niTro
That's the question
French logic aside, I think it is very hard to see any sense in the way powders were letter coded. I don't know whether we are trying to find symbolism to what was otherwise a meaningless choice from the marketing department of some old powder company, at any rate, here are a few further thoughts on the topic. I did find a bunch of books in the Google library and other history sites. All I am trying to do is pull it all together and perhaps add to what everyone else has already posted - even if it just seems like I am pompously repeating all the good stuff.
Starting from the beginning, P for poudre and N for noire is the obvious acronym for black powder. An N just like in nitro. This is going to be confusing. It seems clear however that PN is never used to label any type of nitro powder, though there is such a thing as Explosif N where N is for nitroblahblah and there is also Explosif O, Cheddite, Oooh.
Stepping back in history for a second, we have to realize that in the before-nitro-powder age, there wasn't much fuss about knowing whether we were dealing with black powder or not -- all the stuff was black powder and so, designations were made on a quality basis and it seems the coloring of the powder itself was used as the recognition of quality. For instance reddish powder was made with the 'charbon roux' that was made in cheaper fashion than from the ideal wood at the ideal carbonizing temperature. Designations about grain size were all important too along with storage conditions and expiration dates. Interestingly, the quality powder came from Switzerland and was referred as the Poudre Suisse (PS? What? Nahh), it was also referred as the Poudre de Berne (PB? What now?) Still to this day it seems the French import their fine black powder from the poudrerie d'Aubonne near Geneva.
Simply, black powder was made into just a few categories. There seems to have been the poudre fine for deluxe applications, the poudre de guerre for war effort, the poudre de mine for underground operations, the poudre de traite for open resale to the public and the poudre de tir for shooting everything else.
That was still only black powder: charcoal, sulfur and saltpeter. Mix mix mix, bang. And shopping for some good old Poudre de Tir was on everyone's grocery list.
Then came the nitro age of cellulose dissolved in acid, stabilized in jello, polished, coated and shaped in so many variations. It was also the age of Napoleon and Jules Verne's Capitaine Nemo. Was N in or out?
Lacking in logic again, the first wide spread designation that became useful after fulmicoton, guncotton and cotton-powder was the stabilized Poudre B first produced in 1884 and introduced to the military in 1886. The first of the whole nitro- and trinitro- family. PB and B is for... well... it could be as simple as the second letter of the alphabet, but it is not. It seems there is a whole variety of origins on the designation. Nobel, also in France at the time went for Ballistite for which he got a patent in 1887; the parallel with the letter B seems to be implied in some terminologies - not sure but everyone was rushing around with the newest invention, after A comes B, then C... the British came up with Cordite around 1889. No matter what was up, there was a lot of copycat marketing going on. No doubt.
The other typical explanation is given that the new powder was white in color - blanche for the French, and thus they found the Poudre Blanche PB - now how white was the new powder is left to interpretation, also black powder made blanche smoke, and technical descriptions seem to often discuss the yellowness in relation to quality for those new nitro powders. Yellow would be jaune. (PB? PJ? PB&J? who cares, while the old black powder was used in cooking, the new stuff isn't anymore) I don't find this color coded scheme very conclusive as there had been previous designations of poudre blanche for actually some form of black powder. Furthermore, just as in English the word blank means empty, a 'tir à blanc' is not very impressive when it comes to shooting a raging bull.
The best source for this letter B was that it was named in honor of Général Boulanger who introduced it to the military. General B was immensely popular in France among the general population and among the military. His claim to fame achieved when he crushed the activist Commune government in 1871 - this was an all out warfare against communism and its defeat made Boulanger the beloved leader of the defense ministry. He also brought in much improvements to military life and adapted the uniforms for comfortable practical use along with allowing the wearing of beards, massive beards which were in high fashion then just as they were with most our Civil War heroes. Big moustaches were sexy and so was Général Boulanger; in 1889 he went on to run for office himself and won the conservative ticket by almost a two to one margin. Alas, politics then were much like today and his victory was stomped on by the system : he was forced into exile and communism light returned. The letter B had more traction than the C.
