Poison darts [Archive] - The Explosives and Weapons Forum

mrloud

August 22nd, 2001, 07:30 AM

Finding a toxic substance is easy enough. The tricky bit is reliably getting it inside a person. If I am not mistaken, commercial darts use a plunger device to inject the chemical. On impact, the inertia of the plunger keeps it moving forward pushing the drug through the needle. A small syringe could be adapted to fly in a stable manner. Itd just need some sort of aerodynamic drag at the back of it like a feather. More weight at the front of the syringe would be needed to keep the point towing the feather along behind it. You'd also need to add some weight to the plunger so that it 'plunged' on impact.
Another idea would be to use a chemical reaction to inject the drug. For example, on impact a small weight shoots forward and breaks a thin piece of glass. This allows two chemicals to mix which react and produce a gass. The gas expands and squirts the drug out the needle. The sort of thin glass I would use would be microscope slide covers. They are thin as a hair and about 2cm square in size.
I think you have many hours of experimentation ahead of you Ericm115.

BaDSeeD

August 22nd, 2001, 01:34 PM

Tranquilizer darts dont use the inertia of the dart to inject the substance into a person or animal. They use a small explosive that detonates on impact to force the plunger forward.

http://www.cap-chur.com/images/explodsyringe.gif

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BaDSeeD
Knowledge is the true power, ignorance will bring your demise.

Jhonbus

August 22nd, 2001, 10:05 PM

A note with tranquilizer darts: Unless you miraculously manage to hit a vein with your dart, the chemical is going to be injected intramuscularly. With most anaesthetics, it will take about 30 minutes until the target is unconscious. Also you are at a much greater risk of killing the victim because you'll need a higher dose than IV dosage, and the curve of concentration in the body will be a lot longer. These things really aren't feasible, that's the reason they only exist in James Bond and computer games.

PS: My IP is banned for some reason so I came in on a proxy to post this, and it takes a long time. Also inconvenient. But I guess it means I'll just post when I have something very pertinent to say.

[This message has been edited by Jhonbus (edited August 22, 2001).]

Agent Blak

August 26th, 2001, 08:28 PM

The Syringe with a weight on the pluger doesn't work doesn't fly fast, far, or accurate enough. that combine with the fact the it doesn't inject ery much if any of the payload. you could try using some silver fulminate(extracted from Whipper-Snaps) or Armstrongs from toy Caps.

BTW- it is good to be back

------------------
A wise man once said:
"...There Will Be No
Stand Off At High Noon
... Shoot'em In The Back
And, Shoot'em In The Dark"

Agent Blak-------OUT!!

zeocrash

October 4th, 2002, 05:05 AM

i was thinking, why not pass on the tranqillizers as incapacitants, and use something like histamine.
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> Histamine is the hormone produced when the body has a minor infiction, it causes body tissue to swell up and allow white blood celd in <hr /></blockquote>it could be very incapacitating to a man if his limbs swelled up.
this could be fatal on head and neck shots though as it would cause the throat to swell up, or would cause swelling of the brain

Gr3yscale

October 4th, 2002, 06:03 AM

I have been interested in blowguns for ages and have made some pretty good darts.

I bought "BLOWGUNS the breath of death" by Michael D. Janich
I would reccomend you dont, its shit.
it didnt really tell me anything I didnt already know.
I will scan it tho if someone wants it badly.

In the book Janich describes darts made from syringes.
they suck hard.

he does however, describe a dart made from a .223 case with a primer, the tail attaches over the primer so that when it strikes a target the tail will hit the primer like a firing pin.
the open end of the cartridge has a hypodermic needle in.

I thought this design was allright, heavy though.

in the poisons section he talks about curare (apparently its used in vetenray medicine) the chapter basically goes on like; bla bla bla bla rat poison, bla bla bla wear gloves, use a cone to insert the dart into the gun (so you dont get poison on the mouthpiece and dont stick yourself with it.

ask me about the darts/blowguns I made if youre interested.

nbk2000

October 4th, 2002, 07:43 AM

Fortunately the "Blowguns: Breath of death" book is on the FTP, so you don't have to scan it.

Unfortunately, many is the time I've bought a book that, from the catalog blurb, sounded really good, only to get it and find it's a piece of shit.

