Home Distiller

Years ago I was a student (not a serious one), of the Civil War and gleaned some interesting facts. This is a poem, set to the tune "O'Christmas Tree, O'Christmas Tree", about the shortage of potassium nitrate or salt peter, in the South to make enough gunpowder and how to remedy the shortage. They also called it "niter" it was the crystal formation left when liquid dissolved. The hero of this "ode" is John Harrelson who came upon an idea to overcome this hinderance....perhaps a long lost brother of John Barleycorn, another famous "John" guy.......


From the Confederates: “An appeal to Jonathan Harrelson”

John Harrelson, John Harrelson, you are a wretched creature,
You’ve added to this war a new and awful feature,
You’d have us think while every man is bound to be a fighter,
The ladies, bless their pretty dears, should save their pee for nitre,

John Harrelson, John Harrelson, where did you get this notion,
To send your barrel around the town to gather up this lotion,
We thought the girls had work enough in making shirts and kissing,
But you have put the pretty dears to patriotic pissing,

John Harrelson, John Harrelson, do pray invent a neater
And somewhat less immodest mode of making your saltpeter,
For “tis an awful idea, John, gunpowdery and cranky,
That when a lady lifts her skirt, she’s killing off a Yankee.

They say there is a subtle smell
That lingers in the powder;
That when the smoke grows thicker,
And the din of the battle louder
That there is found to this compound
One serious objection;
A soldier can not sniff it
Without having an erection.



From the Union



John Harrelson, John Harrelson, we’ve read in song and story
How a women’s tears through all the years have moistened fields of glory,
But never was it told before, how, ‘mid such scenes of slaughter,
Your Southern beauties dried their tears and went to making water,
No wonder that your boys are brave, who couldn’t be a fighter,
If every time he shot a gun he used his sweethearts nitre ?
And, vice-versa, what could make a Yankee soldier sadder,
Than dodging bullets fired by a pretty woman’s bladder.

Awesome !^^

Yeah, both urine and saltpeter have been valuable and important historically. In ancient Rome urine was collected from public pots. I think Vespasian was the emperor in the 1st century AD that taxed this urine because of its high demand for cleaning laundry.

Later during the industrial revolution and especially in England, urine was collected mostly by children and by the poor as a source of income. It was in high demand by the textile industry for its utility as a dye fixative and mordant, by the leather tanning industry and of course by those wishing to manufacture potassium nitrate.

By the time of the American Civil War most of the Old World's supply of saltpeter - had petered out. There was not enough to go around. (Since Roman times mineral saltpeter has been valued as an important meat preservative). Considering its use in gunpowder, saltpeter became a critical, strategically important material. Several islands in the Pacific were claimed by sailors from the fledgling U.S.A. because of existing guano deposits. Two wars in South America were fought over the control of saltpeter deposits. Brittan blocaded Germany through two world wars - from importing any South American saltpeter with which to manufacture munitions.

The first url to follow discusses the South American wars, The second url (smithsonianmag) talks about urine, but then links to an interesting book describing “Instructions for the Manufacture of Saltpetre”.

https://cactusbush.wordpress.com/2013/0 ... rate-wars/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n ... ne-442390/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

The inhabitants of a city close to where I was born during carnival were called Kruikenzeikers: amphora pissers. They were to bring there urine to the textile factory, except for monday! (The urine was diluted by too much alcohol, then!)

Good reads contra head

I just tried to sing your song. The melody makes it even funnier!
I might try it during a christmasgathering!

hahahah....have fun !!!

I was talking to the owner of the survival store, who is also LEO and the talk turned to

what is your go to gun? he ran off a litany of black semis, then ask me what's yours?

we talked the merits of several, but I interject that they are all sticks sooner or later.

