Thread:Arelinna/@comment-24506668-20121105010208/@comment-4016259-20121112145907

Muskets are pretty weak - both on muzzle velocity and projectile mass/deformation. - and innacurate enough you need to be within 3m of your opponent to actually have a chance of hitting them. also, you're using black powder, which is not really that powerful. to make matters worse, firearms-grade black powder requires an extensive manufacturing process too lengthy to be included.

I'll quote Ronald B. Brown's book - "Homemade Guns and Homemade Ammo", pages 112~114:

"An elaborate study in France in the 1500's estabilished the following formula to be the best for black powder used in firearms: saltpeter,75%; charcoal,15.62%; sulfur 9.38%". As a practical matter, this recipe can be rounded to 75:15:10. These percentages are by weight, not volume.

The following is a description of how black powder was made commercially. It is intended to show how difficult it would be to make shooting-quality black powder on a home scale.

First, the ingredients were dampened and mixed by hand. Dampening kept down any dust which resulted from the mixing. Dust explosions happen even in grain elevators, not to mention gunpowder factories.

The ingredients were then "incorporated" by being rolled under stone wheels for three hours. The stone wheels weighed ten tons. This was called a wheel mill. Considerable heat was generated and water was added as necessary to keep the mixture moist.

The mixture was then pressed. Alternate layers of aluminum plates(aluminum is non-sparking) and gunpowder were placed in a hydraulic press at 1200 psi. the resulting press cakes were .75" thick and two feet square.

Granulating or corning came next and was the riskiest operation in black powder production. The corning mill was located at a distance, never approached while running, and remote controlled. The press cakes were crushed between rolls and graded through mechanically shaken screens. Coarse pieces were recrushed and rescreened.

The powder granules were polished by tumbling in a revolving wooden barrel. The powder was then dried, glased(to retard soaking up humidity), and screened for size. Grading, in black powder, refers to grain size, not quality.

A test for black powder, used from ancient times, is to burn a little pile of powder on a flat, cold surface. A good powder will burn in a flash and leave no pearls of residue. A residue indicates the powder was damp at the time of the test, that the powder has been wet at some time in the past, or that the ingredients were not well incorporated."

If you try to make black powder at home [...] you will produce a poor grade of black powder. When loaded in your 12 gauge it will sound like a .22 and dent a tin can at close range.

[...] If you really need to make gunpowder, my advice is not to waste your resources trying to make the black variety."

other methods on that book include crushed matchheads(which don't exist on S303) and Sodium Chlorate(obtained from generic salt by electrolysis - but electricity also doesn't exist on S303).