You may want to go to that web site Mike Robert's and I both were at, at one time. I too talked about the features of Elephant. I bought a case of 2F in 2001? for my shotguns. It was horrible stuff in that too. I couldn't reload after about 5-6 shots. Now with Goex or Schuetzen and the same lube, I shoot all day. I mean ALL day!
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Elephant black powder
- Thread starter ole berthey
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It's not too old and it should work fine in your gun. Be prepared for inconsistant results and fouling like you wouldn't believe though. At least that was my experience with 2 cans that seemed to last forever. I invented new cuss words every time I tried to use them up, but the miser in me (I'm not scottish that I know of!) wouldn't let me throw them out. If you're not scottish, do yourself a favor and throw it out.
i had some of this stuff in 2f for awhile. accuracy wasnt too bad, and i didnt have any ignition problems. but i had to swab between every shot because it left significant deposits in the barrel. i quit using it and moved on to other powders. then last summer i came across that same old can of powder . . . there was still some left. i took it out and tried shooting it out of the ol' t/c greyhawk with some patched balls. it made a nice boom and big cloud of smoke . . . and then i tried to reload it. ball almost didnt go down the barrel, i had to really put some muscle into it. i fired another time or two, but same result, just had to swab between shots cause of all the fouling. i prefer to use other powders and not swab so much :grin:
ole berthey
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Well I've made my mind up with all the bad reports on elephant powder. I think I will give the stuff to "ridge" if he wants it. But now ridge you will have to pick up the shipping. Let me know and it's yours. I think I will just stick with my good ole Goex. Thanks guys for all the input. :bow:
You can't ship black powder to anyone. It will get you in a lot of trouble if you try.
ole berthey
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Thanks Rebel, I did'nt know. Well I guess my first post reply pretty much sumes it up. "dump it out dump it out".
Guest
Rowdy, you live in Perryville? Wow, that is nice country there (Henry Graydon, now deceased)--my Dad's best friend had a farm near there. I would not dump the Elephant--even though I hate the stuff--you might search out a local Civil War reenactor group (there are several in Ark) and see if they want it--I gave mine to a reenacter in Louisiana--the junk is Ok for blank loads and cannon fodder. Also, there is a dealer in N Little Rock who carries the stuff and claims his BP cartridge reloaders like it.
Me too.I have used alot of 2and 3f Elephant over the years it was made and had good results with it.I swab after every shot maybe thats the difference.I did get a batch of goex some time ago that was the dirtiest stuff I ever used.Kik is my powder of choice now. Very clean,good accuracy and consistency,and less expensive.I guess thats why there are so many black powders out there everyone has different likes and dislikes.
To be clear about my post, I never said all Elephant was junk.
I said apparently there were good lots of Elephant and bad lots of Elephant...attested to by 99% of everyone else's posts...which means they had serious quality control issues with their manufacturing...therefore, my recommendation to the individual who started this thread was not to take a chance on buying any of it.
The lot of Elephant that I got was not a matter of different people's "likes and dislikes"...it was pure junk that could not be used to shoot at any target you intended to hit with any degree of accuracy due to the terrible ignition delays, to say nothing of the unbelieveable amount of crud / fouling.
I said apparently there were good lots of Elephant and bad lots of Elephant...attested to by 99% of everyone else's posts...which means they had serious quality control issues with their manufacturing...therefore, my recommendation to the individual who started this thread was not to take a chance on buying any of it.
The lot of Elephant that I got was not a matter of different people's "likes and dislikes"...it was pure junk that could not be used to shoot at any target you intended to hit with any degree of accuracy due to the terrible ignition delays, to say nothing of the unbelieveable amount of crud / fouling.
Guest
roundball said:
That is very true and a good observation--there apparently are some good batches of Elephant out there because several folks have said they love the stuff. Not my experience, though, which was identical to yours. The old DuPont was the best I ever used and I'd rate the new Goex stuff to be as good. Good enough for me anyway. I still manage to crud up my guns, but with Elephant it would be : first shot out of a clean barrel=good, then problems, problems, problems...
It is most apt to state that Elephant out of the now defunct S/A Pernambuco Powder Factory had QC problems. I would suggest the changes in the powder. Sometimes they followed my instructions and sometimes they did it their way.