I get the head tilt and "what the" look so I say no ammo, powder, primers. IT's A stick.

and follow up with my .40 flint would be my go to. same look so I tell him that in the scenario

he is contemplating I can pick chert up off the ground to spark my frizzen, steal wheel weights

to cast balls, and I can make powder out of pee. same look only double.

he says "what do you mean make powder out of pee?"

the only answer I had was "you own a survival store shouldn't you be telling me"

Cob, I've never owed a hiss-boomer, but I feel well armed with a T/C Renegade along with 8 lbs of powder about a thousand caps and a few pounds of lead...plus I've read up on making fulminate of mercury should the caps get wet.

There were several compositions used in (#11) percussion caps. One common priming mixture was {fulminate of mercury and gunpowder}, another {potassium chlorate and antimony sulfide} and even another of {fulminate of mercury, potassium chlorate, and sulfur}. Gum mastic was often mixed in and used as the binder to hold these compounds to the inside of the caps as they dried. Mercury fulminate doesn't sound too hard to make, if you can get the ingredients: (mercury, red fuming nitric acid and 90% or better ethyl alcohol). You'd have to make the nitric acid first because you can't buy it in concentrated form. One way to make “aqua fortis” involves distilling quality potassium nitrate with concentrated “oil of vitriol”. Oil of vitrol from an automotive battery (about 30% pure) is no where near adequate to begin with.

Those toy cap pistols that were so common in the 1940's, 50's and 60's used a roll of caps – which were dimples of flash powder sandwiched between two sheets of paper. These were origionally intended and used for a short while as an improved firearm ignition system back in the 1850's or something. I've heard of guys cutting those down to fit inside a spent # 11 percussion cap.

Perhaps these roll caps will even work inside the standard rifle and pistol primers of mainstream ammunition. Yes some people take tweezers and little punches to remove the anvils, pound out the dimples left by the firing pens and then reload or recharge the Boxer primers. The anvils would need to be returned because they are crutial to the primer's function. Perhaps Berdan primed cases would prove to be more usefull. Aside from cap pistol charges another priming mixture is the white phoporous scraped from the tips of strike anywhere kitchen matches. The success rate is not 100%. It is doubtfull however that homemade fulminate of mercury would be any easier to reapply to a primer or be any more dependable. - Firecrackers sold today no longer use black powder; they use “flash powder” which is a mixture of magnesium or aluminum powder and a potassium chlorate or potassium perchlorate oxidizer.

- A good proportinate homemade black powder would contain 6 parts potassium nitrate, 4 parts charcoal and 1 part sulfur.

- A small arms propellant known as “red powder” that I would like to try is made from 20 parts potassium nitrate, 16 parts granulated sugar and 1 part ferric oxide (rust).

I can't remember the name, but there is a cap making punch and die set for sale (or used to be), that used soda or beer cans for the metal cap and folks were loading these with cap gun caps, I think they needed to load two at a time to get the right amount of flash. I believe that using the tops off of strike anywhere matches can be used also. (BTW, that cap roll system was invented around the time of the civil war, It was the Maynard system).I tried to locate one but ended up buying a couple of thousand caps in size 10 and 11 instead. Still have about 1/2 of them left in my range box. Don't shoot much any more. You know your stuff, do you make your own powder also? I never tried that either.

It sounds like "all fun and shi#s and giggles" BUT, fulminating anything is extremely dangerous ! Any chemistry that involves Ammonia and a metal or nitric acid and a metal can produce compounds that can be very unstable. Its one thing to think you could go into a SHTF scenario with the theoretical knowledge to make black powder or percussion caps, but in practice...you would be better off with a homemade bow and arrows than missing fingers or an arm. My Grandfather told me that during the depression anyone who could make "hooch" ever wanted for anything. You want ammo, black powder, percussion caps...hot food, tobacco...anything, we have the know how in this hobby to provide all this and more, by trading for it. Make good booze and barter for the other stuff from someone who knows what they are doing or is willing to risk limbs or life to make the dangerous stuff for us. If you think that there is even a remote possibility that western society could fall on it's face...for any reason, then start putting away a large quantity of cheap sugar wash spirit for barter... just saying...safety first...Kiwi

Let's just hope it never comes to that . I doubt that very few people could actually survive for any amount of time in a crisis scenario. I would bet my money on those already living completely off the land.

corene1 wrote:Let's just hope it never comes to that . I doubt that very few people could actually survive for any amount of time in a crisis scenario. I would bet my money on those already living completely off the land.