Now though, thanks to the FTP, we don't have to worry about that problem. Someone buys it and, whether it sucks or not, scans it in and posts it for everyone else to get for free. Thus, the publishers of sucky books only get paid for one copy of a P.O.S. book, rather then a couple dozen like they'd otherwise get. :p

Mick

October 4th, 2002, 01:32 PM

the problem with explosive or chemical plunging mechanisms, is if you produce to much gas it may force its way past the plunger and into the victim, possibly causing embolism.(it takes a fair wack of air to cause an embolism, but still not that much)
an idea i had to fix this would be a small wax covered hole where the plunger bottoms out, that way any excess propelant could vented into open air when the plunger reaches the bottom of the tube.

another drug that could be used is GHB. only takes a small dose to send someone into a stupor, doesn't take much to kill someone either - usualy as little as a grams difference.

also, because the dart would more then likly be injecting into fat or muscle you'll have up the dosage ever so slightly, which means if you acctually manage to hit a vein you run the risk of giving them an OD.

would be more effective would be gasing someone. i have NFI about what gases could be used, or how easy they are to create. but i would imagine there would be less chance of fucking it up and OD'ing someone(depending on the gas)

[ October 04, 2002, 12:35 PM: Message edited by: Mick ]

Agent Blak

October 11th, 2002, 10:42 PM

A shot to the neck is not that difficult With a blowpipe, or most other devices. If you have the time to line up your target there is no reason to not be able to take 'em out.

If it is a non-lethal option; you can give them a "local". Immobilize them with a shot to the thigh/shoulder/etc.(think large muscle mass).

imported_reodor_felgen

October 14th, 2002, 02:24 PM

Like Mr Cool said chloral hydrate is a very good choice for a tranquilizer. You may find a very easy procedure at Rhodium’s page ( <a href="http://rhodium.ws/chemistry/chloralhydrate.html" target="_blank">http://rhodium.ws/chemistry/chloralhydrate.html</a> ). Another perhaps easier way to go would be with Chlorobutanol. It involves treating a mixture of acetone and chloroform with a hydroxide such as KOH or NaOH to yield the tranquilizing drug Chlorobutanol (Look here for a nice write-up: <a href="http://rhodium.ws/chemistry/chlorobutanol.txt" target="_blank">http://rhodium.ws/chemistry/chlorobutanol.txt</a> ).

I also found these two write-ups from the book Recreational Drugs by Professor Buzz. I cannot say that I have ever tried the butal chloral hydrate prep nor neither ever heard of it, but it does sound reasonable.

Butal Chloral Hydrate. Acetaldehyde is cooled to about -10ø with a
continuous current of dry chlorine passing through it. When the aldehyde is
saturated, the temperature is slowly raised to 100ø, while still
maintaining a current of chlorine. The product is washed with sulfuric acid
and fractionally distilled. Collect the fraction boiling at 163-165ø, and
redistill. Mix with one ninth of its weight of water, cool to precipitate,
filter, and recrystallize with water. Butyl chloral hydrate is a hypnotic
capable of analgesic effects. Dosage: 300 to 1,200 ma, mp 78ø.

Chloral hydrate:
Dry ethyl alcohol is saturated with dry chlorine, first at room temp
for 24 hours, then at a boil, under reflux, for 24 hours. Take care not to
allow atmospheric moisture into the reaction. Cool to get a crystalline
mass, which is filtered and distilled with concentrated sulfuric acid to
give crude chloral. To make chloral hydrate; you must purify the crude
chloral by fractionally distilling and collecting the fraction, boiling at
97øC.
Treat one molecular portion of chloral with one portion of water
(distilled). Heat will soon develop as pure, large, transparent masses on
cooling in a refrigerator or freezer. These crystal masses are filtered
soon after the reaction was initiated and then recrystallized with the
minimum amount of water (boiling) that it takes to dissolve them. Mp:
57-58ø.

EDIT: Just realised that Butal Chloral Hydrate is the same thing as chlorobutanol. I'll let the procedure stand anyways. I'm in a ruch so I don't have the time to fix it

[ October 14, 2002, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: reodor_felgen ]

Korfaction

October 15th, 2002, 09:49 AM

About the poisons you can use on your darts...
You can try to use some specific poisons, for hypodermic or immobilizing darts (then curare is great), i don't know much about that. Yet in a lethal goal, I would advise you to learn about alkaloïds. Why ? A few years ago, I made searches on poisons on the web and in encyclopediae, and it seems that they are very poisonous in high conc., even with low quantities. They are present in lots of plants (datura, and many I don't know the English name), and methods to extract them are fairly easy to do.
If I remember well you only need to make an extraction in solvents (water, acetone..) in a certain way to get waste of many other chemicals, then you have a small quantity of alkaloids and other products, but with a low quantity you'll get enough to knock out/kill someone. Sorry for my english if you don't understand something or want more infos ask me, this weekend i'll look in my archives to find out all i had learnt about them.

croc

August 27th, 2004, 08:21 AM

A couple of posts which was lost in the iDefence incident.

