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Friday Feedback

Welcome to another Friday!

We had our first “ask anything” It didn’t go the way I expected. I was going to collect all the questions and then have Hagar make a post answering them all. Still it worked out.

I’ll offer up an “ask me anything” for myself if you all would like, see the poll at the bottom.

I’ve made my way through most of the filings in Duncan v. Bonta case. Thank you to the Michel & Associates for having everything in one place and open for us to read.

The gist of the State’s argument is that magazines are not “arms” under the scope of the Second Amendment and the good guys haven’t proven it, and even if they were within the scope of the Second Amendment there is a long history of banning guns.

More on Duncan v. Bonta next week. The state has filed multiple “briefs” in excess of 50 pages, it just takes a long time to wade through it all. Oh, for grins, the state up in Oregon is upset because one of the expert witnesses in their case used almost the same words as Massad Ayoob. This seems to be a big deal. Not that two different firearms experts came to almost exactly the same opinion in regards to magazines.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Ask Hagar anything

Hagar has agreed to accept a chance to answer questions from you, our readers. This posting is in the feedback category so anybody can post comments. Questions should be in by Friday, Feb 24th.

The comment posting rule still stands, “Don’t be a dick”.

Hagar will answer every question you post of her. The answer my be a short “I don’t know” or “I won’t answer this question.” Those are answers.

So put your thinking caps on and ask away.

Friday Feedback

I’m still working on my photography. There is a huge learning curve moving from film to digital.

For a number of years I used a Nikon Coolpix 900 which I got from my mentor’s estate after he was killed. It produced JPG images.

When that died I stopped taking pictures because it was too expensive to do film and to expensive to buy an DSLR.

I now have a Nikon D4. It is a generation or more back but it is a camera I could afford. I just had to put that .50 cal bolt action on the back burner for a bit.

One of the things I had to learn is that RAW means RAW. The images that you normally get out of your phone camera or consumer grade cameras is processed by the camera into a JPG image. The processing done on the RAW image before turning it into a JPG is extensive.

When you work with raw files you get the image exactly as the sensor captured it. Your software needs to apply the correct processes to turn that into something that you are willing to look at.

In the Windows/Mac world the software that does that is Lighttable. I’m a Unix/Linux guy, so I use Darktable It does much if not all of what Lighttable does, but it is free.

So I apologize if my images are not right. I’m still learning the processing sequence and camera settings. I’m relearning lighting procedures. And I’m having to relearn post processing.

Let me know if you’d like more gun pictures. I do intend to do some more of that Model ’94 and its older brother.

Thursday’s post was a little weak. When I said “I’ve had to listen to people lie and miss represent gun rights” and was tired of it. I wasn’t talking about social media or the mainstream media. No, I was talking about reading briefings in court cases by infringement loving AGs in different states.

Friday has a LONG post coming out about an hour after this post regarding a local case out of Oregon. It is important because it again shows wins in the lower courts and losses at the higher levels.

This particular case was brought to our attention by B.Zh. I think I spent about 6 hours total reading and skimming filings.

Did you know that it costs $54/month to get access to Oregon state court filings? There is a free version but it only had the final opinion of the court. The cache of documents I did find was from Everytown. I downloaded and posted them here so we don’t have to give their website any more visits.

Finally, Hagar has agreed to an “Ask me anything”. Start collecting your questions. There will be a post early next week with open comments so that you can ask Hagar anything you want.

Be polite in your questions and we reserve the right to K/O any question for any reason.

Hope you all are looking forward to it as much as I am.

Let the commenting/roasting begin, thank you to all our fine readers.

Friday Feedback

Last week we asked if anybody wanted a photo heavy article on a couple of different lever actions.

You asked and I’m going to provide. First up is the Winchester ’94. We’ll be showing the differences between pre and post ’64 models.

For those that don’t know, In 1964 Winchester changed the design of the ’94. It went to a lower cost methodology. I don’t know all the ins and outs (yet) but the one that bit me is the “elevator” or “lifter”. This is the part of a lever action rifle that lifts the cartridge from the magazine tube level up to the chamber level and lets the round be chambered.