Well, I sure as shit wouldn't put much stock in the current button pushing generation...you know, the ones that think a 5$ costco chicken comes from a manufacturing plant and never really had feathers and went "buk,buk,buk"

why, when we were young 'un's they learned us the way of the land. hunter training and survival were part of school where yer marks actually counted!

Mind, this is Canada after all, an whutcha don't know would likely cause ya t die of freezin'.

harumph...did i ever tell you the time paps moved us all out to the forest?? Goddamn forest i tell ya!!! in the middle of the goddamn winter!!! took years to work that cold out.

Years, i tell ya. whazzat? Humph...well. I'm a take a rest...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

It is true that hooch would be a very useful commodity to trade with in a depression style barter exchange system. Ammunition would soon become an even more valuable item of exchange in any scenario where society continued to deteriorate. It is assumed that in a situation where civilization breaks down that existing supplies of firearm ammunition would soon disappear due to squabbles, war and rigors of self defense. There would be no replacement of ammunition except by those knowledgeable or experienced with reloading. Here is where the beauty of primitive black powder firearm simplicity comes into play.

Hunting with a homemade bow and homemade arrows is a fanciful notion. Nowhere near as practical for getting meat as having a black powder rifle would be. Having made “homemade bows” and having hunted for years with both expensive compound bows and fiberglass re-curve bows, leaves me with little doubt as to which of these would be the superior survival tool.

Black powder is hardly “rocket science” since its been around for more than a millennia. Europeans have been making and using the stuff since the 13th century AD. Yeah, powder companies have blown up some of their buildings by accident and Chinese fireworks factories occasionally go out with a bang too. Fulminate of mercury is very sensitive (necessarily so for primers), and fuming nitric acid is extremity dangerous, potentially. But that “safety first” notion only washes so far. Mankind would not have left the safety of rock caves had that been his predominant attitude. Speaking of “rocket science”, we would never have made it to space or to the moon with that attitude. You do know that the Space Shuttles and other rocket boosters literally use hundreds of tons of the explosive - ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP), right? Or that other common solid rocket boosters usually employ the high brisance / high detonation speed plastic explosives known as RDX and HMX ? Please don't scold me for any attempt to make black powder or from exchanging information on such a simple topic that should be fundamental information in any survival manual.

Speaking of survival skills I know this pair of brothers that are now in their mid 70's. They've been “Doomsday Prepping” rednecks for 40 or 50 years now. They've got enough food, supplies and ammunition stashed away to provision a small army for several years. They live in an area so remote that they can't get electricity or phone service and they plant, cultivate and sell 3 or 4 acres of produce every year. They did not expect to get old though. Now neither one can still shoot the $6,500.00, .50cal sniper rifle they bought, for fear of stopping their pacemakers...

My 27 yr old son is far more prepared with survival skills than others of his generation, but even he is not adequately prepared to live off the land. Some of the young and dumb and healthy will live past almost any holocaust scenario but the experience while educational, would not be easy or pleasant.

HDNB wrote:

corene1 wrote:Let's just hope it never comes to that . I doubt that very few people could actually survive for any amount of time in a crisis scenario. I would bet my money on those already living completely off the land.

Well, I sure as shit wouldn't put much stock in the current button pushing generation...you know, the ones that think a 5$ costco chicken comes from a manufacturing plant and never really had feathers and went "buk,buk,buk"

why, when we were young 'un's they learned us the way of the land. hunter training and survival were part of school where yer marks actually counted!

Mind, this is Canada after all, an whutcha don't know would likely cause ya t die of freezin'.

harumph...did i ever tell you the time paps moved us all out to the forest?? Goddamn forest i tell ya!!! in the middle of the goddamn winter!!! took years to work that cold out.

