Matchhead gun powder

[professor k]

OK, I kinda stole this from totse, but I actually did try it myself. I made a homemade muzzleloader with a tube, a spent .40S&W casing with primer removed over the tube, and some duct tape to keep the casing on. Yes, extremely ghetto.

For propellent, I got a bunch of matches and removed the red stuff on them, and got flakes/powdered matchhead stuff. I put it in the tube, pushed it down, then got some paper, used that as wadding, put a bunch of lead sinkers in, then put wadding on top of that. To ignite it, I used a firecracker fuse.

For the firing, I put it on my porch (not a smart decision, I know) and lit it. It sounded like a gun, and it kicked back like 6 feet (I didnt hold it.) A few of the lead sinkers may have hit a car, but I dont want to think much about that.

But, it was definitely cool.

Anyway, I noticed that it sounded very much like regular smokeless powder, and very little smoke came out of the muzzle, so I've concluded one could substitute matchheads for smokeless powder in an emergency or something. I dont think stocking up on matches to use for gun powder is a good idea, though, but I'm saying if it's an emergency and you want to reload cartridges, or make a muzzleloading crap gun like mine, but dont have gunpowder, matchheads seemed to work OK for me.

What I want to figure out next is how to reuse primers, and how to reload rimfire cartridges. I've heard the 2 things are possible, but I've never read anything on how to do it.

Oh, what really convinced me to do this little muzzleloader project is this here:

kitchen sink reloading



You can reuse a primer, here is how (as taught in the book Homade Guns & Homade Ammo) :

1. Push out/remove primer with a small nail.
2. Carefully remove the anvil from the primer cup (do not lose this 'the anvil' ! ).
3. With the head of a nail (useing a hamer) reflaten the primer cup where (the dent) the fireing pin hit.
4. Carefuly remove the white or blue part (at the tip) of a strike anywere match, then powderize (if you are not carefull it can strike the match) it then pack it in the primer cup "tight" till it is half full and will not fall out if up-side-down.
5. Replace the anvil into the primer cup.
6. Push back into the brass (the caseing).
you are done (these work like a charm)

You can also powderize the red part or kitchen matches for gun powder/the main charge (of corse this is not as powerful as real smokeless powder, but is pretty powerful).

Here is the number of matchheads that should be used for gunpowder per caliber (as seen in the book Homade Guns & Homade Ammo) .

Caliber number of heads
------------------------------------------------------------------
Rifle Calibers
------------------------------------------------------------------
.22 Hornet 13
.222 Rem. 26
.223 Rem. 39
.243 Win. 61
.30 Carbine 16
.30-30 Win. 45
.308 Win. 58
.30-06 74
.375 H&R Mag. 87
.44 Mag. 32
.45-70 Govt. 76
.458 Win. 79
------------------------------------------------------------------

Pistol Calibers
------------------------------------------------------------------

9mm Parabellum 8
.38 Special 15
.357 Mag. 26
.45 ACP 27
------------------------------------------------------------------

Shotgun Caliber/Guage
------------------------------------------------------------------

12 Ga. 33
16 Ga. 30
20 Ga. 27
.410 Bore 19




I have done this many times and can testify that it does work, and I have never had any trouble or accidental set-off's, but I am very carefull, take my time, and use my brain so that I don't.
I understand if some of you are not wanting to try this, but you do one mach head at a time so for if some reason it was to go of it would only be like lighting a match (produce a candle sized flame). It has a slow burn rate, and if it all were to go of it would just make a little woosh sound and a bit of flame not an explosion. like smokeless powder the mach powder burns, it does not explode like black powder.

The matchead priming mixture could be wetted first if it makes you feel safer, you will just have to give it plenty of time to dry, or it will not go off.

Note: this is corrosive (like black powder) so if this is used be sure to clean your gun promptly to prevent rust from setting in.

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I dont really trust the strike anywhere match thing for primers, I heard it doesnt work, and I dont got any strike anywhere matches to try it with, but yeah. The matchhead gun powder does work, though, and it works quite well. If you're bored sometime, I guess try what I did, but like in the woods or whatever.

[5_seven]

First, the red stuff on the match, it's sulfur, second, it sounds like more trouble than it's worth. Sulfer is combustable, so I'm not suprised, but I just can't picture spending all that time scraping matchheads off the little sticks to make a small cannon, or muske or something. Does sound like fun though, I'll probably try it some day.

