heard people say Aspen yeah Aspen that's right that was another one but cuz we've had a couple of couple of people in the comments that have they did they work at a pulp Factory or something yeah yeah worked at a paper mill at a yeah at a paper mill but it it depends on where yeah because I've had several people say oh they use pine they use Birch they use Aspen they use eucalyptus yeah all right shot number three that's a skin walker that skin walker sound I can't hear a thing oh all right shot number three oh come on now man 17 18 we'll give it one more yeah let's give it four well that wasn't bad 1718 well it it's still beats goex yes generally it still beats goex and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the fouling is is better just like most toilet papers well what was it we tried that was not it was Quilted Northern yeah it was the the Quilted Northern stuff yeah that was fast it was faster than this but yeah but it had that nasty weird fing yeah it was yellow that yellow I'm pretty sure it's actually a a peacock down there I can't hear anything you'll hear it take your word for it God what a beautiful day finally I know quits raining all right shot number four with the Scots what the hell that stuff isn't supposed to happen to me it's supposed to happen to you [Laughter] guys all right shot number four [Music] 1681 yeah that's uh that's basically goex maybe itty bit that's on par with goex maybe a little faster yeah let's see how clean or dirty it is or isn't the Swiss is like 1780 yeah and goex average was uh like 1660 yeah not horrible I'd say that's pretty much on par with goex yeah is what I would say yeah I'd say so it's definitely not as clean or powerful as the cotton L powder yeah but not not terrible not uh we not bitching seen much worse but well what I find is when we compare powders We compare it to Swiss yeah and a lot of folks compare powders to goex and shoen yeah and so I find that we might have a little bit of a skewed point of view I think to I I I would describe it as a higher standard okay thank you that's that's a better that's a way better better way of putting it but I find that uh with powders like this we go oh it's like goex or oh it's like shoen I think to probably 50% of the people out there they would be happy to have something like this oh yeah absolutely especially something that you can make yourself all right now again if you're new here all of my tests are done the same way they're used the same method build the same amount of time the only thing that really changes is the carbon source which is this series that we're doing all of my tests are done using my Kibler Southern Mountain rifle 45 caliber they are all 50 grains with a 20,000 patch and a 44 round ball and all of the shots are primed with the same powder they are charged with all of my tests are done this way so the Scott toilet paper powder averaged 1688 with a Max bread of 48 and delivers 886 foot-pounds of energy this basically is goex black powder this performed almost exactly like goex goex averages in this particular rifle 1660 has a much wider spread that's always been my issue with gox for whatever reason it just seems to have a WID spread at least that's my experience in that rifle as far as the fouling goes yeah it's basically going X it's it's 100% comparable to goex if I had both of these and fired them and you didn't tell me what I was loading I would say yeah this is probably 3F goex it looks just like it it performs just like it this actually has a little bit tighter spread and a a spread of 48 is totally acceptable in my not so humble opinion I don't ever like to see any spread over 50 and I don't care if it's a cartridge smokeless muzzle loader I don't care I don't like to see a spread over 50 now in my experience when you have black powder that has a really wide spread 900 feet per second and up that is a quality issue if of course you're measuring your powder somewhat accurately and again for the number nerds and Tech weenies if I really wanted to get 100% well 100% I don't know about 100% but if I wanted to get as accurate as possible I would weigh out these charges the reason why I don't typically do that is because that's not how I shoot out in the field I don't weigh out each charges and I know there are folks that do that and if you're one of those people that's that's fine but even just using my volumetric measure out in the field loading from a bras flask I still only get a Max spread of 48 which is again in my book is totally acceptable if you're still measuring your stuff volumetrically at least reasonably consistent and you're getting a spread of 100 120 that is a quality issue with your powder typically that means two things one your powder is not sorted by size well enough you have varying size kernels that's kernel with a k or granules of powder or two you have powder in there that is more dense or less dense than other granules of powder around it that is going to give you wider spreads again provided that you are getting pretty damn close to whatever you're measuring from shot to shot if you have powder that has varying densities it's going to take longer to burn the more dense powder than it will the less dense kernels of powder or if you have powder that has 2f and 3F mixed in there it's going to take longer to burn up the bigger pieces the 2f then it will the 3F and you're going to get wider spreads so that a long boring story just to tell you that any spread that I see that's below 50 is acceptable in my book so overall as far as how the Scots performed it matches goex in every regard fouling performance well it's a little bit better with the spread but overall not that great and you heard my brother and I talking in there how we might have a little bit higher standard than some folks because the power that we're always comparing to is Swiss I like Swiss I think objectively it is a superior product over goex and shuten if you like goex and shuten that's fine and I've used plenty of that stuff but the way I look at it and my regulars have heard me this Spiel before is if I am going to go through the trouble of making black powder if I'm going to jump through all the Hoops to make black powder I want to make the best black powder that I possibly can I want to make the cleanest and the fastest powder that I can because it's kind of a chore to jump through all this Hoops all these hoops rather I don't want powder that I could buy for 23 or 25 bucks I could order that stuff and buy it if I'm GNA jump through all this stuff I want the best black powder that I can possibly make that's the way I look at it now if you don't agree or you don't care that's fine you could make whatever kind of powder you want regardless of how lousy it is but that the way I look at it so as far as my thoughts on the Scots uh not worth the effort and another thing I should have mentioned before is the cottonil is the same price as the Scots at least when I was at the grocery store buying this stuff I was kind of surprised this is supposed to be the cheap stuff and yet the cottonil stuff that I have been using it's the same price and you get more of it not by a lot but one roll will do 200 Grand where the Scots will not and it makes cleaner burning powder and it's faster by I don't know 120 feet per second almost which in my opinion is considerable so as usual folks if you thought this video didn't suck do me a favor and hit the like button and consider subscribing and if you did think it sucked go make your own damn video

Channel: Everything Black Powder

Views: 43,819

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Id: rBzrCoY1AUQ

Length: 19min 21sec (1161 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2024