AMERICAN SMOKELESS POWDER HISTORY

[Alk8944]

The following link will take you to an on-line copy of a Laflin and Rand powder company historical treatise. Several currently manufactured powders were originally introduced by Laflin and Rand and proceeded through several companies to the current Alliant Two of these powders are Unique (1900) and Bullseye (1898) The current version of Bullseye is actually Bullseye #2.

There is a lot of firearms history contained within this article that I thought many off you may be interested in:

https://www.castpics.net/subsite2/GeneralReference/L&R-Smokeless.pdf

This is quite long and you may want to save it to your 'Documents" file for future reference. I had this at one time but lost it to a computer virus, along with hundreds of other documents that were useful.

 

[HKSmith]

Thanks for the very interesting article. I've come across some of that history before and remember the ads for Unique showing that samples over 100 years old stored under water still performed to specifications.

I sometimes shoot my S&W 1899 (shipped December, 1899) and it still performs perfectly with light reloads using modern Bullseye powder and 158 grain lead bullets. It shoots to point of aim at 50 feet, although my 81 year old eyes have a hard time with the sights on this gun.

 

[cadmike]

Fascinating read! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Green Frog]

Outstanding find! I've bookmarked it and plan to print it out when I have plenty of color ink in my printer. This is a treasure!! Thank you very much for posting it.
Green Frog

 

[DWalt]

I have had a copy of it for many years. In the 1960s- early 70s I worked for Hercules and know quite a bit about its history. That was before ATK ownership. Prior to that I was an engineer at the U. S. Naval Propellant Plant at Indian Head MD, now NSWC-Indian Head.

 

[Nemo288]

Yeah, that's a great article.
I've had it for a few years as well.
Very entertaining and shows that using sex in advertising is not exactly a modern development.

 

[243winxb]

Laflin, Rand Powder Company explosion, scattered wreckage - UWDC - UW-Madison Libraries

SUMMARY
A terrific explosion at the plant of the Laflin, Rand Powder Company in Pleasant Prairie completely wrecked the plant and did great damage in all parts of the county. Millions of pounds of dynamite and powder exploded just after 8 P.M. Thursday evening, March 9, 1911. Not only was the plant, covering hundreds of acres, destroyed but the people of the village and surrounding territory found their homes and farms devastated by the shock which followed and was felt more than 500 miles from Kenosha. This photograph was made by the official photographers of the Dupont Company. Here is shown how scattered wreckage covered acres of land surrounding the plant. The force of the explosion picked up the heavy machinery used for powder making and twisted it into useless scrap and hurled it thousands of feet from the seat of the explosion.