On the post ’64 model this is made from stamped sheet metal. On the pre ’64 model, it is a machined part. I’ve had zero issues with my pre ’64 Winchester ’94s. My one post ’64 gave me lots of feed issues. I believe I’ve Bubba’d that lifter back into spec. as it seems to be working.

The R92 will likely come third. I have a Marlin 3082 (Model 30 with fancies) and a Marlin 1894. Since somebody asked about the 1894, it is likely that I’ll do that.


It seems that Hagar stirred the pot but good. Last I looked there were over 25 comments on her article. She’s started her next article. I think you all will like it.


The most interesting thing I’ve read or heard regarding the Stabilizing Brace final rule put out by the ATF is the lawsuits filed. Many are being filed in Texas which is part of the fifth circuit court. A decidedly level headed circuit court, likely to follow Bruen

I’ll be keeping an eye on that case.


More stuff is happening with O.F.F. over in Oregon. Measure 114 is being challenged and of course the media is miss representing the cases. We might get an update done soon.


The CCIA in New York State has an injunction against it which is currently held by the second circuit court. There will be a hearing on the appeal in March. We are waiting for the court to release their reasoning for their stay as “suggested” by the Supreme Court.


The state of New Jersey created the “Kill Carry” bill. The first district court to hear the case issued a injunctions against the law when it showed up in her court. The state went judge shopping. Got their case in front of a different judge. This judge then passed the case to the original judge with a comment of the yeah, what she said.


State of Gun Free Zone.

When we went to “pay to comment” we lost a few readers. The numbers are going back up.

Let us know down below how we can make GFZ better for you. In the meantime, keep up the good fight

Friday Feedback

From last week, I am looking at 2A cases happening in the second circuit court. I’m likely to pony up for a PACER account and hope I don’t burn down my bank account in the first few days of access.

The great news is that the wheels of justice turned and Alec Baldwin has been charged.

We have the great bitbull debate going on. My two bits? Keep your dog away from my kids.

We had one neighbor who let his dog get free and it attacked and killed one of our chickens. He apologized, offered to pay for the chicken. He called the cops and self reported.

Two days later he was at our house again. He was in tears. He had just put down his dog because it had attacked our chickens again.

The ATF announced their pistol brace ruling. The did a “take back” and screwed millions of firearm owners. I had considered SBRing on of my ARs so that I could have a 14.5 (IIRC) barrel to match the barrel of the M4 Carbine. If I did that, I had planned to pick up a stabilizing brace to have as a “it is just a pistol” until such time as the ATF approved the SBR.

I’m glad I didn’t.

There are a number of cases filed against the ATF over this ruling. There is an opinion out of SCOTUS in 1994, Staples v. United States that I’m researching. Mark Smith mentioned it as a good starting point in battles regarding ATFs new SBR rules. I’m not sure I agree, I have to read this a few times.

What subject would you like Hagar to write about from a left leaning perspective?

Friday Feedback

Welcome to another Friday Feedback. Hagar is onboard to give us an article per week from behind enemy lines. They seem to be getting some good traction.

You poor folks are going to have to put up with too many photo reviews coming in soon. Just made out like a bandit at a photography store that has closed down. Picked up a bunch of gear I wanted/needed. This, along with the stuff I just got will allow me to take some pretty good photos of some of the firearm stuff I have.

The image of Mrs. Pink from yesterday is the result of hours of prep so that the actual time from “yeah, I want to do this” to a finished picture was only about 15 minutes. That includes setting up the lighting, taking the pictures, importing the images, running the color calibration and then doing the image manipulation to straighten the image, fix some perspective, blur out the serial number and crop it down a little bit.

It took longer to find where I exported the image than it did to get and process the image.

Some of what I plan on doing is some macro photography. I.e. close up photos. That will be fun.

We heard about the Antonyuk case. It was interesting that I was able to get the Alito opinion, read it and get it out to you just as my sources were starting to make reports about it.

One lawyer I listen to explained that all of the references by Alito (joined by Thomas) to other cases in the district courts challenging the CCIA indicate that the Supreme Court is following these FU knee-jerk laws being passed by states and challenged by many.