The production run in 1999 was the peak in quality for Elephant. Trouble is that the guy who supervised the wood charring operation retired after that production run. That bit of info was not told to us up here. The 2000 and 2001 production runs were made with charcoal that had a high fixed carbon content. In 2001 I told the importer to dump that supplier. After the 2001 production run the plant was closed.
Import figures for Elephant black powder.
1992 - 32,980 lbs.
1993 - 102,397 lbs.
1994 - 235,103 lbs.
1995 - 35,935 lbs.
1996 - 101,647 lbs.
1997 - 309,628 lbs.
1998 - 358,288 lbs.
1999 - 192,256 lbs.
2000 - 353,991 lbs.
2001 - 486,838 lbs.
Total of 2,209,063 pounds imported.
The big explosion at GOEX's Moosic, PA plant in 1991 prompted the importing of WANO in 1992 and Elephant in 1992. The Moosic plant was out of production for a lengthy period after that explosion.
As a result of the 1991 explosion at the Moosic, PA powder plant the production workers elected to join the Teamsters union. From 1991 until 1993 it got a bit messy between the workers and the management.
At that time GOEX was owned by Pengo Industries which had been in bankruptcy since 1988. In 1992 we see GOEX's mailing address being shown as the present Minden, LA site. Basically when the PA plant workers went union GOEX started to plan the move to the present plant.
During the battle over the unionization of Moosic GOEX management managed to anger a number of federal and state regulatory agencies. They failed to understand that hell hath no furry like a bureaucrat scorned. If OSHA visited the Moosic plant and saw any state DER violations they would inform the state DER. Likewise the state DER would rat out GOEX to OSHA if they spotted anything on a visit.
Then in 1995 GOEX lost the office building at Moosic to an electrical fire. All of the company records were lost.
Then in 1996 they lost a corning mill and corning building to a lightning strike. That put the plant out of operation for 6 months.
Then in 1997 they had another loss of the corning mill and corning building. Which had only been in operation for 6 months.
At that point they figured they had to move to the present location. They closed Moosic in June of 1997 and did not get the present plant up and running until March of 1998.
To keep them in the business during late 1997 and 1998 GOEX imported over 1 million pounds of black powder from the KIK-Kamnik plant in Slovenia.
When you look at the last years of operation at Moosic you see a powder plant that was out of production for periods of time almost equal to the periods of time in production. So Elephant filled a void.
When GOEX started up the Minden plant that had a problem with their long-time charcoal supplier. Prior to the closure of Moosic the company charred maple wood at an operation in West Virginia. GOEX being their main customer. When Moosic closed the charcoal supplier ceased the charring operation. They then purchased charcoal and sold it to GOEX as if it were still their production. They were not overly careful in what they purchased for resale. It took GOEX until 2001 to straighten that mess out and find a reliable supplier with an acceptable product.
You can say what you like about the idea of importing black powder but the competition has pushed GOEX to improve quality and limit price increases.
In 1995 GOEX had approached the S/A Pernambuco Powder Factory, in Brazil, with a deal. The deal being that GOEX would purchase Elephant powder for resale in the U.S. The only thing the Moosic plant would have made was military powders. Fireworks, fuse and small-arms powders would have come out of Brazil in GOEX cans!
Were it not for the competition you would be paying a lot more for your powder and not get anything near the quality you can get today.
The production run in 1999 was the peak in quality for Elephant. Trouble is that the guy who supervised the wood charring operation retired after that production run. That bit of info was not told to us up here. The 2000 and 2001 production runs were made with charcoal that had a high fixed carbon content. In 2001 I told the importer to dump that supplier. After the 2001 production run the plant was closed.
Import figures for Elephant black powder.
1992 - 32,980 lbs.
1993 - 102,397 lbs.
1994 - 235,103 lbs.
1995 - 35,935 lbs.
1996 - 101,647 lbs.
1997 - 309,628 lbs.
1998 - 358,288 lbs.
1999 - 192,256 lbs.
2000 - 353,991 lbs.
2001 - 486,838 lbs.
Total of 2,209,063 pounds imported.
The big explosion at GOEX's Moosic, PA plant in 1991 prompted the importing of WANO in 1992 and Elephant in 1992. The Moosic plant was out of production for a lengthy period after that explosion.
