Author Topic: Zloty Stok powder in the US?  (Read 4500 times)

Dave Patterson

  • Guest
Re: Zloty Stok powder in the US?
« Reply #25 on: December 22, 2021, 05:29:52 PM »
Mike, it's likely to be near a year or more before goex resumes operations and even then perhaps not at peak production. Their efforts may lean toward building supply for military use so who knows how long goex will be irrelevant to us shooters.

We can blame it on hodgdon (because it was their fault) but the goex plant was clearly run poorly or suffering from some production line issues for all the incidents it has had in recent years.

I spoke to a distributor in VA and his sales contact with goex stated they were at 8 million lbs annually at peak but had been around 3 million for a few years.

I suspect whoever bought Goex has more work than just staffing to keep their hair thin.

I would question the comment out of the distributor in VA regarding those production figures.   The maxium production capacity of the Minden plant was determined by the number and size of the wheel mills in operation.  When GOEX abandoned the Moosic plant they left the three du Pont designed 10-ton mills behind.  They could no longer find anybody who could replace the babbit bearing in those big mills.  Those 10-ton mills ran a batch size of about 350 pounds of powder in one milling cycle. Some powders were run for 2 hours.  Other powders, such as our rifle type powder spent 3 hours in a wheel mill.  It was strictly a one shift a day operation.  When they set up the Minden plant they set it up with 3 wheel mills brought over from a defunct plant in South Africa.  These are Krupp built 5-ton wheel mills.   GOEX quickly found that if they ran the normal batch size of a 5-ton mill they would quickly go broke.  They found max batch size in the 5-ton mills to be around 300 pounds.   No way could they have put out 8 million pounds a year out of that plant and to get 3 million pounds they would have had to run the mills 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

If just finding a maintenance person with experience in replacing Babbit bearings in those "antique" mills was their sole issue, Goex/Hogdon wasn't putting enough thought or effort into their recruiting:  although there's a well-recognized shortage of qualified candidates nowadays, they do exist, particularly out here in gold/silver mining country, where a 10-ton mill would be a sampling mill, and not any part of the main raw-ore circuit.  Off the top of my head, I could have given them 5-6 names and phone numbers as starting points in their employee search; these guys likely wouldn't be interested in rejoining the work force on any long-term basis, but they'd all sure be interested in a short-term training/consulting gig, teaching another generation of millwrights.

MM, as you say, there's more going on there.  It just remains to be seen how this all shakes out. 

Offline Skirmisher

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 85
Re: Zloty Stok powder in the US?
« Reply #26 on: December 25, 2021, 01:28:59 AM »
It just recently turned up in the UK, much less pricy than Swiss.  My UK shooting friends have yet to try it.

Offline Mad Monk

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1033
Re: Zloty Stok powder in the US?
« Reply #27 on: December 27, 2021, 11:04:21 PM »
It just recently turned up in the UK, much less pricy than Swiss.  My UK shooting friends have yet to try it.

If you go to Kranks on the Internet you see the photos of their powder containers with the various grain sizes.  Kranks is a big firearms supply house in England.  They import Swiss into GB and have, or had, some other black powder under their name by an not mentioned producer which was also cheaper than Swiss.   

Offline JBJ

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 579
Re: Zloty Stok powder in the US?
« Reply #28 on: December 30, 2021, 05:14:27 PM »
Henry Kranks this morning:
Zloty was priced at L65.1 per kg or $87.90 US per kg
Swiss was priced at L82.0 per kg or $110 US per kg
Krank's house brand is listed at L25.8 per 500g (1/2 kg = approximately 1 pound)
At 2.2 pounds per kg we're talking about approximately $39.95 per pound for Zloty and $55/lb. for Swiss.


J.B.

Offline Mad Monk

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1033
Re: Zloty Stok powder in the US?
« Reply #29 on: December 31, 2021, 03:03:34 AM »
Henry Kranks this morning:
Zloty was priced at L65.1 per kg or $87.90 US per kg
Swiss was priced at L82.0 per kg or $110 US per kg
Krank's house brand is listed at L25.8 per 500g (1/2 kg = approximately 1 pound)
At 2.2 pounds per kg we're talking about approximately $39.95 per pound for Zloty and $55/lb. for Swiss.


J.B.


J. B.
Thank you for that information.  I suspect that if any of the Zloty powder does show up here in the U.S. it would be priced close to Schuetzen.  They will of course have to use containers holding one pond and a case would hold 25 of these 1 pound containers.  then they card board cases for common carrier shipment must conform to an ATF standard of cardboard strength and cardboard separators within the case.  The ATF specs on the 25 pound case construction  is fairly rigid.

Offline snapper

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2360
Re: Zloty Stok powder in the US?
« Reply #30 on: December 31, 2021, 04:01:34 AM »
Mad Monk

Actually it is the USDOT that specs the packages for the transportation of black powder.

For the most part ATF's jurisdiction does not include or cover transportation.

Fleener
My taste are simple:  I am easily satisfied with the best.  Winston Churchill

Offline Mad Monk

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1033
Re: Zloty Stok powder in the US?
« Reply #31 on: December 31, 2021, 04:56:21 AM »
Mad Monk

Actually it is the USDOT that specs the packages for the transportation of black powder.

For the most part ATF's jurisdiction does not include or cover transportation.

Fleener

Snapper,

Thanks for the correction.  I was trying to remember back to when BP was given the common carrier variance.  I remembered there was something to do with the construction of the boxes when they started shipping Elephant up here.  Just wasn't 100% sure which one of them regulated it.