Who Invented Smokeless Powder?

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]What what is smokeless powder? What country was the first?

[00:00:03]>> What country used it first?

[00:00:05]>> And what cartridge?

[00:00:06]>> And in what cartridge? Well, um half of the Civil War by number of battles was fought right here in the Commonwealth of Virginia. So, I have seen occasionally Civil War reenactments.

[00:00:17]Um the gunpowder they were using back then and from the beginning of when there when the first firearms were invented and even before that, when the ancient Chinese were using rockets and warfare, the gunpowder they were using is what we now call black powder.

[00:00:33]Um and that is a roughly 5:1:1 mix of potassium nitrate or saltpeter as it was called in antiquity, uh sulfur, and charcoal, all of which are fairly easy to come by. It wasn't until the 1880s that smokeless powder was developed.