As a result of the 1991 explosion at the Moosic, PA powder plant the production workers elected to join the Teamsters union. From 1991 until 1993 it got a bit messy between the workers and the management.
At that time GOEX was owned by Pengo Industries which had been in bankruptcy since 1988. In 1992 we see GOEX's mailing address being shown as the present Minden, LA site. Basically when the PA plant workers went union GOEX started to plan the move to the present plant.
During the battle over the unionization of Moosic GOEX management managed to anger a number of federal and state regulatory agencies. They failed to understand that hell hath no furry like a bureaucrat scorned. If OSHA visited the Moosic plant and saw any state DER violations they would inform the state DER. Likewise the state DER would rat out GOEX to OSHA if they spotted anything on a visit.
Then in 1995 GOEX lost the office building at Moosic to an electrical fire. All of the company records were lost.
Then in 1996 they lost a corning mill and corning building to a lightning strike. That put the plant out of operation for 6 months.
Then in 1997 they had another loss of the corning mill and corning building. Which had only been in operation for 6 months.
At that point they figured they had to move to the present location. They closed Moosic in June of 1997 and did not get the present plant up and running until March of 1998.
To keep them in the business during late 1997 and 1998 GOEX imported over 1 million pounds of black powder from the KIK-Kamnik plant in Slovenia.
When you look at the last years of operation at Moosic you see a powder plant that was out of production for periods of time almost equal to the periods of time in production. So Elephant filled a void.
When GOEX started up the Minden plant that had a problem with their long-time charcoal supplier. Prior to the closure of Moosic the company charred maple wood at an operation in West Virginia. GOEX being their main customer. When Moosic closed the charcoal supplier ceased the charring operation. They then purchased charcoal and sold it to GOEX as if it were still their production. They were not overly careful in what they purchased for resale. It took GOEX until 2001 to straighten that mess out and find a reliable supplier with an acceptable product.
You can say what you like about the idea of importing black powder but the competition has pushed GOEX to improve quality and limit price increases.
In 1995 GOEX had approached the S/A Pernambuco Powder Factory, in Brazil, with a deal. The deal being that GOEX would purchase Elephant powder for resale in the U.S. The only thing the Moosic plant would have made was military powders. Fireworks, fuse and small-arms powders would have come out of Brazil in GOEX cans!
Were it not for the competition you would be paying a lot more for your powder and not get anything near the quality you can get today.
paulvallandigham
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Wow! Thank you so much for that very intimate history of Goex and Elephant powders in the U.S., Mad Monk. I can't imagine finding such details from any other source. Perhaps you can write a brief history and submit to Muzzle Blasts for publication. I have been a fan of Goex for 40 plus years, but would have to admit that sometimes the product did not meet expectations. The imported powders were always so much more expensive, and seemed to have their own problems, I did not switch. I tend to be a " buy America " kind of fiscal conservative, as I like to see jobs stay here in the United States for some reason! And, I want to see a manufacturer of explosives, and powder remain viable here because I really do think its in our nation's best interest to have the facilities to produce any and all war material needed to protect us. I do think we are going to be in future wars, and that some of them are going to be fought, in part on these shores. I am happy to for the people at Goex who found a way to keep in business within the United States. I have wondered for more than 50 years why workers continue to think that Unions are working in their best interest, when I see plants closing and workers loosing their jobs, and the union bosses continuing to be employed and continue to make huge salaries. I am sure there are unions out there that are led by men and women who actually do protect their members' jobs. But that seems to be a very rare thing these days. We are not better off because of their failures, and refusals to change contracts and benfits, and seniority rights to protect jobs, and keep American plants competitive with world competition. American factories are by far the most productive, and American workers out produce any other country in the world, in spite of the differences in wage scales. But companies have to retool, and cut certain jobs, to keep open and stay competitive. When unions insist on certain jobs being protected for their senior members, when the jobs are no longer contributing to the plants, the only thing left for companies to do is to close the plants, and move. The huge collapse of the Unions started with the closing of steel mills in Ohio in the 1970s, and even earlier, because there were no fund to modernize. I saw a brief ray of hope about unions when an article appeared in Time magazine reporting that one of the unions' member pitched in and bought their airline a new plane to add to the fleet, saving the company a several hundred million dollars, and improving its bottom line, but the message did not catch on. When unions negotiate a base salary/ profit sharing compensation package, they reward hard work, and cut absentism, and many other problems that plague American industry. But most union bosses won't go near a profit sharing plan concept.