__________________________________________________ _______________Name: pandos
Join date: Jun 2003
Post date: June 14th, 2004, 10:31 AM
Posts: 11

Greyscale mentioned curare, but curare is a muslce paralyzing agent. It will cause asphyxia and obviously cause death if enough is used...I would not recommend using it on anything that you dont mind killing. I ventured to the Amazon a few years ago on vacation with a group of friends and a group of natives were selling small amounts of purified curare paste. I bought a little, tipped a dart and shot it at a small animal (I do not recall what it was) and the animal died within 20 minutes of being hit.
__________________________________________________ _______________

__________________________________________________ _______________Name: Draken99
Join date: Jun 2004
Posts: 4

Hi,
I'm not absolutely sure if Irecall it correct but I think I read long ago that the injection can be done by overpressure inside the syringe. The needle has to have a special form with the hole not at the tip but somewhere at the side. the opening is kept colsed by a rubber ring that will slide up on impact or better on penetration opening the hole.
The dart is a cylinder with that needle on the front and a little valve on the end. By the valve a little co2 or whatever can be pressed into tne cylinder forming the Overpressure.
I hope you understand what i mean :confused:

Greets
Draken
__________________________________________________ _______________

meselfs

August 28th, 2004, 10:14 PM

I did a few experiments with just the IV needle and plunger methode, the only problem I found was that the amount of liquid you can inject is limited.

There was aboslutely no compromise of accuracy or range, but the other catch was that the gun was 1.5 meters long and 5/8" ID...

AiKiCrow

January 7th, 2007, 07:25 PM

Why reinvent the wheel? It seems to me that tranq darts are cheap, efficient, and effective, check them out.
http://www.wholesalegoods.net/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=WGI&Category_Code=tranqdarts then check out their effects on a real life psychotic human "rhino". http://www.thebrushback.com/Archives/underarmourguy_full.htm

FullMetalJacket

January 9th, 2007, 12:29 PM

My blowgun is a metre of metal pipe, ID of 15mm. Right now it shoots glass-headed pins jabbed through foam earplugs, which I get for free and are a perfect seal and fit. With a decent puff from my lungs, i routinely get about thirty metres out of these.

As for tranquilizers, look into succinylcholine, pancuronium and vencuronium bromide.

If we wanted to get really 'reinventing the wheel' you could try steeping certain frogs in toluene to obtain some batarachotoxin. But that's a little more lethal...

tiac03

January 9th, 2007, 04:37 PM

Mine is just an aluminum arrow with the back cut off and the metal plug in the front pulled out. Connected a plastic cone to the end as a mouth piece.

Types of darts used are cut wire, cut wire with one end hammered flat and then sharpened into an arrow head config, and some 1 inch screws with round heads that I keep as stunners or "get outta my yard" for anything that doesn't need killing. (Screws are loaded head first and threading is where the cotton is wrapped)

I use cotton balls that I just twist around the dart before using it. (back part of dart I make slightly rough so that I can place a cotton ball on it then when I turn the dart it pulls up some of the cotton until it fits the blow gun snugly.)

Upside about using old arrows is that they are already camoflaged.

nbk2000

January 9th, 2007, 04:50 PM

Succinylcholine, pancuronium and vencuronium bromide are NOT tranquilizers, but muscle paralyzers.

FullMetalJacket

January 10th, 2007, 03:15 AM

Sorry, you're right, I used the wrong words there. *cowers*

InfernoMDM

January 11th, 2007, 07:38 AM

I obviously know little about chemistry but I was thinking about a delivery system. I don't have one handy but I am sure there are photos online, and maybe someone has a set sitting around. The US military uses a auto injector system that is powered by a large spring inside the base. It is released when the needle area is depressed. I know that some people have auto injectors for bee related allergies. You could either reverse engineer or modify one possibly to inject whatever substance you want.

