Black Powder

This is one of the most widely known and commonly used ingredients in fireworks, with written references dating all the back to 9th century China. The exact formula varies through the centuries and depending on the application but they mostly share the same basic ingredients: potassium nitrate , charcoal, and sulfur.

Standard Black Powder (15:3:2)

When someone mentions "black powder" these days this is usually the ratio they're referring to. Typically the ingredients are finely ball milled together to create what is known as "meal" but other forms are listed below.

Green Mix

When all of these ingredients are combined in the correct ratio, but not finely milled, it’s referred to as “green mix”. This is a crude form that burns less cleanly or efficiently but can be made into a good prime coat material for certain types of stars.

Meal Powder

When finely milled together this composition is usually called “meal” or "meal powder". In this form it’s commonly used as a base in many other compositions and as the starting point for granulated or corned black powder. It can also be used to coat rice hulls for burst charges.

Granulated Black Powder

To granulate black powder you mix meal with a small quantity of binder (usually dextrin, but SGRS works too) between 2%-5%. This mixture is slightly moistened and grated through a screen to form small granules and then dried. This significantly increases the burn rate and efficiency of the powder and is commonly used as “lift” powder (for launching shells into the air) or “burst” charge to explode small shells.

Corned Black Powder

Meal powder is moistened, pressed into dense cakes, dried, and then broken up into small jagged granules. These granules are then screened into different sizes. In this form the burn rate is greatly improved over meal powder and it’s easier to handle (less dust). Similar uses as granulated black powder.

Propellant (6:3:1)

Slower than the common 15:3:2 mix but makes for a more stable rocket propellant.

Senko Hanabi (15:4:6)

This mixture is used to create the "senko hanabi" Japanese-style sparklers. Read more here.