The thing about the unionization of the Moosic, PA powder plant centered on wages, bennies and working conditions.
When the Moosic plant was sold to Gearhart Owens that company was in sound finincial shape. Then the drop in oil prices halted a lot of U.S. crude oil production. Pengo was centered in the oil business. Mainly well monitoring. Their business just about went down the tubes.
Gearhart and Owens had a parting of the ways. One wanted no parts of the explosives business which included military munnitions manufacturing.
The one who hung on to the bp business formed Pengo Industries. By 1988 Pengo was forced into Chapt. 11 by the Chemical Bank in Fort Worth, Texas. Bailed out by a group of investors but watched over by a bankruptcy court until around 1996.
Looking at the OSHA records showed what happened when Pengo ran into serious money problems. The Moosic plant was treated as the cash cow. If you look at the OSHA records you see a lack of maintenance except for that which was required to keep the powder flowing out of the plant.
Clearly normal safety rules went out the window. I saw the first OSHA record on this dating to around 1986. A maintenance worker was detailed to fix a light switch in the packing/sifting house. He did not turn off the main to the light switch. Took off the cover and went at it with the screwdriver. An electrical spark jumped over to a building support beam. Covered in powder dust. The guy realized he was in trouble and beat feet for the steel safety shed some distance away. The burning powder on the beam eventually made it to where bags of powder were sitting. At which point the building went into self-destruct mode.
Safety regs would have had all powder removed from the building. Then wash down the area around the switch. Then lock out the lighting main for the building.
With Pengo in bankruptcy the plant was milked for all it was worth. Wages, bennies, safety, etc. The workers figured enough is enough.
You have to know the Scranton, PA area. Close to what in 1955 was known as the Knox Mine Disaster. The president of the local UMW was part of a bootleg mine. Between that and the mechainization of the mines the workers felt the union sold them out. The area became notoriously anti-union. You might say that going into a union was the ultimate indignity that the workers could heap on an employer.
The sad part is that the management at Moosic had no option but to follow the orders of the folks running Pengo.
I went through a similar thing with several companies. I was sold, along with the machinery, many times. Been downsized a few times also.
By around 2000 another investment company purchased GOEX. This gave the plant management the ability to run the operation there way. You see a dramatic improvement in their safety record and a dramatic improvement in the quality of their product.
These days bp manufacturing plants are not big money makers. Not like you see in other industries. Most bp plants just sort of hang on until something really devastating happens.
Competition within the industry is good for we shooters. Promotes fair prices and good quality. But a point can be reached where the limited pie gets cut into too many slices. Where nobody can make enough profit to stay in business.
When the Moosic plant was sold to Gearhart Owens that company was in sound finincial shape. Then the drop in oil prices halted a lot of U.S. crude oil production. Pengo was centered in the oil business. Mainly well monitoring. Their business just about went down the tubes.
Gearhart and Owens had a parting of the ways. One wanted no parts of the explosives business which included military munnitions manufacturing.
The one who hung on to the bp business formed Pengo Industries. By 1988 Pengo was forced into Chapt. 11 by the Chemical Bank in Fort Worth, Texas. Bailed out by a group of investors but watched over by a bankruptcy court until around 1996.
Looking at the OSHA records showed what happened when Pengo ran into serious money problems. The Moosic plant was treated as the cash cow. If you look at the OSHA records you see a lack of maintenance except for that which was required to keep the powder flowing out of the plant.
Clearly normal safety rules went out the window. I saw the first OSHA record on this dating to around 1986. A maintenance worker was detailed to fix a light switch in the packing/sifting house. He did not turn off the main to the light switch. Took off the cover and went at it with the screwdriver. An electrical spark jumped over to a building support beam. Covered in powder dust. The guy realized he was in trouble and beat feet for the steel safety shed some distance away. The burning powder on the beam eventually made it to where bags of powder were sitting. At which point the building went into self-destruct mode.
Safety regs would have had all powder removed from the building. Then wash down the area around the switch. Then lock out the lighting main for the building.
With Pengo in bankruptcy the plant was milked for all it was worth. Wages, bennies, safety, etc. The workers figured enough is enough.