Match

January 11th, 2007, 08:38 AM

I know that some people have auto injectors for bee related allergies. You could either reverse engineer or modify one possibly to inject whatever substance you want.

Epinephrine (adrenalin) in whats called a 'EPI-PEN' is what you're referring to. From what I've read it dispenses .3 mg of adrenalin in a 0.3ml solution when you jam it into your quadricep.

To acquire one of these bad boys you need a prescription and a decent amount of cash. They also only have a 1 year shelf life... I figure you'd be able get one off of a buddy for free once they expire.

http://www.epipen.com/

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/60/Epipen.jpg

Identifying patients risk (how doctor's determine if you require a Epi-pen)
http://www.anaphylaxis.com/pro/6_4_2.cfm

InfernoMDM

January 11th, 2007, 04:35 PM

There actually two doses when you do it. I wanted to say it was atropine(sp?) and 2-Pam(SP again maybe?) to knock the epinephrine/atropine out of your system. Not completely sure. I know they carry that on ambulances for people who gotten into certain chemicals.

I come across these regularly in my job, but haven't found the need to have the set around except when I was in the sandbox.

More to the point the smaller injector would probably be more useful. I'll try to get one and play with/post pictures the next time I am around one.

FullMetalJacket

January 11th, 2007, 09:46 PM

...The US military uses a auto injector system that is powered by a large spring inside the base. It is released when the needle area is depressed. I know that some people have auto injectors for bee related allergies...

EpiPens... Now that is an interesting idea!

mike-hunt

December 8th, 2007, 03:11 AM

I have experimented with syringes as darts and found problems weighting the plunger to get them to self inject on impact . An alternative to using blow gun would be a small hand gun style cross bow, haven't used one my self as they are hard to obtain here . I have used following dart design with home made long bow and injected half to ¾ of a 1 ml insulin syringe into a lounge cushion. Dart is a 1 ml insulin syringe with rear finger grips removed - attach in front of right size pen tube with glue plunger moves freely inside pen tube arrow fits inside pen tube held in place temporally by candle wax- the arrow both guides the dart and provides adequate power on impact to inject most of the syringe contents. it takes a little experimentation and arrow may need weighing down more at tip .

I here heroin is a good drug for knocking people out and easily obtainable in most places allough deliverd by this method would take 20 to 30 minutes to fully enter the blood stream. If you relay only want to scare the shit out of some one no poison at all is necessary .

ccw8076

December 9th, 2007, 04:21 PM

Back in the day, I and some friends experimented with how to do this using the otc blow dart guns that you can buy at sporting goods stores etc. We found that it is possible to inject some sort of liquid into a subject using a stationary dart with no moving parts at all.

The principle is that it works like a quill or a fountain pen. You cut a very small groove down the length of the dart for about an inch or so, then you carve a small hole at the top of the groove, as deep as you can make it in something that small. This acts as a well-and-channel system. All you have to do is dip the dart in whatever you want, then gently cover the well and about half of the groove with wax. However, make a TINY hole at the top of the well so that air can come in.

The dart will penetrate the subject and the initial force will cause some of the liquid to enter, and create a vacuum in the well, which will cause the air to rush in the hole you made and push the rest of the liquid out. The whole system works not unlike the suction thing when you clean a fish tank.

Under our tests, it was effective in delivering the liquid into the subject 95% of the time, but capable of delivering the whole load only 60% of the time. Not terribly reliable, but pretty good for otc materials.

Man Down Under

December 9th, 2007, 05:24 PM

Sounds similar to the bifurcated smallpox inoculation needle.

http://www.imageenvision.com/md/0004-0703-0820-2104.jpg

gaussincarnate

December 10th, 2007, 01:15 AM

How about those really, really thin PYREX tubes (<1mm thick, I think). They would be a pain to sharpen, but the benefits should outweigh this. I think that you could immerse them in a solution of whatever you want to fill them with, evaporate the liquid and crystalize the solid, and repeat until the tube is full. If the chemical is soluable enough in water, the majority of it should be injected fairly quickly. The major benefit is that since the toxin is solid, it is not necessary to inject it. It should just dissolve out. The tubes are thin enough that they should get impressive penetration. Between that and the substantially higher doses that you could deliver with solids could make this very effective (plus they are very cheap). Unfortunately, unless you are using a 1mm ID blowgun, you would need to make a sabot for it, though it should not be difficult. I would be much more worried about how to sharpen them, though. They bend so much that it is almost impossible to put any pressure on them and not break them.