Years, i tell ya. whazzat? Humph...well. I'm a take a rest...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

,I know this is the Liar's bench but this is the god's honest truth. This summer we let the local boy scouts do a 4 day camp out up at the archery range. I was up there shooting and walked over to the practice range where the boys were shooting. A few were doing pretty well so I offered to take them over to the 3D range and let them do some unmarked shooting at the foam animals we have ,and was informed that they were not allowed to shoot animal targets. I was floored. I always thought the boy scouts taught camping and survival in the woods. What a shock.

We should move this topic into an independent post...I think it's way to important to be lost to "The Liar's bench" Please don't mistake my remarks as criticism Contrahead...I'm all for Prepping and started after what happened after Katrina..."When you need the Governments help today, they are only a week or two away!" I'll let you start the new post...I'll be the first on board. I've been kicked out of at least two Prepping forums and a local Christian Prepping group, for my "Radical" views on the subject.

kiwi Bruce wrote:We should move this topic into an independent post...I think it's way to important to be lost to "The Liar's bench" Please don't mistake my remarks as criticism Contrahead...I'm all for Prepping and started after what happened after Katrina..."When you need the Governments help today, they are only a week or two away!" I'll let you start the new post...I'll be the first on board. I've been kicked out of at least two Prepping forums and a local Christian Prepping group, for my "Radical" views on the subject.

Yep and nope . 'The Liar's Bench' has been a clearing house for many off topic venues . This is but another .
By the same token I respect the notion that 'preppin' is a valid and important thread in it's own . I'll participate which ever way the wind blows .
Corene ;
To counter your 'girly-men' Boy Scouts' ; I have 7 grandkids in 3 families . Only one failed to kill several deer this year and he is only 2 years old . 5 girls from 9 to 14 killed 10 deer with bow and rifle . They have also trapped and skinned 8 coons and uncounted possums that were raiding their chicken yard . The fish they caught in the past year don't even have to be lied about .
The 16 year old has another 10 or so deer to his credit via gun and bow . One shot bow kill on a wild boar . 2 20+# catfish on light tackle .
All these kids gonna require a partner that will walk beside them . They will never be satisfied to follow or be followed .
As did those before me , I lived with stoves and coal oil lights and no refrigeration . Horse power for the farm . These kids are learning the same skills even though they don't have to live that rustic presently .

Truckinbutch wrote:

kiwi Bruce wrote:We should move this topic into an independent post...I think it's way to important to be lost to "The Liar's bench" Please don't mistake my remarks as criticism Contrahead...I'm all for Prepping and started after what happened after Katrina..."When you need the Governments help today, they are only a week or two away!" I'll let you start the new post...I'll be the first on board. I've been kicked out of at least two Prepping forums and a local Christian Prepping group, for my "Radical" views on the subject.

Yep and nope . 'The Liar's Bench' has been a clearing house for many off topic venues . This is but another .
By the same token I respect the notion that 'preppin' is a valid and important thread in it's own . I'll participate which ever way the wind blows .
Corene ;
To counter your 'girly-men' Boy Scouts' ; I have 7 grandkids in 3 families . Only one failed to kill several deer this year and he is only 2 years old . 5 girls from 9 to 14 killed 10 deer with bow and rifle . They have also trapped and skinned 8 coons and uncounted possums that were raiding their chicken yard . The fish they caught in the past year don't even have to be lied about .
The 16 year old has another 10 or so deer to his credit via gun and bow . One shot bow kill on a wild boar . 2 20+# catfish on light tackle .
All these kids gonna require a partner that will walk beside them . They will never be satisfied to follow or be followed .
As did those before me , I lived with stoves and coal oil lights and no refrigeration . Horse power for the farm . These kids are learning the same skills even though they don't have to live that rustic presently .