You have to know the Scranton, PA area. Close to what in 1955 was known as the Knox Mine Disaster. The president of the local UMW was part of a bootleg mine. Between that and the mechainization of the mines the workers felt the union sold them out. The area became notoriously anti-union. You might say that going into a union was the ultimate indignity that the workers could heap on an employer.
The sad part is that the management at Moosic had no option but to follow the orders of the folks running Pengo.
I went through a similar thing with several companies. I was sold, along with the machinery, many times. Been downsized a few times also.
By around 2000 another investment company purchased GOEX. This gave the plant management the ability to run the operation there way. You see a dramatic improvement in their safety record and a dramatic improvement in the quality of their product.
These days bp manufacturing plants are not big money makers. Not like you see in other industries. Most bp plants just sort of hang on until something really devastating happens.
Competition within the industry is good for we shooters. Promotes fair prices and good quality. But a point can be reached where the limited pie gets cut into too many slices. Where nobody can make enough profit to stay in business.
Va.Manuf.06
58 Cal.
A quick question for both Paul and the Mad Monk (BTW, excellent posts Mad Monk!) Paul mentioned using Goex for 40 years, but if I recall correctly, DuPont was still making powder in the 1960s and only stopped their production in the early 70s when they had their last big "blow up". After that we had to do with some excellent but expensive British powders - Curtis and Harvey, "Meteor" from C-I-L, etc. GOEX didn't come along until the mid to late 70s as I recall. While the quality wasn't then as good as the English black powder (they seemed to foul much less) GOEX was more cost effective for shooters and it was American made - like Paul said, a definate plus. Is my memory fading faster than I thought? I do remember my first pound of Dupont was $1.25 in 1960. Almost 2 hours pay at minimum wage then... :shocked2:
paulvallandigham
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NO, you are correct. My oldest can of red and white labels is DuPont. Then we had some others, and then Goex. In my mind, I was always equating Moosic, Pa with Goex, because its such a wonderful name.
Va.Manuf.06,
Du Pont did not cease operations at the Moosic, PA plant as a result of a "last big blow up".
I had heard that one and did some digging through govt. records.
As the war in Viet Nam wound down Du Pont realized that business at Moosic was going to take a dive. War time production demands had left the plant machinery in a serious need for overhauls. Done properly it would have been rather expensive. By around 1970 they began to have powder quality problems that they did not understand. If they left the powder sit around any length of time in a damp state it would not pass MIL specs. They had utterly no idea as to why.
So by 1971 they were looking at what would be a very sharp decline in the business with a plant that needed a good bit of investment and QC problems they had never seen before.
Du Pont had really only stayed in the bp business after WWII almost as a nostalgia kick. The bp business had been the foundation of the Du Pont family and the various members fortunes.
What the govt. records did show was that around the time Du Pont announced they were getting out of the bp business there was a big explosion near the Moosic plant. Some fly by night company was making dynamite in what had been a vacant strip mall. One day the dynamite operation blew up. But when the news got about about this big explosion everybody thought it was the bp plant that had gone up.
The year 1972 was a traumatic one in the bp industry worldwide.
In 1972 the ICI (C&H) plant in Scotland had a corning mill blowup. Production ceased. The company debated about 6 months before announcing that ICI would cease all production of black powder. The plant in Scotland was stripped of its machinery. The machinery shipped off to Germany where it was used in a new bp plant there. NOT the WANO plant. That new plant ran for a few years and then it blew up. Shut down and never rebuilt, leaving WANO as the only operating BP plant in Germany. ICI also closed a bp plant in Australia. Most of that plant's machinery sits in two sheds outside of Tamworth, NSW, Australia. The CIL operation in Canada ceased.
Following the closure of the ICI (C&H) plant in Scotland, ICI packaged WANO made bp under several labels. Meteor was one. Check labels. "Made in Scotland" or "Made in Germany".
Another point in ICI ceasing all black powder manufacturing worldwide. The old C&H plant in Scotland used buckthorn alder wood for charcoal to be used in small-arms powders and other types were faster burn rates were required. In 1970 their source of this buckthorn alder in northern Spain ceased to gather, strip and ship the wood. This left the plant with only commercial charcoal greatly inferior to the buckthorn alder charcoal. The commercial charcoals were good enough for blasting powders but not really acceptable for military and small-arms powders.