Bacon46

December 10th, 2007, 10:09 AM

I have also been experimenting with syringes as darts. I am using 0.5ml syringes. The O.D. just happens to be .22" or 22 caliber. When you grind off the finger tabs on the syringe and cut off back end of the plunger shaft they fire nicely out of a 22 rifle. I use 22 caliber ramset charges as propellant. They are available at most hardware stores.

I haven’t got past stabilizing the flight to make them accurate enough to hit anything. My next attempt at flight stabilization is going to be attaching a piece of kite string to the back end of the syringe and then coil it around the plunger shaft. Hopefully when the syringe exits the barrel the string will uncoil and act like a kite tail to stabilize the flight.

I am using 1 gallon plastic bottle full of water as a target and colored water in the syringe. I keep a video camera focused on the target If I can get the thing to fly straight enough to hit the target I will post the video.

I attach two pieces of stainless steel wire to the plunger shaft to give it enough mass so that kinetic energy drives it home upon impact.

Tinton

December 14th, 2007, 09:21 AM

Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't blood pressure need to be overcome in order for these needles to work?
Maybe one could use DMSO? A vial, or paintball like design that has the knockout drug contained, and when it hits a person it splatters, and the toxins absorb into the skin.

And just a suggestion, phenol kills in seconds when injected into the bloodstream.

ccw8076

December 15th, 2007, 02:31 AM

The advantage of using a dart, instead of a paint ball gun or a rifle or anything else, is it's possibility for stealth. Whereas if you wanted to kill someone with a rifle, then just shoot them.

The Japanese used poison darts effectively by blowing the darts into certain pressure points on the neck or back which would knock the victim out, then after they woke up, they would not know what had happened and would not be aware that poison was in their body. This allowed the use of less deadly toxins with longer incubation periods.

And to answer the question, no you would not have to counteract the blood pressure in order for the dart to work. Mostly the dart will puncture into muscle, and the toxin will be released there. You don't have to hit a blood vessel in order for them to work, depending on the compound used, although that would be ideal.

I heard an interesting story once that a hit was carried out by the unnoticed injection of poison deep into the marks shoulder muscle, where it stayed until the mark got himself a massage and it was released into his blood stream; killing him. I am sure that's impossible, but an interesting premise, no?

Man Down Under

December 15th, 2007, 02:44 AM

Bulgarian exile Vladimir Kostov:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_umbrella/clues.html

gaussincarnate

December 16th, 2007, 02:57 AM

I think that using a bacterial culture would work more efficiently than a chemical toxin. You could just swab the bacteria onto the dart immediately before use, eliminating the need for complicated injection systems. Also, a relatively small amount is required to have the desired effect.

Bacteria could also give you a range of effects, depending on what kind of bacteria you use and in what concentration. You could kill them, just make them really sick, or for all I care, put some of those bacteria that they use now to make insulin into their bloodstream.

I am thinking something along the lines of the premise of Komodo dragons; several species of bacteria in very concentrated amounts, so much so that any treatment severe enough to treat the infection will kill the target. If a bunch of overgrown lizards can do it, you can too.

The best part is that all that is needed to destroy the evidence is bleach. It would kill all of the bacteria (also nice for safety) and then all that would be left to do is burn the culture and you're in the clear. There is no distinctive firing pin marking or grooving like in rifles, just a little piece of spiky wire.

You do not even need to hit a blood vessel. Add something to it to prevent them from feeling the impact (like whatever leaches, etc. use) and they will never notice, since the dart will likely fall out, leaving a small puncture wound with minimal bleeding and no conspicuousness. Use a disease frequently transmitted by biting insects, and you may just have the perfect murder.

ccw8076

December 16th, 2007, 02:33 PM

I don't think that you have ever been shot with a blow dart before. First off, it hurts really bad, and the time for the pain to register in your brain is not long enough for a anesthetic to work. Second, the dart will not fall out, I had to use a pair of needle nose pliers, and some raw hide. And third, yes bacteria cultures work, but they have to be delivered in a certain way. they must be delivered in solution into the body, or else the impact of the dart will eject the specimen onto the skin or the shallower tissues, at which time they will either expire (on the skin) or be destroyed by the antibodies in the blood stream. A specimen must be delivered into the muscle tissue in order for it to be able to incubate enough to release the poisonous by-products and cause death. The two most commonly used in this capacity are: Tetanus and Botulism.