Powder granulation

[Hawken62_flint]

Don't know if this is the correct place for this question,  but here it is. I've been collecting the old Dupont oval shaped black powder cans with the paper labels. I recently purchased one that has the powder as "Superfine HFg". Can anyone tell me what the H in HFg stands for?  And what was this granulation used for. Thanks for any info.

[Robby]

hfg represents enthalpy diference beetween gas and fluid and it tells how much heat is needed to change 1kg of boiling water to steam we call it specific heat of evaporation.
en·thal·py
PHYSICS
a thermodynamic quantity equivalent to the total heat content of a system. It is equal to the internal energy of the system plus the product of pressure and volume.
I was curious so I googled a bit. I have no Idea what it means as it relates to powder and when I tried to follow it further I had to swear to something and register to something so I opted out.
Good luck.
Robby

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Maybe a typo....FFg.  I've never seen black powder with an "H" prefix.

[Daryl]

Interesting that it is on a powder can label. Thus, I wouldn't think of it as a typo. I do not, however, have a better explanation for the "H".

[Hawken62_flint]

It is not a typo, it is on the paper label as HFg. I thought maybe someone older than me might know.  Anyway,  I have added it to my collection and happy to have it even if I never find out what the HF stands for. Thanks to all who replied.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Maybe it's like the dot on the coin...could be worth a fortune!

[Hawken62_flint]

I hope you are right. I'll take any reasonable offer over $10,000.

[Daryl]

Don't sell it too short of it's true value.
Just lucky for me I don't collect powder cans.

[heinz]

I have seen the HFg Dupont designation before on red Dupont cans and on some older white labels.  I think they were all Wilmington Delaware labeled cans.  I have not idea what grade or grain size HF was.

[Marcruger]

Where is our Mad Monk when you need him?   

[Daryl]

I do hope Bill is well.

[Mad Monk]

I do hope Bill is well.

I am not doing all that well right now.  The MDS killed my immune system.  So they put me on anti-biotics to kill a urinary tract infection.  Very dizzy and sometimes have trouble just thinking.  I never saw the H in the grain designation.  But then the bp cartridge manufacturers had special needs sometimes.  The loading data for one cartridge mfg. had the grain size designations reversed.  Then you had fireworks grain sizes that did match the grain size in a rifle type powder.  So unless you have enough to run through a set of standard screens you never really know.

The term "Superfine" was copyrighted by Du Pont around 1840 when the industry went to a national grain size standard system.  That was used on GOEX cans up until the ownership of the company after the move to Minden. When GOEX closed the old Moosic, PA plant it severed the business relationship between GOEX and the Hagley Museum And Library near Wilmington, DE.  Which is the original Du Pont powder plant turned into a museum and historical site. When GOEX moved to Minden they left almost all of the old Du Pont deigned machinery at Mossic to be sold off as scrap. To that killed the part of the Du Pont to Gearhart-Owens technical backup set up in the original sales agreement.  My old buddy Rob Howard was that technical backup. Then once that happened Rob retired out of Hagley.

[Daryl]

I do sincerely hope you get well/better soon, Bill.
Tks for the notes on the history part of Dupont powder.

[hanshi]

You take care of yourself, Bill; I'm familiar with what a compromised immune system can do.  I hope your health improves quickly so you can be back in fightin' shape.

[Marcruger]

Prayer sent upstairs for you Bill. Best wishes on feeling better in the new year.  2020 has been miserable. God bless, Marc

[heinz]

Some of the od NRA articles from 1900-1910 mention rifle and pistol loads using Dupont Hf powder in 444-40 and 44 special cartridges.  I wonder if it had anything to do with the "flake" process for black powder Dupont patented around 1872.  I speculate that because the flake powder would be outside of the normal granulation size ranges.

[Hawken62_flint]

Sounds like you may have hit on something Heinz. Thanks fo r.c that info.

[Mad Monk]

You take care of yourself, Bill; I'm familiar with what a compromised immune system can do.  I hope your health improves quickly so you can be back in fightin' shape.

Hanshi,

It is terminal.  Just a question of when and how.  I am very lucky. Usually this lack of blood platelets problem causes brain bleeding which would leave me right up there with an anti-gun liberal.

[Mad Monk]

Some of the od NRA articles from 1900-1910 mention rifle and pistol loads using Dupont Hf powder in 444-40 and 44 special cartridges.  I wonder if it had anything to do with the "flake" process for black powder Dupont patented around 1872.  I speculate that because the flake powder would be outside of the normal granulation size ranges.

