patent 257584

[Frank Savage]

I have some doubts also about the powder and primers.

Powder:
No doubt that average powder of today is better than average powder those days. But something tells me that those realy good and superb powders of ODG were superior to our powders. Those days, people were not afraid of hand labor and it was relatively cheap. From bits I managed to pick up in last 15 years, it seems to me that in the ODG´s days, the wood for good powders was debarked by hand, somehow more alike skining than peeling like potato or like current machines do. This for sure leaves more sapwood there-which is good for high creosote content in properly retorted low temp (dark brown-blackish) charcoal. Also, BP was widely used, as well as its components-so no major manufacturer had an issue with a lot of wood sitting back, drying and stabilising before charring, for unusualy long period. That small batch (compared to other flow of ingredients) was just a drop. Then there could been made some exceptional charcoal we will probaby never will have again. I can´t imagine the price of hand-skinning a truckload of twigs 1/2"-5/8"x6"-8" to have 300 lbs of final charcoal made (only the core taken) for about 2000 lbs of final powder-in todays prices. And the price of the final product. If I´m not mistaken, the best powders in GB ran around 1:1. Pound for pound. And 1 GBP those days was realy a serious amount of money (a university professor had about 150-160 GBP a year, civil engineer about 130 GBP/year, a tea/wool clipper captain at his best about 180-190 BGP a year, high India civil affairs officer about 300 GBP a year IIRC).

Primers-seriously, we have in some instances mediocre primers for BP nowdays, regardless of their (usualy) superb consistency in every respect. The BP is sensitive primarily upon impact and friction, then nothing for a long time and then flame and heat. Todays primers are non-corosive etc., but as far as I know, it somehow seems that none of the compounds have the BTUs of mercury fulminate, as well as realy comparable and agressive brisancy. Todays primers are to produce a relatively long-lasting, medium-hot flame. Good for nitrocelulose, but not that much for BP, as the BP is ignited the less efective ways.
The old primers, on the other hand, had fine sand or glass grit in them to help the iniciation of mercury fulminate-and upon primer ignition, not only a bunch of flame and heat, but also a stream of red-to-white hot, sharp-edged grit rambled through the case, crushing, scratching and hammering the BP kernels all over and around. The BP was kicked in its most sensitive way-it was pressed and impacted, by external means as well as by the kernels one from other.
I tried to put a little of the mess left from glass grinding into the primer and then prime the case (with OPW of course). Hadn´t chrony at that time on hand, but the feel and sound was like night and day. Like having mediocre, heavily graphited powder on pan of filthy abused Brown-Bess and then a nice, very dry and totaly non-graphited powder in a Manton v-pan lock (well, that is maybe somehow over-exagerated, but I think not that much). The consistency was of course poor, as the grit was simply put over the priming compound around the anvil, but it was clear that right amount of grit in the priming beam makes a real diffrence.

So from this point of view, we have somehow worse components.
Just my 0,002