Popular with soldiers Poudre B was the military version while the other nitro powders were variations on the PB Base for the many uses in Ballistics and tunnel Boring. From here on old nitro powder categories were broken down again into the 1) explosives used in the Poudre de Mine, versions Explosif N and O; then the pyroxylated 2) Poudre de Chasse and 3) Poudre de Tir
2) The Poudre de Chasse were variations along the Poudre B made into the various hunting powders, the first one known as PJ Poudre J. Maybe it is simply because it's I before J, or, in a fling of international admiration, the letter J was hunted from the German for Jagd. Nonetheless, PJ was a designation for B powder added with some bichromate. PM powder was that of B powder added with baryte and delivered in a polished state while the PS version was the same but unpolished (or less polished). And lastly in the category of hunting powders there was PT, just the straight nitro ingredient and the appropriate shape structure.
3) The Poudre de Tir and Poudre à Fusil was the same PT as above with the various shaping and rolling processes to give the powder the desired geometry. With the mass commercialization of Poudre T started in 1899, it seems much was made of its new shape, the glittering little cubes. This of course has an effect on pressure building but it had a powerful market appeal. It could have been interesting to think the T was used for Tubular shaped powder, however the tube geometries of Poudre B only came out around 1952 and are known to the French as TUBAL today. There was also the Poudre EF which was again a PB concoction and meant this time for blank shooting and waving the flag of surrender.
What more?
Shape wise this new Poudre T was in the shape of a rhombus and for the non-mathematically inclined geeks the shape is more plainly known as a glitzy diamond shaped trapèze. Could it be T for Trapezoid? True?
Poudre T was a nitro version as were all the other letter designations. T as in niTro? B as in bitro? M as in mitro? J as in njtro? it could all seem plausible, though scratching for more options, T is a closer match to the molecular definitions that usually involve some tri-nitro- something something. T as in Tri, the same etymology as is TNT.
Meanwhile, Nobel and his Ballistite had been edged out by the Poudre B of Vieille for gun use, but in larger canons it was the Ballistite that was making the sales. Nobel had since moved from Paris and established a factory in Olympic Turin of Italy. We'd now have this newfangled Poudre de Turin, I imagine, and a way to catch up on the marketing could have been to invent a Poudre T. I am dwelling deep into the world of industrial espionage it seems.
You think science fiction has nothing to do with all of this? Well, remember, I mentioned Jules Verne who was actively writing the most popular James Bond stories. In the book of 1896 called Facing the Flag Jules Verne introduces a wholly new concept: that of the Dr. Eeeevil and his invention of the "Fulgurator" along with secret lairs around the world and including one in New Bern, North Carolina (???). He wants meeelions of dollars from international governments. Far fetched? Its arch-nemesis and hero, Thomas Roch, who invents a powder more powerful than dynamite was based entirely on the real life of ballistics engineer Eugène Turpin. In 1885, real Turpin had created a version of nitro powder to be used in canons, he then sold the invention to the state in 1887 and was subsequently put in jail presumably to save the government the payments. Much public interest was given in the matter and he ended up clear of every charge - meanwhile his T initialed character made it into fiction and into the courts in a bitter copyrights contest with Jules Verne himself. He lost that one in 1897. Clearly when this new diamond shaped glittering Poudre T was introduced in 1899, pop culture of the time was filled with ideas of this new super fulgurant powder. Put Thomas and Turpin all together in a Model T and you find yourself in a tailspin of twisted marketing suppositions. We know how it works, in the fifties, everything was atomic, by the seventies it was all about space age and today everything is in the i-world and e-commerce.
So...
