Question for Mad Monk on Cannon Powder

[davec2]

Mad Monk,

As I have been working away on refurbishing my full size cannon, I realized that all of the cannon powder I have purchased and expended over the years was Goex....and who knows what will happen in that situation.  Then I remembered that I also used up about 25 pounds of pyrotechnic lift powder that I had purchased along the way somewhere.  It seemed to work fine in a cannon.  So my question is, even with the demise of Goex, I'm sure the pyrotechnic / fireworks display people are not going to give up what they do and I was wondering if you knew how much of black powder production is used by the pyro trade vs muzzleloading shooters like us ?

[Mad Monk]

Mad Monk,

As I have been working away on refurbishing my full size cannon, I realized that all of the cannon powder I have purchased and expended over the years was Goex....and who knows what will happen in that situation.  Then I remembered that I also used up about 25 pounds of pyrotechnic lift powder that I had purchased along the way somewhere.  It seemed to work fine in a cannon.  So my question is, even with the demise of Goex, I'm sure the pyrotechnic / fireworks display people are not going to give up what they do and I was wondering if you knew how much of black powder production is used by the pyro trade vs muzzleloading shooters like us ?

Dave,

No idea how much pyrotechnic lifting charge powder is used now.  That is what GOEX as selling to shooters as the 5FA powder.  The A being for the pyrotechnic lifting charge powders.
Going back to around 1990.  The Chinese really started to push aerial fireworks into the U.S. at prices well below those made in Japan.  But the lifting powder charges with the Chinese aerial fireworks was very erratic and dangerous.  A bunch of commercial accidents where the lifting charge would fire but the shell would come up only slowly out of the launch tube and some of the aerial shells would explode at 40 to 50 feet above the ground.  So the buyers of the Chinese aerial shells would dump the Chinese black powder lifting charges and replace them with GOEX made lifting powders.  But then the Chinese started to get their act together on this and the buyers would stick with the lifting powder charges that came with the aerial shells.  So at this point in time I have no idea what the status is on being able to buy lifting charge powders.  You could talk to somebody at Schuetzen to see if any such powder comes in from WANO in Germany.   But that was another type of powder where GOEX sales were in something of a steady decline.  See if there any pyrotechnic message boards on the Internet to see what they are doing in this.  Also see if Schuetzen is importing any cannon type powder out of Germany for the Rev War and Civil War crowd.

[ScottH]

Schuetzen / Wano makes it but no idea when it will be available again

https://www.buffaloarms.com/schuetzen-cannon-black-powder-schcannon.html

[ScottH]

looks like Powder Inc has "Skirmish" reenactor cannon grade in stock at the moment

[Daryl]

I "heard" that Dupont bought out GOEX from Hodgdon - is this true?

[Mad Monk]

I "heard" that Dupont bought out GOEX from Hodgdon - is this true?

No idea but highly doubtful.  When du Pont sold the old Moosic PA powder plant to Gearhart-Owens in 1972 they sold the business, the plant and the "technology".  So so-called technology was an agreement where the curator at the old BP plant along the Brandywine in Delaware would be the technical advisor to Gearhart-Owen as long as they kept the Moosic, PA plant in operation.  Then when GOEX closed the Moosic plant for good Hagley Museum and library no longer was required to be the technical backing to the Moosic plant operation.  du Pont had actually run the Moosic plant for some years after shutting down their other BP operations.  There was a small group in du Pont that felt that keeping the Moosic bp business in operation was an important part of Du Pont's long history.  But then it got to the point where the costs of keeping it operating made it no longer important or worthwhile.  du Pont had an explosion before they shut it down and sold it to Gearhart-Owen.  At that time the Moosic PA black powder plant was having trouble meeting military specs in the powders.  Somewhere around 1965 until 1972 they had the problem with the well water during droughts that they never understood.  They bad lots of powder made during droughts was raising $#*! with artillery in Nam.  Short rounds dropping among our troops on close support missions.  155 howitzer firings that sounded a bit funny and then left the field piece with a badly damaged tube that had to be replaced.    Since GOEX built the Minden plant around some machinery hauled over from an abandoned BP plant in South Africa the so called du Pont "technology" had to be altered.  And all of the old du Pont workers who had worked at the Moosic plant are long gone.  I used to run into several of them at a shoot near their explosive bolt factory in West Virginia below Falling Waters.   

[Mad Monk]

Daryl,

Forgot to mention that in the past 10 to 15 years du Pont, at the Hagley Museum and Library were distancing themselves from the actual manufacturing of black powder.  Rob Howard did a fantastic job of restoring the old original plant.  Shortly after that he was forced into an early retirement.  All of the black powder displays in the main building displays was packed off into storage and everything was changed over to how the plant employees had lived. If you mentioned du Pont gunpowders to their tour guides they would totally ignore your question and go into how the families worked various jobs at the factory or on the grounds around the plant.  They could talk about the du Pont blasting powders building this country but God forbid you should get into the military powder or the Indian wars out west.  As long as you were not killing people with the powder they would do some talking.  Not much would be said if you asked anything about their blasting powder here in the PA coal mines.  Between the mines and the railroads the common workers were being killed off a a pretty good rate. 

[snapper]

Most shells for pyrotechnics are not made in the USA.   They are imported into the USA with their bp lift charges already part of the shell.  China and Italy if you want the best and have deep pockets make most of the display shells for the US market.

There are a handful of US companies that make their shells for display purposes.

At least one Chinese company's tried to bring straight black powder into the USA.   Back in the Clinton era black powder made in China was listed as part of the Articles of War and banned for importing into the USA.   They were shipping it into the USA in 12" display shells to make it look like pyrotechnics, which was legal.  When I inspected a box with these shells in it they did not have a lift charge or fuse and that caused a deeper dive.   They were able to get about 50 lbs into two 12" shell, with 2 shells per box.  I still have a sample of that powder I took as evidence, ran across it today looking for something else.   Not sure if BP is still listed as an article of war today.

As you can imagine, Goex was a popular powder for the US pyro market.

A lot of the pyro companies that do the local shoots will use black powder as a lift charge for ground display stuff that is very simple to make themselves.

Fleener

[Mad Monk]

Snapper,

Here is a god one for you.
When GOEX shut down the old Moosic plant the then president of GOEX, Mick Fahringer, took a trip to China.  To look for a black powder plant in China that would make our shooting powders and some others like their fireworks powders.  But he culd not find one he would trust.  The other thing is that none of the bp plants in China uses wheel mills to grind the ingredients.  They only use ball mills to make their powders.  So the chance of finding a BP plant in China that could make a black powder that burned fast enough for our guns was simply out of the question.

He had previously gone down to the old Elephant plant in Brazil to see if they would break their contract with their U.S. importer and supply GOEX with black powder.  GOEX in both cases would have continued to make only military powders.  The military was charged 3 times what we were paying per pound of powder at that time.