4. Run the rubber tubing through an ice-water "bath" and into a second open bottle. Place the stopper in the bottle with the potassium nitrate-sulfuric acid paste in it. 5. Place the paste bottle over a gentle heat. This will create brown nitrogen dioxide and water vapor fumes that will be condensed back into a liquid when they go through the bath. The nitric acid will then drip into the second bottle. Take extreme care not to breathe the caustic fumes that do not condense in the bath and be sure that you have adequate ventilation. Extreme caution must be exercised in making nitrocellulose. Do not attempt this if you lack proper equipment or knowledge. The procedure is as follows: 1. Immerse the cotton in a mixture of 1 part sulfuric acid and I part nitric acid. Allow the cotton to become saturated and then remove it and store it in a sealed container for 2.4 hours in a cool area. Prepare the acid mixture by slowly pouring the sulfuric acid into the nitric, while constantly stirring. This will create an exotherm, and the acid mixture must be allowed to cool to room temperature before proceeding. Specific gravity of the nitric should be equal to or less than 1.4. Specific gravity of the sulfuric mix should be equal to or less than 1.84.. This is important because varying the strength of the acids, temperature, time of reaction, or acid-cellulose ratio will create widely different products. Caution must be exercised here. 2. Carefully rinse the cotton in pure water until it has a neutral reading with litmus paper or pHydrion paper. If the cotton is the least bit acidic, rinse it again. In the past, protocols varied with different powder makers, but a typical way was to boil the cotton for days with several changes of water, then chop it finely and boil it again with sodium carbonate and several more changes of water. Or it might have been left for days in a running stream of clean water. The reason for this was to remove the slightest trace of acid since any remaining would make the guncotton unstable ~and cotton fibers are hollow tubes that tend to trap the acid) . Also, most earlier makers had a residency time of at least 30 minutes and had protocols/specifications for preparing the cotton, etc. 3. Dry the cotton (which is now nitrocellulose) . Take extreme care to keep the temperature of the nitrocellulose below 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Once dry, the nitrocellulose must be stored at a cool temperature and kept away from sunlight Low-grade (low nitrogen content) nitrocellulose, not suitable for guncotton, readily dissolves in a mix of alcohol and ether. High-grade (high nitrogen content) nitrocellulose dissolves best in acetone. If what you now have dissolves readily and completely in the alcoholether mix, then it isn't suitable for this process. At this point, you may process the nitrocellulose for powder by using acetone to dissolve it into a gelatinous blob. The addition of barium and potassium nitrate will increase the material that is burned, reducing fouling in the process. The slurry should be rolled into sheets and cut to the proper size and then redried. (It is also possible to mold the material through a pasta extrusion device to create fibers that can be dried into powder.) As with other powders, smaller particles are used for pistol ammunition and larger for rifles or shotguns. Working on Teflon surfaces simplifies matters. To control burning rate and reduce barrel erosion, modern powders have deterrent coatings applied to them. One common coating for nitrocellulose is dibutylphthalate . Graphite coatings also are generally found as a glazing on ball powders; this glazing makes up 1 percent of the weight of powder and appears to have a slight deterrent effect. The graphite also reduces the amount of static electricity generated when grains of powder flow through powder measures and the like. Diphenylamine used to be added to powders as a stabilizer and is ideal for use in homemade powders . Dinitrotoluene (DNT) is also used as a coating on powders. This chemical can reduce the initial burning rate and thereby reduce chamber pressures, making it ideal for many cartridges. The addition of potassium sulfate will often help reduce muzzle flash. MODERN DOUBLE-BASED POWDERS Double-based powder is even more dangerous to make than nitrocellulose. Consequently, you shouldn't even try the following manufacturing techniques unless you are a trained lab technician and equipped with modern lab equipment. Modern double-based powder is made from nitroglycerine; do not attempt to manufacture