The T designation in Poudre T might mean all sorts of things. I found nothing definite and my guess is that it was a popular idea and a direct recall to older terms in the then current language referring to powders available in the public sector as Poudre de Traite and Poudre de Tir - why it was not called PC for Poudre de Chasse may have to do that hunters and the less politically correct poachers may have been happy to simply buy cheap and almost tax-free black powder available to farmers for blowing up tree stumps and the occasional wild bugs.
And lastly, not to criticize Foreign logic, it seems it would have made more sense to stamp guns with the PB designation more appropriate to the whole nitro family - but if you ask me, proof stamps follow no logic whatever. The random mystery makes it all that much more interesting.
Surely, I add nothing new to what most here probably know; I probably even add some errors. I do not know which conclusions are actually accurate - perhaps others here will ask around on other boards they participate in.
And now for an epilogue just because I like long winded posts
I have a few books on the history of the DuPont Company which I think is simply fascinating. Old Eleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours 1771-1834 (Ohhh N for Nitro Nemours) came to the US and turned out to be one of those prototypical American stories. Eleuthère and his father fled France and the scary sound of the head chopping communist machine. France was going trough its revolutionary spasms and people were demanded to relinquish their freedom in exchange for uniform equality. Anyone wealthier than his neighbor was efficiently expropriated and anyone taller than his enemy was guillotined; I also guess having a long long name was bad news. And so, instead of the vibrant and creative society of Medieval and Classical France the French Commune took place; the armies of resentful bureaucrats and insatiable state dependants were now validated. The king and his strict standing on the defense of property rights and individual rights and self defense rights all went poof. Families such as the DuPont were disarmed and kicked out of their wealth. A bit later, the same was happening to Général Boulanger who fled to England and Belgium. So much for freedom cries.
It is amazing to consider how far ahead 18th century France was on every other nation, science, culture, economy, population, politics. The latest powder science all came from France and it all blew up almost overnight except for the bits DuPont recreated in the US. By the end of the 19th century it was almost over, knowledge was being sopped up by others and actually the first introduction of nitrocellulose was done by Schönbein, a Swiss, and his explosive kitchen towels. Lavoisier and other giants of science were now long gone as in g-o-n-e. The first nitro tinkering had started already in 1788 with nitro phenol substances, also, bitter tasting picric acid had appeared in 1742. Success was not to remain in French hands. To coincide with the final French revolution of 1968, the last production of Poudre T and others was shut down at the Sevran Livry manufacture, this had been the first ever steam powered powder plant opened in 1870. The place is a ruin to the glory of an environmental preserve since 1982.
It is in the US that the DuPont family found freedom to develop its products and compete with many other international manufacturers. Sadly, what DuPont's experiences has also demonstrated is that our government does not know how to always stay out of the way: there is a long and painful history of back and forth interference between the state and DuPont and it all is a reminder that expecting individuals to re-grow their head once the state chops it off is kind of lame -ahem, the solution: cut it off only halfway? Just like with the terrorist threats, we have to be constantly vigilant over our freedom while the enemy only needs to succeed once. Communists won France over with just chopping each head, starting in 1792. Germany and the rest of all continental Europe as in the Holy Roman Empire fell to the same evil starting 1806. Further to the east, Russia did not either survive its revolutions into the darkness of the 20th century - each of those events came with millions of deaths and waves of immigrants to the US fleeing the misery of central planning economics and, mainly, seeking to regain their lost freedom.
It is no wonder Général Boulanger was such a hero in France at the time he succeeded, Poudre B was a recipe for freedom. Sadly, the long term failure was that while he removed the political head of suicidal socialism, he did nothing to remove its body made into flesh in the mass of bureaucratic regulatory agencies and their hordes of state dependant employees.
The cure is just like with vampires. Stake a pike through the heart and uphold the crucifix of our christian values. The double whammy swipe by President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II made possible the collapse of the Soviet threat and a rebirth of the Twenty-first century. Let's spread that around.
Did I answer anything? I think we all know T is for Tennessee Volunteers. Happy Valentine.
