What Would It Measure? Powder Measure

Imagine, you are a man living in the early 1900s. You are going out shooting today, and hopefully you will be able to bring home some fresh meat for your wife to use in various meals. You are all ready to leave, except for one thing. You can’t find your powder measure. Without it, you certainly can’t go shooting. You’ve been searching high and low, and finally you find it in the pipe stand – your wife must have mistaken it when she was cleaning up!

When I showed the children this powder measure, they could not work out what it would have been used for. They quickly realised that the little scoop measured something, and even noticed the little measuring marks on the side, but the exact purpose of the scoop eluded them. When I explained that it would once have been used to measure gun powder, they were intrigued, but they couldn’t understand why you would need to measure anything if you were going shooting.

Black powder, or gunpowder has a remarkably long history. The very first black powder was created in China, but it was not created as a weapon. In fact, ironically, black powder is thought to have been created in the 9^th century when Taoists were trying to make a potion which would bring immortality. By the 14^th century though, they had perfected the explosive potential of gunpowder, and their ‘invention’ was beginning to spread around the world, particularly with Mongol invaders. Yet it wasn’t until the 15^th century that effective weapons which could use gunpowder began to be created, and even after gunpowder had been created and proven to be extremely effective, weapons like swords and arrows continued to be popular. Firearms like guns and cannon began to become more commonly used in the 17^th century.

So what exactly is black powder? Black powder is a mix of three things, potassium nitrate (or saltpetre), sulphur and charcoal and when ignited or set on fire it releases gasses which, under heat, expand and create an explosive force. If the reaction is confined in the barrel of a gun or cannon, the force becomes even stronger and is able to propel ammunition out of the barrel, whether that ammunition is a tiny bullet or an enormous cannon ball. Of course, to propel different sized and weighted projectiles requires different amounts of powder, and this is where a powder measure comes in. Powder measures were, and continue to be, used to measure a specific amount of gun powder for use for a specific type of projectile. The measure I showed the children dates from the early 1900s, but even today, very similar measures can be purchased, often made of plastic.