Having some bad allergy problems today, just when I felt like I was completely recovered from the throat cold I had last weekend.

Friday is the big Fiesta Friday, a paid day off for certain employees in the area such as myself.


I'm planning on a long-overdue range day on Friday at Bullethole.  And possibly some strategic browsing at Sportsman's Warehouse.

The picture has nothing to do with anything.

Well, an email anyway, asking an honest question.

The question was:  what does black powder smell like BEFORE it's burned?

Here was my answer:

My first thought was to say it has no smell, because I never noticed one, but I wanted to check and see if I could discern any odor first.  Now I have to say:  it doesn't really have any noticeable odor before it's burned.

After it's burned, the sulfur content makes it smell like burning sulfur, or rotten eggs.

In appearance it's black, of course, and is made up of tiny, coarse grains.  There are generally four different grades.

Fg:  The coarsest, with the largest grains, used for firing cannons.
FFg:  Finer than Fg, generally used for rifles.
FFFg:  Even finer, generally used for pistols.
FFFFg:  The finest grade, used as flash powder for flintlock guns.  Coarser grades could be used, but ignition won't be as fast or certain as with "4F."

The finer the grade, the faster it burns and the easier it ignites.

I might also mention that back when these arms were used in battle, the smoke would fill the air so thickly that it was hard to see what was going on.  They must have also had trouble breathing during these battles, because I've had a cloud of it blow back in my face when target shooting and it made me choke a little.

I hope this helps.

Do any of you other black powder shooters think it has a smell before it burns?  It didn't smell like anything, to me.

Check out today's xkcd.  I think that one of top is what they're building over there at the Loop 410/IH10 intersection.  Right?

From the latest Shooting Wire comes Tom Gresham on "gun free zones":

"I'm disappointed in the gun rights movement," Gresham added, "that we have been willing to not only accept, but to agree with, the concept of these 'target-rich environments' where, we know, only criminals have guns, and where honest people are prohibited from having the means to protect themselves. Imagine someone saying you can't have a fire extinguisher!"

Sorry Tom, but I made my own decision about psycho killer free-for-all zones a long time ago.  You need to talk to Wayne.

UPDATE:  Egads, I made a horrendous spelling error in the title of this post and no one called me on it.  Maybe no one is reading the blog today.

Last night we went to a school function put on by the first graders.  Each kid had to dress up as some famous person and learn a short (30-second) spiel about that person.  They also had to use at least one "prop" as part of their costume.  There were several kids who used a toy gun as a prop, like Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, William Travis, and Annie Oakley.  There was one kid running around before everything got started who I couldn't guess.  My best guess was that he was Elliot Ness.  I was wrong.  He was Al Capone.  That really cracked me up.

My daughter went as Reba McEntire.