Leave a comment below to let us know what we are missing, what you really are tired of hearing about, what you want more of, or just to tell us what jerks we are. And remember, anybody can comment on feedback articles.

Friday Feedback

We have the results of our polling on Hagar’s article. As of 1900 last night it was 44 91% yes, 6% no and 2% If they make some changes.

By the time you are reading this you’ll be able to look at the poll results yourself.

As far as infrastructure goes. I have all of the sites as they existed before that machine was turned off. I was about to start bringing the discourse site back online when a client site went down. I didn’t think that was resolved until 0400. At 0900 the client called me to tell me that it wasn’t really resolved so I continued fixing the site until it was up again.

This sort of took the upgrade to WP 6.1 on hold as well as bringing up our video and discourse servers.

As long as there are no more emergencies this week, I should have time to get that done this weekend.

I’ve taken to not showing polling results until the poll closes. Do you prefer to see the poll results as the poll runs or do you prefer waiting until the poll closes?

There is a fair bit of action happening in 2A cases. New ones are filed almost daily it seems.

Thank you again to all of you that support us by being members, commenting, reading, and sharing. It means a great deal to us.

Are there any subjects you are interested in directly? More of J.Kb’s short stories? Something in particular from behind enemy lines? A particular court case that you would like me to research and report on?

Feel free to let us have it in the comments below. Remember that everybody can comment on Friday Feedback, it is not a members only article.

Friday Feedback

Welcome to another Friday!

It was good to see that people voted for what they wanted to hear about. I hope my BP article was what y’ll were looking for.

Anything you would like to hear about, just let us know below.

J.Kb. has offered to write some technical geeky stuff about metals and guns and things. If you all don’t give him some prompts I’ll be forced to take advantage of his knowledge. He is a sharp one. Much sharper than I am.

Lots of things going on in the courts, more updates are coming.

Have a great weekend all.

Making Black Powder

Warning: these procedures create a low explosive. You can hurt yourself or others if you do something stupid.

When I was in a situation where I had lost my home I had to move into temporary housing for a bit. I could not take my firework chemicals with me. I needed to dispose of them. The method I choose to use was to just ignite the burnables and dispose of them that way.

I would move across the road to a safe location, pour a pound or more of BP on the ground. Add a slow fuse. Weigh the fuse down with rocks to keep it stretched out. Light the end of the fuse and move away. 30 to 60 seconds later the pile would go up with a POOF and a cloud of smoke along with a flash of light. No BOOM. Very safe.

The guy I was working with asked to do a pile. I kept working on what I needed to do. Even though he had watched me weigh the fuse down to stretch it out, he just stuck the fuse in the pile like a birthday candle. When he lit the fuse sparks from the fuse landed on the pile and it went off.

He suffered major burns. His sunglasses melted. All exposed skin was blistered. EMS was called. He was transported to the local hospital and from there a life flight took him to the regional burn center.

THIS STUFF IS DANGEROUS. BE CAREFUL.

There are only three components that go into black powder:

  • 75% Potassium Nitrate (KNO3)
  • 10% Sulfur
  • 15% Carbon

All percentages are given BY WEIGHT. While KNO3 makes up 75% of the BP mixture it is not the largest by volume. That goes to carbon.

You will need to source some of these but can make the carbon. The cheapest choice is to buy the KNO3 in pellet form. This is used for many things. One of which is making fuel from vegetable oils. If you wanted you could get a 55 gallon drum of the stuff delivered to you.

Pure sulfur is also easy to purchase. It is used in many processes.

Making carbon is actually making charcoal. Not “charcoal briquettes” but actual charcoal. To make charcoal you need a good hardwood, a heat source and an air tight container.

What you are going to do, in essence, is to cook your hardwood into charcoal. Start by turning your hardwood into small chunks. You want as much surface area as possible without making chips or sawdust. Once this is done you need to cook it.

Find an airtight metal can. I purchased an empty paint can from the hardware store. Poke one small hole in the center of the lid. Fill the container with your hardwood. Then put the lid with hole back on.

