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Updated: May 2, 2025
No gunpowder can be smokeless in which saltpeter or any oxygen-bearing salt having a metallic base is employed, for when the salt gives up its oxygen, the base combines with other elements to produce a sulphate, a carbonate, or other salt, which, being solid, produces smoke.
But, as this would not explode without the addition of some oxygen-bearing element, various oxygen-bearing salts were combined with it, such as nitrate of potassium, nitrate of ammonia, nitrate of baryta, etc. Also a great many of the first smokeless powders were made of low grade gun-cotton combined with nitro-glycerine in varying proportions.
Nevertheless, such is the compound which has come to stay as the basis of all smokeless powders; and any smokeless powder, if a successful one, may be counted upon as being made of this compound of gun-cotton and nitro-glycerine, or of a colloid of gun-cotton, either alone or combined with diluents, oxygen-bearing salts, or inert matter.
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