SHTF normally mainly focuses on short-term survival situations where after you're done feeling shocked, it's usually only days or hours before the before the situation is over.
However, not all collapses are temporary. How can a prepper know for certain that when the collapse takes place that it isn't permanent? You never know, a man-made or natural disaster could wipe out everything except for the people who have survived it thanks to their sturdy bunkers.
The potential of a long-term bug out situation is why preppers believe it's so important to understand the skills on how to make essential items such as weapons and specifically, gunpowder.
If a prepper is wise, they will have already been stocking up food to last them a while, however, when it's all used it they will need weapons to help them catch food. When ammunition is gone it's important to know how to make more of it.
On the next page, check out step-by-step instructions on how to make gunpowder for a long-term SHTF situation and add this essential skill to your survival expertise.
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Regardless! You live till you die! Use what you have to survive!!!!
Joshua is right. Knowledge wins half the battle
Mike Gibbs
Patrick Hart
If you can’t find a good explosive substitute for gunpowder to reload your own rounds then you aren’t prepping right
Been making my own gunpowder for about 7 years now. I make my own charcoal from Willow trees the kind you find in Grandma’s or neighboring yards for decoration.
While I’ve never made potassium nitrate myself I know how to make it and it’s fairly simple to make. And on the farm I have seen it myself crystallizing in old stale moist manure piles.
Sulfur for the most part is going to be very hard to find unless you can find a natural deposit. However you can make sulfurless gunpowder and it works just fine in percussion cap and Centerfire guns. The best sulfurless gunpowder I have came up with is 71% potassium nitrate 34% charcoal.
I can tell you that by far the most important thing in making good gun powder is 1 it needs to be milled into the finest powder possible in order to get all the ingredients as close as possible to each other. And 2 granulating it into a form that resembles gunpowder and not dark baby powder. The traditional way of doing it was called Corning but it’s very time-consuming and requires a heavy press of some kind . I won’t get into the details of that but I can tell you by far the simplest method and the method that I use is essentially gluing the powder together with stuff called dextrin which is made it home by cooking corn starch. Add 3% of it by weight of the total weight of your powder. And by dampening the powder with a little water and passing it through a suitable kitchen screen of any size you like depending on the size of granules you want and allowing it to dry. The powder will be nowhere near as dense but it does work just fine.
Anyhow I’ll stop rambling on this is something that people should know if SHTF
And another thing invest in pistols and rifles that are in of calibers that originally were black powder calibers to make it easier to adapt like 45/70, 45colt, 12ga. I have played around with BP in guns like the 30/06, 7.62X54r, and 7.92X57mm. For bottlenecked rifle cartridges you ARE going to have to learn how to paper patch! 38sp 357mag 45acp will handle it fairly well but will require you to do some work to find what you’re pistol like.
Anyhow God bless you everyone! Stay informed so you can live free.
David Goold Justin Hill
As long as there r pigs u have a good head start on explosives
Adam Nikolai
I’m.not running out
Don’t forget the BPML which most simply and reliably fires it!
Lethal air guns r the way to go. If we run outta air…
Did you know that Lewis and Clark carried a air gun with them for small game. Another one of those unless facts that clutter my little brain. Have a good night my friend.
Yeah it’s called a bow n arrow
If you find yourself in a situation where you are blazing away enough ammo to run out I think you have prepped poorly.
I think a lot of people fall into fantasizing these gunslinger fantasies where they make a brave last stand on top of a pile of MREs and watter bottles, but Im here to tell ya as a combat vet that getting into a full blown firefight is a very terrible idea.
I mean, I guess stuff can happen that you can’t predict but even a small gunfight between two groups of a dozen each will burn through tens of thousands of rounds.
Its something to be prepared for, no doubt, but also avoided at all costs. Ive been in gunfights and I can tell you right now its definiteley not something you want to be dragging your wife, kids, and various friends into. If it can at all be avoided it should be.
Not saying DONT stockpile, or aquire skills, just saying, AVOID having to use that many resources at all costs.
Cuz gunfights fuckin suck.
I like how they don’t even tell you how to make gunpowder. They just vaguely describe a couple of ways to attain the more complex ingredient in black powder. They could have just said you could go down to home depot and stock up on stump remover which is 99.7% potassium nitrate. Can’t believe I read this crap over breakfast.
never enough ammo . so I use the second choice for a lot of things cross bow . and blades also hunting is about more than just shooting something
Learn how to use a sword!!
Marc Taylor gotta make sure this doesn’t happen
But how do you make ammo?
Don’t expect homemade powder to cycle a semi auto….also most homemade powder will corrode/foul barrels very quickly. If you intend to pursue this get a will made black powder rifle
People in these comment threads make me seriously consider a sailboat, at least it’s still worth it without a meltdown.
Just to point out. You’re all paranoid.
If doomsday ever does come. It’ll be the government against us. And what do they have? The military! So ask yourself this, what the$#%&!@*are you going to do?
I think there are several situations where you would run out of ammo, 8 for example like 2 hours north of nyc off of the nys thruway, guaranteed a bunch of starving mostly unarmed city people would be heading my way
It is also important to learn how to make primitive weapons such as bows and arrows, spears and the like. You may not always have what you need for making your own ammo or explosives, but it is much more likely there will be stones and wood laying around. Not to mention you can make these primitive weapons from other common things such as scrap metal and glass.
People would run out long before the ammo…
So how do you make a primer. And then a jacketed projectile..
And after casing is no good cuz it’s been reloaded so much and now is stretched out..
How do you make them?
Now we are talking some helpful shot
Doest take any ammo to fish
Easier and much safer on learning how to build a bow. I load ammunition for a living and it’s not real safe with good powders and books and knowledge
No matter what, you will run out of primers. Buy a flintlock, or get a bow and arrows….
Or you could just learn to make and shoot a bow. Arrows are a lot easier to make and you can kill just as much game if you know how to hunt
Christoper, you may be the one exception. My advice buy more lol
Lol Billy Gibbs trust me when I say I don’t need more
I can make arrows for my bow and bolts for my crossbow easily enough which I would probably use more often then not.
Kenny Roman
I wish the article wasn’t such a money grab with all the ads and separate pages when all the info would fit into a few paragraphs.
lol
One thing there is never a shortage of in a war, is guns, ammo and targets….. there will be government and anti government groups supplying weapons, radio, uniforms, commo equipment and any thing else you need…You may not have it the first day…but you will by the second. day…what is theirs, is really yours, just know how to take it
Internet is why I want books lol
We go back to sword fighting
We will be a mystery to those digging us up.
Oh goodness, a Dr dre reference.
Hey, does the cold keep your ammo longer?
It was a old freezer that died had a drain hole in the bottom so I ran a dehumidifier into it been like that for 5 years I have never had a problem
Marco
Anyone heard of bows and arrows?
Ok…. Now how do you make primers…..?
Glynn.. Better brush up on the chemistry books
I can make it outta blood, a lot of blood