How to Make Black Gun Powder

Start a fire in a fireplace or a barbecue pit. Let it go until the fire disappears and you're left with glowing embers.

Drill a hole in the lid of your tin can about the same diameter as a pencil. This will allow wood gas to escape as you're making your charcoal, while limiting the intake of air. Place three or four pieces of skinned willow wood (about three centimeters in diameter) into the tin. Secure the lid on the tin can and place the tin can on the embers.

Give the wood gas time to build up and begin escaping through the hole in the top of the lid. Light the gas on fire and allow the flame to burn out. When the flame no longer escapes through your ventilation hole, take the tin can away from the embers and set it aside to cool. You don't want to open the can until it is cold to the touch. If you open it too soon, the charcoal inside may reignite. When the can has cooled you can remove your homemade charcoal.

Grind each ingredient very finely. Use 100 parts saltpeter, 18 parts charcoal and 16 parts sulfur for your recipe. Grind each of the ingredients separately with a mortar and pestle. If you don't have a mortar and pestle, any bowl and a meat tenderizer will do the trick just as well. Once the ingredients have been ground separately, they can be mixed together.

Get another bowl and begin the corning process. Work with small amounts of your mixture at a time, putting it into another bowl and adding water until your mixture has the consistency of clay. Continue to beat the mixture for 10 or 15 minutes.

Put the black powder dough into a sieve and rub it through the slots. Lay out a piece of wax paper to collect the grains. Spread the sifted grains out on the paper and let them dry. Repeat this process, separating the powder dust from the grains. The black powder grains you produce will be about 0.3 to 1.4 millimeter in size.