ICI figured it was not worth staying in that business when they could buy WANO to be sold by them under their labels.
When Gearhart-Owen purchased the bp business from Du Pont they also had problems right from the start.
Du Pont for a very long time had purchased charcoal from a small company that operated in north central PA. This little company was something of a last stand from the days when north central Pa was the heart of what was once known as the wood chemicals industry.
These plants charred wood in cylinder retorts. They collected the various chemicals that came off as stack vapors. The charcoal was sold off as a cheap by-product of the wood distillation process. Roughly 80% of the wood going into the cylinder charge was maple. A few other woods were acceptable in making up the other 20%. By 1972 this wood charring plant was overdue for a complete rebuilding. The owner simply shut it down. So Gearhart-Owen (GO) had to quickly find another supplier. That turned out to be a company in Ohio with a charring operation in West VA.
Then at the same time.
Big change in the sources of potassium nitrate in the U.S. In 1968 a plant was constructed near Vicksburg, Mississippi to produce potassium nitrate by reacting potassium chloride with nitric acid. This then new process replaced the older process where man-made sodium nitrate was converted to potassium nitrate. The Vicksburg plant was designed to produce fertilizer grades of potassium nitrate. 95% of the world's production of potassium nitrate goes into agricultural as fertilizer for use on plants that are chloride sensitive. The Vicksburg product being so cheaply made that the older process and companies were quickly driven out of business.
So GOEX got stuck with two major changes in raw materials in a very short period of time. And they were stuck in that these were the only sources for these materials at the time and almost had to take whatever they were shipped.
Then Moosic had a water quality problem that at time gave them fits.
The Knox Mine Disaster in 1955 put an end to deep mining in the eastern end of the PA hard coal field. By the 1960's the buildup of acid mine waste water caused seepages to kill off all aquatic life in the streams in that area. So the PA DER went on a kick of sealing off all of these mine waste water seepages. It quickly got to the point where well water in the area became nothing more than diluted mine waste water.
GOEX normally used Moosic municipal water in the powder being processed. But in times of drought they would not be allowed to use the municipal water in the product. They would have to use their on-site well water. Again, diluted mine waste water. Water rich in sulfur loving bacteria. Powder made with on-site well water was not as chemically stable as powder made with Moosic municipal water. This chemical instability in the powder created by the on-site well water shows up in work by the BRL at Aberdeen Proving Ground on intermediate ignitor problems in large-caliber artillery firings. One test in particular showed how the longer the powder had been stored the slower it got as far as burn rates were concerned.
I said it before and I'll say it again. Given what we have now in the form of GOEX, Schuetzen, Swiss and KIK we are in far better shape when it comes to powder quality than we have been since the 1960's.
When it comes to the prices these days you might want to look at insurance costs from the production right through to the sale to the shooters. With the advent of the terrorists the insurance companies really jacked up the cost of liability insurance. New govt. regs made it more expensive from the production through to the final sale.
Du Pont did not cease operations at the Moosic, PA plant as a result of a "last big blow up".
I had heard that one and did some digging through govt. records.
As the war in Viet Nam wound down Du Pont realized that business at Moosic was going to take a dive. War time production demands had left the plant machinery in a serious need for overhauls. Done properly it would have been rather expensive. By around 1970 they began to have powder quality problems that they did not understand. If they left the powder sit around any length of time in a damp state it would not pass MIL specs. They had utterly no idea as to why.
So by 1971 they were looking at what would be a very sharp decline in the business with a plant that needed a good bit of investment and QC problems they had never seen before.
Du Pont had really only stayed in the bp business after WWII almost as a nostalgia kick. The bp business had been the foundation of the Du Pont family and the various members fortunes.
What the govt. records did show was that around the time Du Pont announced they were getting out of the bp business there was a big explosion near the Moosic plant. Some fly by night company was making dynamite in what had been a vacant strip mall. One day the dynamite operation blew up. But when the news got about about this big explosion everybody thought it was the bp plant that had gone up.
The year 1972 was a traumatic one in the bp industry worldwide.
In 1972 the ICI (C&H) plant in Scotland had a corning mill blowup. Production ceased. The company debated about 6 months before announcing that ICI would cease all production of black powder. The plant in Scotland was stripped of its machinery. The machinery shipped off to Germany where it was used in a new bp plant there. NOT the WANO plant. That new plant ran for a few years and then it blew up. Shut down and never rebuilt, leaving WANO as the only operating BP plant in Germany. ICI also closed a bp plant in Australia. Most of that plant's machinery sits in two sheds outside of Tamworth, NSW, Australia. The CIL operation in Canada ceased.