[Marmaloon]

It would be incredibly corrosive, as one of the by-products is potassium chloride. I tried making a gallery round for my Ross rifle from a 00 buckshot (too soft) and put in about 18 match heads, tamped tissue in there and then the ball and some vaseline. It went through a couple 3/4" planks and didn't make much noise. I poured lots of boiling water in there to get rid of the fouling afterwards, and scrubbed her out good. gunwritersontheweb, a website out of Finland, has excellent information on making these gallery or 'cat's sneeze' loads. In fact they have a wealth of information available on many facets of small arms. I reccomend perusing it. They reccomended a hard alloy, and a fast burning pistol powder like Bullseye. I think these types of loads are worth experimenting with. For one thing they are nice and quiet if it's all that's required for small game. In a pinch It could be pretty nasty, quiet and no muzzle blast to give up your position. You could use it for a first round, and follow up with regular rounds after the enemy realizes what happened, if you had to use something like that in anger. I remember reading a book by Edwin P. Hoyt about a US officer tasked with starting a guerrilla warfare operation against the Japanese in the Phillipines, one of their core guns at the beginning was a Marlin model 39, they used it because they could pop off Japanese soldiers in an ambush, it was a while before the Japanese realized what was happening. I read somewhere that Russian TOZ 17 .22LR rifles were used by the enemy in Hue during the Vietnam War to snipe at US soldiers in a similar fashion.

[Corona]

A question.... Which is better? Matchhead powder alone? Or Matchhead powder plus fine sugar (50-50 ratio)? I assume that the sugar mix would be a better propellant?

I did make a load.... use pliers to crush the powder off the matches... much easier and faster than using a knife... and used it with sugar. It was battery fired inside a plastic pipe and left almost no residue.

[c.Tech]

First, the red stuff on the match, it's sulfur, second, it sounds like more trouble than it's worth.
The red in match heads is a dye added to give its colour, sulfur is yellow.

Yes its more trouble than its worth, it’s also dangerous because if there is sulfur inside the match it would make it very sensitive when it comes in contact with the chlorate on the surface.

The idea of match heads being used as a propellant sounds like a k3wl idea to me, but it would have its advantages in situations when you have limited or no alternatives.

As for adding sugar, IMO it would help to add some sugar or charcoal because there may be some extra oxider on the surface of the match although not too much, the chlorate is just dying to give its oxygen away.

[Lewis]

Professor K:
Match "dust" is not an acceptable substitute for any type of gunpowder. Not only is it extremely friction and heat sensitive, in many conditions it has a much higher burn rate than commercial gunpowder. Match composition is an interesting material to play around with in small quantities, but should never be used in bombs or cannons.

5 Seven:
Where does the idea that the red on matches is sulfur come from? FYI: Sulfur will barely hold a flame on its own, much less create a hot fireball capable of reliably starting wood on fire. I'm not sure where this confusion stems from but I know that match composition has been discussed on E&W before.

[Cindor]

At least in my country matches are made of Potassium Chlorate + Antimony Trisulfide/Tin Trisulfide + Binder

[c.Tech]

At least in my country matches are made of Potassium Chlorate + Antimony Trisulfide/Tin Trisulfide + Binder

Sounds like a strike anywhere match (illegal in Australia :(.)

The sulfides/phosphorus compounds are usually kept on the match pad so they will be nowhere near as friction and heat sensitive. If you have antimony trisulfide/tin trisulfide in the match they can no longer be called 'safety' matches.

I wouldn’t use a mixture of phosphorus or sulfur compound with chlorate anywhere in pyrotechnics.

[Cindor]

No no, they aren't "strike anywhere", they are safety matches. You can't set them off without the Red Phosphorus of the box.

Those Sulfides are safer than Sulphur, and I think the binder kept them from reacting.

[professor k]

Well, a few things I did regret to tell everyone, it wasnt all a fine powder, a lot was just flakes, that may have slowed the burn rate to a more managable rate. The paper matches, while being stupidly cheap, dont burn well compared to the wooden ones. The best are the big kitchen matches. The red stuff comes off much easier off the wooden ones.

But, dont stock up on matches to reload or anything when/if you can just stock up on actual gun powder. That one should be obvious, but yeah.

[Lewis]

No no, they aren't "strike anywhere", they are safety matches. You can't set them off without the Red Phosphorus of the box.

Those Sulfides are safer than Sulphur, and I think the binder kept them from reacting.

SAFER than sulfur alone? Not sure what you mean by that but it isn't true.

Even NON strike anywhere match material is still quite sensitive to friction. Try striking one on a pane of glass and you'll see what I mean.

OR, Get the material from about 5 wooden safety matches, powder it somehow, and place between 2 coins on a hard surface. Then smack the sandwich with a hammer.

[Marmaloon]

Sounds like a strike anywhere match (illegal in Australia :(.)
No way, you're kidding me, right?:eek: Have things gone so bad in Australia? I thought Howard was a centrist?

[c.Tech]

When I tried to buy them I was told they were illegal by the guy at the army disposal store. This is probably because too much shock or friction could cause them to ignite and start a fire, not good for camping if your living in Australia with all of the bushfires, its best to avoid disasters like Ash Wednesday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday_fires).

