How do you make smokeless gunpowder?

The smokeless variety:

1.Salt Peter(best) or Urea (don't use potassium nitrate bcz it produces smoke) 60%
2.Sulphur 15%
3.Calcium Carbonate 25%
mix them all and you got smokeless powder,,
just remember mix Potassium Nitrate 80%,Sulphur 20% (not add charcoal) and hit very hard.These mixture make very very fine boom even smokeless,,,,

This is not "Smokeless" powder; it is merely a strange variation of "black powder", which is far from being smokeless.
#1. Saltpeter IS potassium nitrate.
#2. Calcium Carbonate is, basically, chalk and will not burn
#3. The only combustible is the Sulphur, which will make for a very weak propellant that would produce a puff of yellow smoke.


True smokeless powder is made from Nitrocellulose, with the addition of (in the case of "double base" powders) Nitroglycerine. All bases will also have Nitroguanidine, Diphenylimine, Methyl Centralite, Dibutyl Phthalate, Dinitrotoluene, and Lamp Black among other things. It is possible to make your own smokeless powder, but you had better be well grounded in chemistry, and chem lab procedures. It is NOT something that should be attempted by an uneducated and/or drunk/stoned moron; unless they like the idea of having themselves scattered in small pieces across the landscape.

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The 'recipe' at the top has confused true smokeless powder with the manufacture of older 'black' powder, a less-energetic gunpowder used before the invention of 'smokeless' powder. It can be made from Sulphur (Or coal, supposedly), a nitrate chemical (typically Potassium Nitrate, or 'Saltpeter') and Charcoal. The sulphur can be omitted from the mix, but the reaction of the powder tends to be weaker as a result.

The ratios are (roughly):

15 Parts Nitrate (Potassium Nitrate / 'Saltpeter')
2 Parts Sulphur (or coal)
3 Parts Charcoal


Calcium Carbonate is, as was mentioned before, chalk, and has never (to the best of this writer's knowledge) been used in the manufacture of Black Powder or Smokeless Powder.