CanadianAuthor

That's exactly it. The factory is cleared out of all materials, but they have the books. The manuals on how to make modern gunpowder. They also have a chemist. An expert who knows a thing or two. Now the chemist has to built mordern gunpowder from the raw materials of the country side. Can he do it? Let's say that he has the possibility of at least roughing together the tools and equipment into making the gunpowder. Can he do it? How hard would it be? My guess is that it is going to be really hard and he'll end up killing himself in the process. My guess is that in my book, the knowledge in making modern gunpowder will be a lost knowledge. That they'll end up using flint-lock muskets and such. That the last bits of modern gunpowder will be a prized commodity. Only the rich and powerful will have it. How long does modern gunpowder last before it looses it's potentcy? You guys have been lots of help. If you could ansewer my last couple questions, it would be great. Cheers.

First note: I am not going to show them making gunpowder. Nor its process. I just need to know how possible that it is from scratch and without the use of electricity. Second. What I mean by black powder is the old stuff. The smoky gritty ancient Chinese discovered material. It smoked like you wouldn't believe, tended to rust gun barrels and clogged parts like no tomorrow. Read Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell for an accurate description of it. Smokeless gunpowder has been around since the Boar War. The Boar's had the old stuff, which constantly gave away there positions. Third. The manufacture of black powder is easy to do. The hardest part is making sulphur. Which, as stated above, is possible to make by almost anyone. The modern smokeless powder is what makes modern guns possible. Without it, there is no automatic weapons. Let me restate my question in a different form. Is the manufacture of modern gun powder from scratch possible without electricity? How possible? Can this be done by any geek with a library book or is this an uber technical task that takes years of knowledge and experience? More importantly, if I were to write that they had no modern gunpowder or primers and had to make due with musket style weapons, would I cause a riot from my readers? Thank you all for your help.

My name is Nathan Pedde. I am a, currently, unpublished author. I am currently working on a post-apocalyptic book about the failure of modern technology. More specifically, the failure of electricity. As such, I need help with a couple small details in my book. I have tried libraries and all sorts of web pages. None of which have made me successful in my search for an answer to a question of mine. My first book is about the disaster itself. It is almost done. I am currently working on the first draft of book two. The second book takes place many years after the initial disaster. Electricity still doesn't work properly and civilization has turned into a multitude of small warlords and there small pieces of land. When I took away modern technology in the first book, it effected everything from cars to sanitation. But what it didn't effect was guns. Guns would stay the same. The only thing that it would effect would be the manufacture of new guns and bullets. With everyone fighting everyone else, the world supply of bullets would shrink and eventually disappear completely rendering guns useless. BUT. Black powder can be made from raw ingredients. The hardest thing to get a hold of is the sulphur. But it isn't impossible, just hard. The problem with black powder is that it is very messy. It fouls the barrels of guns like you wouldn't believe. Smokeless powder like cordite doesn't foul the barrels of guns allowing for semi-auto and automatic weapons to be invented. If you were to load a machine gun with black powder, it would jam the mechanics of it before you fired a dozen shots. Rendering all semi-auto and automatic weapons useless. This scenario works for where I want my second book to go. I don't want machine-guns. I don't want Mad Max. I want the 18th century. The big plot-hole that I have is the fact that I have no idea if you can make a smokeless powder from raw ingredients. The supply stores are all empty by now. The supplies of the chemical compounds have been used up. I have to have my characters make the chemical compounds. That means for Black Powder, they have to make the charcoal, find the sulphur, and make the Potassium Nitrate. All of which you can do. My question: Can you using nothing but RAW ingredients, make a smokeless gunpowder like cordite? If so, how? What are the steps that you'd have to do? Would it be a simple process that you can do in an afternoon, or is this something that would take a few years to accomplish? Thanks for all of your help. Nathan ps. I have tried other forums in the past and got nothing but BS from people. Please be nice. Cheers.