[Cindor]

SAFER than sulfur alone? Not sure what you mean by that but it isn't true.

Even NON strike anywhere match material is still quite sensitive to friction. Try striking one on a pane of glass and you'll see what I mean.

OR, Get the material from about 5 wooden safety matches, powder it somehow, and place between 2 coins on a hard surface. Then smack the sandwich with a hammer.

I've never seen matches with just sulfur and no oxidizer :confused:

They are pretty hard to set off with out the box, I have succeed with a wood, but no with glass.

And they are made of Chlorate, of course they are, at some point, sensitive to heat, friction, and shock...

[c.Tech]

I've never seen matches with just sulfur and no oxidizer :confused:
He was referring to what you said "Those Sulfides are safer than Sulphur" saying that sulfides are not safer than sulfur in a match.

And they are made of Chlorate, of course they are, at some point, sensitive to heat, friction, and shock...
The oxiders aren’t 100% chlorate, just a coating would be able to cause ignition. I’ve read somewhere that KNO3 is used a lot in match manufacture.

[Cobalt.45]

That's like outlawing war by banning the sale of .22 shells.

Safety matches light when struck across clean glass. Leaves a nice scratch, too.

Best use of strike anywhere matches: Put them into the muzzle of a BB gun and fire them against a hard surface.

[professor k]

But anyway, I made more powder. I found the best way was described in one of the threads here. Put the matches in water, and the heads will just come off like paste, once it's dry, it's good. You could maybe get it while it's still wet and like form it. It's definitely interesting stuff.... Anyway, it's not very high yeild. I used 1/3 of a box of 250 large kitchen matches and only managed to get enough flakes to fill 8 .38 spl cartridges.

I think mixing it with sugar might be a good idea, however, it's hard to do a lot of tests due to my general situation, so yeah.

As far as practical use, I'm not sure. This takes a LONG time to do, and isnt very high yield.

In waging an all out war against new world order and the illuminati and the UN and the US government and the jews and the muslims and everyone else, it's not very efficient.

A whole box of matches will barely cover like 30 cartridges I'm guessing. It takes a good 1-2 hours to do around 100 matches, so yeah.

I think if you just needed to make 6-12 bullets for a revolver or something, or wanted to make a few shotshells for a pump or break action shotgun for hunting and home defense, this is an OK way to do it, but really, stock up on more ammo, and save your cases, rather than buying 40385094850 boxes of matches to badly reload your cartridges. As I said before, this will be very impractical in an above scenario. You wont be reloading hundreds of cartridges like this...

My main issue now is primers, does anyone know of a touch sensitive explosive/flame making thing that could be poured into a spent primer. The only fairly easy to make touch explosive I came across was in the Anarchist Cookbook (I know, not supposed to be mentioned here because it sucks) but I read about that later, and found out if even a feather touches that mixture, it'll all go off.

Another propellent I'm interested in is "red powder" described in that Cookbook (yeah, again) which is kno3, sugar, and iron oxide. I forgot the ratio and I'm too lazy to look it up. I'm mainly wondering if it'll burn cleaner than black powder, I know it gets water from the air easily, and that's not good.

Other things I've been wondering about is if I reloaded say a 9mm Luger cartridge with black powder, would the gun cycle/ect? Black powder is easy to make compared to smokeless powder. I read some instructions on totse on how to make gun cotton, and I'd like to try doing it.

Anyway, I guess that's all. Anyone got any suggestions/comments? Sorry if this post sounds k3wlish, but yeah. As I said before, this isnt very practical unless you REALLY need ammo for some reason. Another thing to remember is that guns arent the only weapons available to use, you can just as easily do some damage with a knife. However, even with this not so good ammo, you still have a gun, and it will still fuck up something. It's like the AK vs. M16 argument, when someone walks into a mall with an M4 and starts shooting, you're not going to sit there and think, "oh, that's just an M4 with a 14.5 inch barrel, that is weak, .223 can't hurt me, he should have went with 7.62x51 at least."

Anyway, this is really all.

[nbk2000]

The tip of strike-anywhere matches can be used to reload primers, as detailed in the Black Book series.

[SafetyLast]

That primer reloading method is also in FM21-210 Improvised Munitions Handbook. I'm hesitant to try matchhead powder in any of my finely tuned guns, but maybe if I had something cheaper like a NEF handi rifle and a remote way of firing like a rest with a remote trigger release such as this http://cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0024152226084a&type=product&cmCat=search&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&QueryText=remote+trigger+release&N=4887&Ntk=Products&Ntx=mode+matchall&Nty=1&Ntt=remote+trigger+release&noImage=0
Even then I would be hesitant to use a chlorate with a percussion primer with a lot of metal all around it:(

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