As the wood cooks it will emit gasses. The hole allows those gasses to escape. The gasses also displace all of the oxygen inside the can. One of the cool things you can do is actually light the gasses that are escaping on fire.

You cook your wood until no more gas is escaping.

If you did everything correctly you should have no ash in the can and lots of charcoal. You might still have some wood inside that charcoal.

Now that you have these, you need to processes them into something usable. For that you will need a mill. The best option for that is to purchase a ball mill. You want a ball mill that is non sparking. That means that you need to avoid plastics that might build up an electrical charge. Remember the life flight above but add to it a BOOM when the spark sets off your mixture will it is contained.

For the best black powder you want a homogeneous mixture. The smaller the particles of the mixture the more homogeneous the mixture will be when mixed properly.

To this end we want to turn our three components into a fine powder. In general, at this stage you want a powder that will pass through a #100 sieve. The following is an example of grading sieves. There are other options that are cheaper. You will need grading sieves at different sizes.

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One of the nice thing about the type of sieve listed above is that you can put your material at the top and sift it. Each finer mesh will stop your material and you end up with your powder properly graded.

To make this powder you have to mill the KNO3, Sulfur, and Carbon. There are different ways of doing this. I’m only going to describe the method using the ball mill as I feel this is the safest method.

You need to put your material into the ball mill with some sort of media. You might be tempted to use lead balls. DON’T. At this stage you are best served with a non-sparking material that is hard. I chose to use stainless steel balls. You need a mix of balls from about 1/4″ to 3/4″ inch in diameter. You can find these for sale on Amazon and other sources.

The amount of raw material and media is dependent on the size of your ball mill.

Once loaded and sealed, run your mill until the raw material is a fine powder. Pass it through your #100 sieve. Anything that doesn’t pass through goes back into the mill for another run. Once all your material passes through your sieve carefully package it in an airtight container. You don’t want it to absorb water from the air.

Now wash your ball mill and media. Make sure there is no residue left behind and then let it dry. You do not want the different chemicals to mix while milling.

Repeat the process for the other three chemicals. When you are milling the charcoal you might find bits of wood that has not carbonized. Just return them to your charcoal can to wait for your next run.

Remember to wear a mask while working with powders this fine. They will get into your lungs if you don’t.

Now that you have the three powders you need to measure them carefully by weight.

I choose to use a triple beam scale. This is accurate to 0.1 grams. Our reloading scales are normally good to 0.1gr. 154 grains per gram if I did my math correctly.

This means that your reloading scale is more than accurate enough. What might be an issue is the total amount that you can weigh on your scale or the volume you can hold in your scale. Just be aware.

If you are using any type of scale, make sure you tare your scale and container.

You should now have 3 airtight containers full of powdered chemicals. You should have a spotlessly clean ball mill.

Take your stainless steel media and put it in a safe place. Think of this as removing ammunition when you are working with a firearm and don’t want an accidental boom.

Now you need to mix the three chemicals. Use your scale and measure out 7.5g of your powdered KNO3. 1.0g of Sulfur. and 1.5g of Carbon/charcoal into your mill.

Add your non-sparking media to the ball mill. If you use a hard lead balls you will turn your KNO3 gray which means there is lead transferred. I don’t like the lead ball method. Brass works very well, does not spark. It is expensive. The one most people use is ceramic. It should not spark but there are arguments within the fireworks community as to the truth of this. Finally there is non-sparking stainless steel. The prefered stainless steel alloys for this are 304 and 316.

Remember, if there is a spark in your ball mill at this point, it will go boom.

Now the safety part of the next step.

Get yourself a long extension cord, 100ft is best. Run it out a 100ft from where power is away from all buildings and people. Make sure that the cord is NOT energized. Do NOT plug in the extension cord. Put your jar on the ball mill drive and turn on the ball mill.

NOTHING SHOULD HAPPEN

If the ball mill starts up, turn it off and go unplug the extension cord.

Now that the mill is on but not running, go back to the other end of the extension cord and plug it in. This should turn the mill on. You might be able to hear it running. Hopefully you don’t see it running.