Well it's a darned good thing you are teaching them to provide for themselves. I was shocked when the instructor told me that they can only shoot paper spots in Boy Scouts. Your grand kids are so lucky to be living where they can still get out in the woods and do some hunting. Not much hunting or fishing left around here. Quite a few quail and some chuckar but that is about it. Just curious , what bow are the girls shooting? Compound with sights and release or recuves? Never hunted in the East but I have heard it is close in type hunting from blinds and such since the brush is pretty heavy. I here about folks killing deer at 15 to 20 yards with bow and arrow. Round here if you see a deer it is a walk stalk type of hunt with little cover. Last bow kill I had was a few years back at 40 yards. The chance of even seeing 10 legal bucks in a season here is slim to none and there is a ton of private land that we can't hunt. There are still a few around though.

Bow shot here in brushy conditions is -25 yards . The kids are all shooting compounds . Center fire rifles for the gun kills . Lot of either sex season here . Horns don't make soup . Meat makes soup . Nonetheless , 9 year old granddaughter bagged a 10 point buck with a center fire rifle . She's also the best chicken wrangler and predator trapper .

On this same bent...but things are defiantly not the way they should be, AND THIS IS WHY I PREP !
My next door neighbor, a teacher, has a 15 years old dog that likes to sit outside in the sun each morning, even in the cold. When she comes home from school at noon for lunch, she takes the dog back inside. Someone called the S.P.C.A on her, saying she was being cruel to the animal, by leaving it outside for the morning. They arrived, day before Christmas...IN POLICE UNIFORMS----ARMED, CALLING THEMSELVES OFFICERS ! DEMANDING TO DO A HOUSE INSPECTION. W H F ! The fu@%king SPCA is a private organization. There is no public oversight on a private organization. We can't demand that their "Officers" be held to any public account. AND THEY DON'T SWEAR AN OATH TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION !
So how have we let this happen...I'm not big into "conspiracy theories" but this is just beyond belief. I did a NET search and this is happening all over the States...and the SPCA are not the only private agency that is being given this sort of POLICING power over us !
So what happened next door...she told them politely to piss off and they are getting a warrant and coming back in the new year !

HAPPY FU@%FING NEW YEAR AMERICA ! (I know this is the liar's bench but this is no shi#)

If the SPCA tried that crap here, I have various weapons, lots of lime, but no backhoe. It would be a lot of work, but the satisfaction would be worth it.

The Boy Scouts began in England in 1908 and jumped across the pond to America by 1910. It began as and still is an institution intended primarily for urbanite rather than for countrified youth. Over the last century we have been conditioned perhaps to attribute more outdoorsman skills and merits to the institution than it deserves.

If you thought for example that a Boy Scout could earn a “merit badge” for starting a fire- then you would be wrong. Never has skill in fire making been a requirement for scout advancement. In 1911 the only fire related merit badge was for Firemanship, which focused upon extinguishing fires safely and avoiding panic. Today’s equivalent merit badge for Fire Safety differs slightly by including small requirements like that of igniting a camp stove prudently.

The whole Boy Scout juggernaut sort of took off after a British Army officer (Robert Baden-Powell) published a book that instantly became popular. A few years later the first of thirteen American (BSA) manuals was published in 1911. This manual can be read or downloaded from the Gutenberg project. I believe that Theodore Roosevelt made enthusiastic contributions to this edition. My initial interest was that this volume contained instructions on the construction and operation of both crystal radio and spark gap transmitters (one year before the RMS Titanic sank, and a year before Congress passed the unfortunate “Wireless Act”).

* Modern Scout manuals might have more images and information concerned with outdoor camping than older versions had. Yesteryear’s handbooks were more moralistically toned for building leadership, character and integrity.

Boy's Life magazine was a much anticipated mail delivery at my house .So many interesting things in it to interest a backwoods child . That and Jungle Jim and Tarzan on the snowy black and white TV .
We lived and learned our fantasies in our crude country way . One lesson in life sticks in my mind :
If you live trap a turkey buzzard and put him in a burlap sack ; do NOT leave his head sticking out .
Don't ask what you really don't want an answer to .........

wild animals in tight spots huh?

So one night of my 16th year I managed a date with the town hottie. (another mystery of life, i know.) So we went to see Friday the 13th or Halloween or some shit like that. It was all blood and guts anyway.

