The Mexican gunpowder dilemma

[Jim McDougall]

Fernando, again, thank you for the responsive notes reaffirming the items we have brought up from various references on this topic, which as you have astutely noted, is quite universal. The ancillary notes, digressions, and other looks into related circumstances are relevant, necessary and helpful and not at all distracting as far as I am concerned.
Actually I encourage and welcome all such information, and the links to key subject matter for the perusal of readers and researchers who view these pages are wonderfully placed and appreciated.

Persons who read these threads are following the subject matter from many different angles and perspectives, so all material included finds varying degree of usefulness depending on who is reading it. The 'soaking' jest actually is just acknowledging that this is the case, and 'one size does not always fit all'.
It is therefore, up to the reader.
For me, valuable information I can use later if need be.

Therefore, I thank you for all the great entries, links and well researched detail (NOT soaking but profoundly bolstering thread content). For now it seems we have reached a plateau with a new understanding of this topic,
so until later, when new evidence is found, Elvis may now leave the building.
Uh uh huh.....oh yeah!!!

[yulzari]

It may be instructive to note John Braddock's 'A Memoir on Gunpowder' of 1832 (https://books.google.fr/books?id=6if...6AEwBXoECAgQAQ) in which he reports upon the state of gun powder manuacturing in India for the Honourable East India Company. In this he is most rude about the quality of Bombay powder compared to that made in Allahabd. Reporting it as 'barbarous' and 'their best and highest ranges are only half the distance of the other Indian powders'.

This demonstrates the range of performance that can come from variations in the performance of gunpowder mills and in this case between those of a well funded Company with access to all the materials it could need and the capital to invest in machinery etc. and with the sole purpose of making military quality powders.

If Bombay powder was 'barbarous' in 1832 the Mexican powder was likely to be beyond Mr Braddock's vocabulary to describe it's weakness.

[Jim McDougall]

This is an excellent reference Yulzari! Thank you.

I feared we had expended the viability of our powder here, so I am grateful to see entry continuing. It seems this reference describes the dynamic of 'exposure' being an element of powder losing its potency, in the case mentioned after about 12 days. That would bring the earlier suggestion of keeping the ingredients of the powder kept separate until required, not only for safety, but clearly to ensure freshly mixed powder.

I am puzzled by the term 'barbarous' as describing a 'weak' powder. Such a term would seem more toward a potent, threatening condition rather than 'weak'. I wonder if the connotation (as used here in 1832) would mean rough, rugged or uncivilized in the way 'gothic' meant rude or contrary to refined in architectural parlance. Thus meaning the Bombay powder was rudely mixed and ineffective.

If the Mexicans were indeed getting powder from British sources, just as they obtained their firearms in 1821, perhaps the British were selling them the apparently miserable Bombay powder as opposed to the other more refined powder. This was often the case, obviously, with trade arms and resources and the practice continued well through the 19th c. Mediocre quality locks and complete weapons often brought ill repute to the places that produced them.

As earlier noted, it sounds as if the Mexicans were attempting to secure better quality powder through New Orleans merchants who probably carried the highly regarded Dupont....as revealed in the cargo of the Pelican.

[yulzari]

By 'barbarous' he just meant crude and primitive Jim. Just his way, as a man of his times, of saying that it was of appallingly bad quality. John Company (to use the period vernacular) was not in the business of making powder for public sale but for their own use. Though doubtless some made their way to private use informally. Certainly not in sales to the Mexican government.

What happened was that the Bombay Gunpowder Manufactory was brought up to standard and is better know later as the Kirkee arsenal and a major ordnance depot and manufacturer.

There is no connection between them and Mexico in any way but the reference is a period detailed examination of the varied qualities of gun powder manufacture. Remember British ARW gun powder was so bad the government bought the factories and made them raise their standards until they were the best. There was also no connection between the British Ordnance selling surplus arms to dealers who sold them to Mexico and the Indian government and it's powder production. They were different governments on different continents.

[Jim McDougall]

OK, understood. The term seems oddly used here, but obviously there is often dramatic change in words, terms etc. in 'archaic' context not to mention semantics. Just wanted to confirm.

I had not thought there was any intergovernmental connection in such sale between England and Mexico, but that private concerns were selling such products, much in the way private vendors were supplying arms to EIC.
Most of what I have seen on the sale of the EIC arms in 1821 was apparently due to excesses of weapons after close of Napoleonic campaigns. Most of these were also becoming obsolete. In these cases the ordnance dept. I think was involved. The powder of course would be a different story.

[Jim McDougall]

Yulzari, in rereading again some of the text, while I must apologize for my dismal comprehension of scientific discourse, I am wondering....there seems to be a notable disparity between the black powder for guns, and that for artillery. It seems that 'good' or fine grade powder for guns is different (obviously ) than that for cannon.
Is it possible that with the shortages of powder in these campaign situations that stores of powder designed for one or the other might have become interpolated, leading to the poor resultant powder referred to in Mexican context?

With the case of the Mexican cannon at the Alamo siege, the note that the Mexican cannon (of smaller size already than adequate to bombard fortifications) had virtually no impact due to weak powder charges.
Would this have been from using firearms powder in place of the coarser artillery powder required?

[yulzari]

The risk in using small arms powder in artillery is that the smaller grains cause a more rapid burn which gives a higher pressure and the cannon barrel may fail. If it does hold together (for a while at least) then the cannon ball will be projected faster rather than slower so it does not match the reported behaviour of Mexican artillery.

BTW the powder cannot be transported in it's constituents for mixing when needed. That would give you, at best, very bad firework powder. The incorporation of them needs much time and pressure. To get past transport shaking the constituents parts apart corning was developed generations before this war. The powder being pressed under high pressure into solid cakes which are then broken up and sorted through sieves into solid grains which will not break up if well made. It burns better than the earlier powdery 'meal' as the flash can pass through the interstices between the grains. I will spare you issues about adiabatic heating etc. By this time meal is only made for fireworks, rockets and some blasting purposes. Never for firearms but it would match the observed performances of Mexican powder.

I conclude it was probably made as badly made powder, badly corned, badly packaged, roughly transported and badly stored. Based upon low quality firework powder and deteriorated since making. Soft corning and poor incorporation will result in friable grains which will crumble in transport and be more hygroscopic in storage. I do doubt that even the most venal buyer and military would expect to get away with buying actual meal firework powder.