Black Powder

Up until the mid-19th Century, the propellant used in firearms was black powder, so-called because of its color. Originally black powder was a mixture of charcoal (from which we got carbon), saltpeter (from which we got potassium nitrate), and sulfur. When combined in the proper proportions, an explosive compound was created. Black powder was invented by the Chinese; as near we can figure they were experimenting with black powder by about 1,000 AD. It took around 200 years for Western cultures to begin using black powder, but by the 13th Century we were.

Black powder is an explosive. This is in contrast to more-modern propellants that don’t explode when exposed to flame, they burn. This is a critical difference making modern propellants immensely safer to use than black powder.

In its original form, making black powder was a pretty straightforward process that entailed simply mixing the three components in the correct proportions. Unfortunately, for military applications, when transporting black powder over oftentimes rough roads in horse-drawn vehicles, the components could separate, weakening the powder’s power and effectiveness. For this reason, the three components were often shipped together but in separate containers, then mixed right behind a line of cannon, immediately before use, during battle. As you might imagine, mixing up an explosive under such conditions frequently resulted in unintentional explosions, with resultant injuries and loss of life.

To prevent separation during transport, therefore avoid needing to mix the components right before use, a process was developed called “corning.” Basically, black powder was dampened and pressed into a cake; after drying, it was broken up and sifted to separate granules by size. Also, the granules were often tumbled with graphite to make them flow more smoothly against each other, therefore be easier to load into guns; this gave the granules a shiny “glazed” appearance. This new black powder offered a significant boost in power, so much so that some older cannon, that were safe with the previous black powder, blew up when loaded with the new version.

After these two modifications, black powder has remained essentially unchanged for around half a millennium.
Black powder has its drawbacks. Less than half the powder converts to gas on firing, so we get huge clouds of gunsmoke. We also get a lot of residual powder fouling, which can gum up a black powder gun, to the point it fails to function, after just a few shots. Black powder is hydroscopic, it draws moisture from the air, which makes storing it in such a fashion as to avoid “getting your powder damp” critically important. This also means it’s necessary to clean black powder guns thoroughly and immediately after firing to avoid black powder fouling attracting moisture that will rust steel in short order. Being an explosive, black powder presents dangers in storage that aren’t present with more-modern propellants. And the only way to increase velocity with black powder is to increase the charge weight, which is why things like Old West rifle “buffalo cartridge” casings are so damn big.

​Black powder is still in use in today’s world. Cowboy Action Shooters want to fire gun designs that actually existed in the Old West, with the propellant that was actually in them at the time. Some areas of the country have dedicated black powder hunting seasons. And some people simply find a huge enjoyment and nostalgia in whipping out a modern-production repro Sharps single-shot or 1873 Springfield, or even an original, and seeing just how well their shooting stacks up against their forefathers. Having said all that, for the majority of shooters, black powder has been supplanted in use by a huge diversity of safer, more refined gunpowders.