Heinz,

Up to around 1900 the du Pont that went into commercial .44-40 and .44 special cartridges was there sporting powder made on a special wheel mill at the original plant on the Brandywine near Wilmington.  Then they built a special wheel mill house to run the alterations of their black powder.  Milling nitrate saw dust into the black powder.  You ought to see the difference in the stone construction of that then new mill house compared to the older ones running straight black powder.  I seem to recall that the sporting powder mill was called the Eagle Mill and the powder was sold as du Pont Eagle sporting powders.  Around 1900 they also quit raising their own white willow for charcoal and then went out buying wood chemical plants by-product charcoal that they could buy for about 25 cents a bushel.  Out of the various wood chemicals plants in North Central PA and central Southern New York state.

[Mad Monk]

Some of the od NRA articles from 1900-1910 mention rifle and pistol loads using Dupont Hf powder in 444-40 and 44 special cartridges.  I wonder if it had anything to do with the "flake" process for black powder Dupont patented around 1872.  I speculate that because the flake powder would be outside of the normal granulation size ranges.

Heinz,

If you have an interest in du Pont powders you might want to hit Amazon.  Look for: Lammot Du Pont and the American Explosives Industry 1850 - 1884 by Norman B. Wilkinson.  It is a wealth of information on the black powder business and how Du Pont operated their operation.  They sure did not put a leash on Wilkinson when he wrote it.  After the Civil War Lammot formed what became as the Powder Trust.  This is when he and some of the other big powder companies dealt with the large numbers of small family owned and operated small powder plants scattered around the hard coal region of Eastern PA.  Brutal !!!  Lammot as the first du Pont male to get something akin to a college education.  And his driving force was to constantly increase pounds per man hour of blasting powder used in coal mines.   Amazon price on the hardcover is $19.95.  You can't go wrong with that if you really want to see the black powder production industry when it was at its peak and how cut throat the companies could be in their business.

Bill K.

[heinz]

Bill, I should have been clear that the NRA articles weRe talking about handloads in 44 caliber using Hf powder.  I do not know if DuPont was using it in their commercial loads. 
I am ordering the book.  I find the robber baron era fascinating.  Greed personified.

[Mad Monk]

Bill, I should have been clear that the NRA articles weRe talking about handloads in 44 caliber using Hf powder.  I do not know if DuPont was using it in their commercial loads. 
I am ordering the book.  I find the robber baron era fascinating.  Greed personified.

I was able to get into Hagley Museum and Library records on old powder cans in their collection.  Still could make no sense out of the HF grain size designation.  They show in their collection an Indian brand Rifle HF.  Then a number of Hagley Mills HF cans.  But nothing noted with the photgraphs of the cans as to why the use of H in the grain size designation.  And then still used the "superfine" on the labels which makes them clearly straight black powder.  The Superfine copyright applied only to their black powders and not with any of their semi-smokeless or smokeless powders.  Then used a host of other names on various types of black powder for small arms use.  If a batch of rifle burn rate powder did not pass standards they simply packed it as a shotgun powder brand.

[hudson]

Bill, best wishes with your health problems. It is always nice to hear from you I very much enjoy your posts.

[sa_handforged]

Mad Monk:
new to the Forum, I enjoyed reading this post and your deep knowledge. I also remember visiting the Hagley several years ago and that beautiful DE countryside.
I will seek to pick-up a copy of that Wilkinson book, as sounds highly informative; thank you again !

sending prayers for your health

[Mad Monk]

Don't know if this is the correct place for this question,  but here it is. I've been collecting the old Dupont oval shaped black powder cans with the paper labels. I recently purchased one that has the powder as "Superfine HFg". Can anyone tell me what the H in HFg stands for?  And what was this granulation used for. Thanks for any info.

I was digging through some boxes of old shooting pictures tonight and ran into 3 reproduction du Pont post cards that date back into the mid to late 1800s.  One shows a shooter shooting at a woods buffalo that used to live in the woods here in the East.  Various size containers of Du Pont black powder.  The tn cans tell me the post cards would date bck to after the U.S. Civil War.  The labels state "HFg".  The back of the post card states: DU PONT's GUNPOWDER - Early advertisement of sporting powder.  Lithograph from the collection of the Hagley Museum.  Then there is a different post card with nobody shooting different views of different areas.  But again a pile of powder containers up to large wooden kegs marked with the HFg labels.