I was browsing through Wikipedia looking up "cordite" and I found this

WC844 ball propellant is the "nitrocellulose" in question, and I thought we stopped using that powder in our ammo back in the 60's or the 70's and went to a "stick" powder (extruded?)

This whole thing started because I was thinking we had switched to something called Cordite, but that seems to be something archaic, like for the 303 British, etc.

My employer created it and produces it almost exclusively , ironically.

And who is that? PM me the name if you dont want to share publicly.

So the proper name for our current, modern propellant is indeed "nitrocellulose" or are there other names?

Is "Cordite" a proper name for an actual propellant that is still used in modern ammunition such as the 5.56NATO, or is it just for stuff from the 40's?

I thought there were a couple different bases for gunpowder - nitro cellulose which is essentually, I think, cellulose (wood fibers) infused with nitro glycerine, and gun cotton which is cotton infused with nitro glycerine.  Functionally the same thing, I vaugely recall someone advertising their brand of shotgun powder as being cotton based and that it burned cleaner.  Maybe BS marketing, I don't know and I haven't seen that advertised for years.

I remember seeing pictures or videos of old british shells from big guns (naval guns) being packed with cordite - long strands of whatever it is - placed into the casings lengthwise.  kind of cool.


My bad, gun cotton is nitrocellulose and is cotton that has been soaked in nitric acid, this is used in the manufacturing of smokeless propellants.   Could be that wood fiber is also used in lieu of cotton, I don't know.

Apparently, "gun powder" is not a proper name for any of the modern "smokeless" propellants, as it is actually a reference to black powder (Wikipedia said so).

That makes sense to me as well. Modern propellants arent even in powder form. The ones im familiar with anyways

Found this under Wiki on 'smokeless powder'

Currently, propellants using nitrocellulose (detonation velocity 7,300 m/s (23,950 ft/s)) (typically an ether-alcohol colloid of nitrocellulose) as the sole explosive propellant ingredient are described as single-base powder.[18]

Propellants mixtures containing nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin (detonation velocity 7,700 m/s (25,260 ft/s)) as explosive propellant ingredients are known as double-base powder

Found this on Cordite (There are several different varieties of Cordite):

Abel, Sir James Dewar and Dr W Kellner, who was also on the committee, developed and jointly patented (Nos 5,614 and 11,664 in the names of Abel and Dewar) in 1889 a new ballistite-like propellant consisting of 58% nitroglycerine, by weight, 37% guncotton (nitrocellulose) and 5% petroleum jelly. Using acetone as a solvent, it was extruded as spaghetti-like rods initially called "cord powder" or "the Committee's modification of Ballistite", but this was swiftly abbreviated to "Cordite".

Cordite began as a double-base propellant. In the 1930s triple-base was developed by including a substantial proportion of nitroguanidine. Triple-based propellant reduced the disadvantages of double-base propellant - its relatively high temperature and significant flash, by combining two high explosives: nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. Imperial Chemical Industries's (ICI) World War 2 double-base AN formulation also had a much lower temperature, but it lacked the flash reduction properties of N and NQ triple-base propellants.

Don't forget this guy.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitroguanidine

NQ is much more hazardous, and is also not recyclable.
GB Is recyclable.

I just threw away 588 pounds of the stuff for inventory...

But that is hearsay ...

Still not clear if there are any other trade names etc for nitrocellulose.

Go to Hodgdons website and look a the MSDS sheets for the powders.  

Hodgdon MSDS page


The ones I've looked at all list nitrocellulose and the percentage by weight contained in the powder, the IMR powders list nitrocelluloase as 80% - 100% by weight of the powder (these are all single base propellants).  I assume the percentage varies with specific powder (IMR 3031 might be different than IMR 7828 to help establish combustion rates).  The Hi-Skor powders like 700x and 800x are double base and show a fair amount of nitroglycerine in the MSDS sheet.  I don't know if that is what your looking for?  If you have a specific powder in mind you should be able to pull up an MSDS for it.  Hard to say what powder is in commercially loaded milspec 5.56 rounds as it may not be sold to consumers.  Ammo mfgs have access to different powders than handloaders do.

I dont know what it is that I'm looking for either. I guess I was just thinking along the lines of "Cordite" sounds like a catchy brand name, while "nitrocellulose" sounds more representative of how the substance is produced.

Kinda like the difference between "spider" and "arachnid", with nitrocellulose being the more scientific sounding "arachnid".
But thank you for the link to the MSDS sheets. I'll have a look at them.

I don't think you are going to see a trade name for just nitrocellulose.  I suspect that it is a simple enough chemical that it can't be credited to any specific person, or place, so it didn't end up with a catchy "trade name" like Lyddite (named for Lydd Kent).
I suspect that when it came into use, everyone knew it as nitrocellulose, so any catchy name did not stick.  

I think the generic name you are looking for (for "propellants of the type being discussed here) is "smokeless powder".  
Since nitrocellulose is only a part of the smokeless powers sold, the "trade names" apply to each specific formula.  
In other words, the name "trade name" is smokeless powder.  Beyond that, there's double base, single base and triple base.  Then there's the shape, e.g. ball, cord, flake, etc.  Beyond that there's specific Brands, which represent specific formulas.    

Apparently, Cordite got a catchy name due to it being  

Sometimes things get catchy names.  Sometimes they don't.  I'm a chemical engineer, so see this inconsistency in naming chemicals and things all the time.  

E.g. "Bakelite" was Bakelite because it was invented by Leo Bakeland, but is now more commonly called phenol formaldehyde resin or polymer, probably because Bakeland's patent has expired.  

Thank you. So the stuff we're using in our M193 and M855 is "Triple Base" correct?

These names probably have to do with whether or not someone, or some company patented it or not.  
I suspect someone patented Lyddite and Cordite, but not nitrocellulose.  

E.g. the Bayer Co. patented Heroine, which they named after "Hero" thinking it would be a hero of a drug.  
It turned out to be horribly addictive, and more destructive than positive, so they stopped making it and didn't bother to sue people that infringed on their patent.  That name stuck however.  

I don't actually know THAT much about powders.  I keep telling them at work that they should pay me to study that stuff, but I haven't got my wish.  Yet.  

The propellant used in M193 and M855 is a double-base consisting of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin.

Triple-base propellants add nitroguanadine and are almost exclusively for big guns like tank rounds and artillery.