accidentally during grinding. A screen or sieve is ideal for the grinding process. Fine powder is suitable for pistols; coarser grains should be used for rifles. Experiment with light loads to determine what degree of coarseness or fineness of granules works best. BROWN POWDER Brown powder made its appearance just as smokeless powders were being introduced. Technically, brown powder is a form of black powder that was developed for long-barreled, rifled artillery pieces. It was usually called "cocoa powder," due to its color and the fact that it was made in flat wafers that looked like chocolate candy. It's stretching things to say it was close to smokeless powder in effectiveness — it came and went pretty fast. Its salient feature was that it was slow to ignite, which gave a more gradual push to a cannon projectile, of benefit in a longbarreled artillery piece. It gave higher velocities only in very long-barreled weapons. It can be used as a substitute for smokeless powder, but it is far from perfect in small arms. It does raise a cloud of smoke when it is fired, just as black powder does. Consequently, it came in second in the contest with smokeless powders and was soon discontinued, with manufacturers continuing to make the widely accepted black powder for use in the antique arms that shooters continued to use. Brown powder has many of the pluses of black powder, including the ability to be stored for long periods without deteriorating. Its additional bonus is that it offers a higher velocity and can be used as a substitute for smokeless powder. The principal change in the composition of brown powder is that it employs under-burned (brown rather than black) charcoal and a greatly reduced amount of sulfur. The proportions of brown powder aren't as firmly established as those of black powder, but it would appear that a 78.5 percent potassium nitrate, 18.5 percent brown charcoal, and 3 percent sulfur mix would be a good place to start . Traditionally, incompletely charred rye straw was used for the charcoal because this type of charcoal acted as a colliding agent, which allowed the shaped pellets of cannon powder to be more densely formed, thus making it a slow-starting powder and better for long-barreled cannon. Because brown powder is a mix like black powder rather than a chemical combination, the steps in combining the ingredients and creating grains from a cake of the material as given above for black powder should be used in the manufacture of brown powder. AMMONPULVER Ammonpulver is made from ammonium nitrate fertilizer. This chemical is most commonly found in home garden and agricultural fertilizers and is readily available in most areas. Wood alcohol is also needed to process the fertilizer, and charcoal is mixed with the chemical to create the proper burning rate. Ammonpulver had a spate of success as a military powder for use in cannons about the time of World War II and was a close second to smokeless powder in power. It had an Achilles' heel, however: it had to be pressed into very large hollow grains to control the speed of ignition, but at about 30 degrees +C the crystal structure changed, and the large grains crumbled to a powder. In its powdered state, it ignited so fast that the pressure would build up and the guns (artillery) blow up. This makes it less than ideal except in the direst extreme. Because many fertilizers have calcium coatings on the particles or are mixed with agricultural chemicals, you must exercise a little care in the selection of the fertilizer to be used in manufacturing powder. The best way of determining what you have is to check the ratio of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash in the mixture; this ratio will be clearly marked on the bag. The proper ratio for making ammonpulver is 34-0-0.11 the bag reads 21-0-0, 21-44-8, 46-0-0, or any other ratio, it won't work. Be sure the fertilizer gets all its nitrogen from ammonium nitrate and has no urea added. Urea also dissolves in alcohol, so you'd end up with a mix of ammonium nitrate/urea. Also check to be sure that calcium hasn't been added to coat the mixture. (If you can find only a fertilizer with calcium, crush it to expose the inside of the prills, and it will work just fine.) You should manufacture your powder immediately after opening fertilizer: it quickly pulls moisture from the air, rendering it useless for making powder after a while. For this reason, you should be careful to purchase new fertilizer that is still sealed in its bag. When you're ready to start, do the following: 1. Place the fertilizer in a pan and pour methanol alcohol (wood alcohol) over it until the fertilizer is completely covered. The mix should be warm, but do not apply heat to it (i.e., don't