Following the closure of the ICI (C&H) plant in Scotland, ICI packaged WANO made bp under several labels. Meteor was one. Check labels. "Made in Scotland" or "Made in Germany".
Another point in ICI ceasing all black powder manufacturing worldwide. The old C&H plant in Scotland used buckthorn alder wood for charcoal to be used in small-arms powders and other types were faster burn rates were required. In 1970 their source of this buckthorn alder in northern Spain ceased to gather, strip and ship the wood. This left the plant with only commercial charcoal greatly inferior to the buckthorn alder charcoal. The commercial charcoals were good enough for blasting powders but not really acceptable for military and small-arms powders.
ICI figured it was not worth staying in that business when they could buy WANO to be sold by them under their labels.
When Gearhart-Owen purchased the bp business from Du Pont they also had problems right from the start.
Du Pont for a very long time had purchased charcoal from a small company that operated in north central PA. This little company was something of a last stand from the days when north central Pa was the heart of what was once known as the wood chemicals industry.
These plants charred wood in cylinder retorts. They collected the various chemicals that came off as stack vapors. The charcoal was sold off as a cheap by-product of the wood distillation process. Roughly 80% of the wood going into the cylinder charge was maple. A few other woods were acceptable in making up the other 20%. By 1972 this wood charring plant was overdue for a complete rebuilding. The owner simply shut it down. So Gearhart-Owen (GO) had to quickly find another supplier. That turned out to be a company in Ohio with a charring operation in West VA.
Then at the same time.
Big change in the sources of potassium nitrate in the U.S. In 1968 a plant was constructed near Vicksburg, Mississippi to produce potassium nitrate by reacting potassium chloride with nitric acid. This then new process replaced the older process where man-made sodium nitrate was converted to potassium nitrate. The Vicksburg plant was designed to produce fertilizer grades of potassium nitrate. 95% of the world's production of potassium nitrate goes into agricultural as fertilizer for use on plants that are chloride sensitive. The Vicksburg product being so cheaply made that the older process and companies were quickly driven out of business.
So GOEX got stuck with two major changes in raw materials in a very short period of time. And they were stuck in that these were the only sources for these materials at the time and almost had to take whatever they were shipped.
Then Moosic had a water quality problem that at time gave them fits.
The Knox Mine Disaster in 1955 put an end to deep mining in the eastern end of the PA hard coal field. By the 1960's the buildup of acid mine waste water caused seepages to kill off all aquatic life in the streams in that area. So the PA DER went on a kick of sealing off all of these mine waste water seepages. It quickly got to the point where well water in the area became nothing more than diluted mine waste water.
GOEX normally used Moosic municipal water in the powder being processed. But in times of drought they would not be allowed to use the municipal water in the product. They would have to use their on-site well water. Again, diluted mine waste water. Water rich in sulfur loving bacteria. Powder made with on-site well water was not as chemically stable as powder made with Moosic municipal water. This chemical instability in the powder created by the on-site well water shows up in work by the BRL at Aberdeen Proving Ground on intermediate ignitor problems in large-caliber artillery firings. One test in particular showed how the longer the powder had been stored the slower it got as far as burn rates were concerned.
I said it before and I'll say it again. Given what we have now in the form of GOEX, Schuetzen, Swiss and KIK we are in far better shape when it comes to powder quality than we have been since the 1960's.
When it comes to the prices these days you might want to look at insurance costs from the production right through to the sale to the shooters. With the advent of the terrorists the insurance companies really jacked up the cost of liability insurance. New govt. regs made it more expensive from the production through to the final sale.
Tumblernotch
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All I can say is I must have been shooting some of the powder from Elephant's "good" lots and you had some of the bad. It did foul more than GOEX and Swiss, but I had no ignition problems and my accuracy was not affected. It worked in a "pinch" when we couldn't get GOEX. After that we were getting Swiss and when the prices kept climbing and GOEX came back on line, we went back to it. I liked DuPont about as well as all of them, but alas... I still had a can of that put up and shot what was left about a year ago.