Remember all those videos of idiots putting tannerite inside things and then shooting said things only to find that there is stuff flying at high speeds towards them? You just filled a jar with an explosive and projectiles. If it goes boom things WILL fly. Don’t be where said speeding things can hit you.

Let the mill run for about an hour. You want a good homogeneous mixture.

This mixture is very flammable. If you put a spark to it, it will flash. Don’t do it!

If you want to test a small amount make sure it is a small amount and you use something that keeps you at a distance when you light the powder.

This is NOT gunpowder this is PB “meal”! There are a couple of more steps.

The meal must be turned into actual gunpowder. This is done by pressing it into pucks and then processing the pucks.

Take your black powder meal and add a small amount of water to it. You want just enough water to be able to press it into pucks. If you put enough water in that it looks wet, you’ve added to much.

No, I can’t tell you how much.

KNO3 is water soluble. This means that as you add water to your BP meal the KNO3 will dissolve into the water. When you press your puck any excess water will be squeezed out and this will carry away some of your KNO3 which changes the ratios of your BP.

One method used is to spritz a fine mist over the powder. One spritz might be enough for this amount of BP meal.

Now you need to make your puck.

You need a container to hold the puck. I used a piece of 2″ PVC pipe that was about 2.5 inches long. I put this on a piece of aluminum, 1/4″ thick and about 5in square. I put a small round piece of wood inside the pipe at the bottom and then added my BP meal on top until there was about an 3/4 to an inch of powder there.

Now I put another wooden round over the top that fits snuggle in the pipe.

Today, because I have a machine shop, I would take a 1/2 sheet of aluminum and mill it to have a boss in the center that exactly fit the pipe. I would make an aluminum plug that would exactly fit the pipe and use that instead of working with wood.

Now press the pipe. I used a big C-Clamp the first time. Today I would use my arbor press. You want to squeeze this hard enough that it sticks together on its own. You can use something like this cheese press to compress your puck.

This is a fancy press that is designed to provide a constant pressure. You don’t need all that fancy. You just need a long lever and a single down rod to press into the top plate of the puck mold.

Because the BP meal is damp it is MOSTLY safe from sparks. This is fairly safe as things go.

Now you need to dry your pucks. Place them on a screen to sun dry. You want both the top and bottom exposed to air and you want to do this in a location where there is no chance of a spark. I’ve used a furnace filter but an actual window screen is better.

Now you have a bunch of very dry and hard pucks of BP. And it is actual Black Powder now.

But it isn’t really usable, what you need now is to create granules that can be used as you want.

Take one of your pucks and put it in a spark proof baggy to control where stuff goes. Now using non-sparking equipment hammer that puck lightly until it breaks up.

I use a wooden mallet and zip lock bags on an aluminum block.

Hammer until you have grains of black powder that are about what you want.

Your Black Powder is sorted into different grades:

  • Whaling – 4 mesh (4.74 mm)
  • Cannon – 6 mesh (3.35 mm)
  • Saluting – 10 mesh (2 mm)
  • Fg – 12 mesh (1.7 mm)
  • FFg – 16 mesh (1.18 mm)
  • FFFg – 20 mesh (.85 mm)
  • FFFFg – 40 mesh (.47 mm)
  • FFFFFg – 75mesh (.149 mm)

To make our meal we used 100mesh. For FFFFg you will need a 40 mesh and a 75 mesh sieve. The grains of BP that pass through the 40 mesh but not through the 75 mesh are FFFFg black powder.

You need two sieves in order to properly grade you powder.

The smaller the size of your powder, the faster it burns.

And there you have it. How to make black powder.

When last I did this I purchased my KNO3 from a company that was selling equipment and supplies for bio-diesel. His issue was that 10#s was a small amount. Other than that, no issues. I picked up the sulfur from someplace, it was no big deal. I grabbed the hardwood from the firewood pile to make it.

It took about 3 days to go through the entire process. Once I was done I used the powder to make BP rockets and a couple of BP salutes, types of fireworks.

Be safe if you try this. You are the responsible person. You shouldn’t take advise from randos on the web.