Coming home it had been raining cats and dogs and went i pulled in the driveway the ruts were full up of water. To my (hyper stimulated by gore) mind's eye, as the water splashed up from the tires it looked a lot like blood, the light cut through the gumbo water and it looked like murder.

as i idled a couple hundred feet down the lane, light from the headlights illuminated a body laying across the tire tracks after that movie and the blood splashing up from the tires, i damn near shit brick.

Stopped the car and staring wide-eyed out the windshield between wipers slapping across the glass...the adrenaline drained a bit and when my heart slowed down enough i could actually see with my eyes instead of my imagination....the body came into focus as the biggest goddamn beaver you have ever even heard of, never mind set eyes on.

This sombitch's nose was out the right side tire rut and his tail was still overhanging the left rut. Humped up in the middle, the biggest part of his body had to have been 15-16 inches thick.

He wasn't moving and there was no way in hell my car would have made it over him, or around out the ruts...the only choice was to move him. I figgered he had to be dead, we had the biggest meanest bovier des flanders guard dog and he'd kill the shit out of anything that was not supposed to be on the property and few things (like a full grown sow) that were supposed to be there.

So i grabbed myself by the shirt and hauled my chicken shit ass out the car to pull that beaver outta the way, so could park the car. I reached down and grabbed a mittful of tail with both hands and pulled. Several things happened very quickly.

In my right hand a piece of thats beaver's tail ripped right off, it musta been chewed on by that big fuckin bovier.
This caused me lose my balance and slip in the mud, falling backwards and to my right.
At this juncture, that beaver decided to come back from the dead and spun himself back to left, in an attempt to remove my left hand from the left side of the tail.
The beaver's big incisor just grazed my left index right at the base, cutting it to the bone. (i still have a scar there) However, lucky i was still falling and slipping rapidly back and to my right.
The pain from the finger cut registered as i was falling and encouraged me to get fully engaged in a backwards tuck- and- roll through the mud.... followed by a rather hasty and un-harmonious scramble though the bush, hitting the ground finally at a dead run for the house.

I grabbed the .30-30 and sent that big bastard to the beaver house in the sky. So keyed up from the encounter, i shot that thing so many times the hide was ruined (well, what was left after the dog had his fill was more ruined.)

not exactly the piece of tail nor the beaver i had hoped to encounter that night. Like the ol' man always said: "if you ain't in bed by 11, you may as well come home."

true story.

Well , that story beats the hell out of my old man and the next door neighbor catching me parking .
Damn ! Me and the 'prom queen'(actually just a horny little fat gal) was jaybird nekkid on the back seat and I was just up to the hair(them beavers had pelts in my day) when car headlights illuminated us from both directions .
Don't matter how hard you pull on them ; underwear won't stretch down over your head to make a shirt .
It's also a bad move to lock your car doors and talk back to your Daddy if you neglected to roll up the windows . I can tell you that for a fact .

Back to the buzzard in a sack post, my ex's father taught me how to slaughter chickens with no muss or fuss. Take a grain sack, cut one corner off, stuff a chicken inside and when he discovers the hole and sticks his head out, slip a noose made of bailing twine over his neck. Lash the twine to a nail sticking out of a stump, stretch the chicken out by pulling the bag tight and chop....no worries mate. Speaking about chickens........https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Seems that would be pretty slow. We just put two nails in a block of wood and put the neck in, pulled the chicken back with one hand and chopped with the other. Go through a shit load of chickens per hour if you’ve got a couple kids grabbing the chickens and “feeding” you so you can just keep swinging.

That all sounds pretty complicated. My Dad just reached down and wrung their necks and I had to dip them in hot water and do the plucking.

We just hung about a dozen at a time by their feet off the meat pole and walked down the line with a butcher knife cuttin off heads . Messy as hell , but not near as bad as the scalding , plucking , and dressing . We'd kill 80/100 hens on butchering day .
My best memory of it was getting all the gizzards I could eat in several days . Grandma already had the dressed chickens sold to the 'town folk' before butchering day .