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Bignutsami
June 8th, 2002, 03:17 AM
Its often written that smokeless powder will detonate if its double based (nitrocellulose/nitroglycerine) but ive never seen anyones personal experience with detonating it.

The 'makeshift arsenal' has some pictures at the bottom which compares two, but has anyone else tried it, was it as powerful as expected, was it hard to get complete detonation.

What are the effects of grain shape, is the higher surface area of flake which is important in deflagration worse for detonation as it will have less density?

Or does the higher density of ball powders provide a higher detonation velocity?

Will casting the explosive using a solvent for higher density give more power or does it become less sensitive?

There are so many questions that can be asked, but has anyone attempted to get the answers or have any personal experiences to add?

xoo1246
June 8th, 2002, 04:29 AM
I think you are right in your conclusions. Higher density gives higher Vod. Therefore I would use a solvent. Also, higher density makes it harder to detonate, I remember reading somewhere that it took two #8 caps to detonate smokeless(not casted). Therefore you might have to use a booster. Not sure, if you have access to it you could try it.

ALENGOSVIG1
June 8th, 2002, 05:04 AM
I detonated a small charge of DBSP last year. I poured 15g of DBSP into a .5" pipe, added a bit of acetone, then pressed it. the charge was succesfully detonated by 2g of picric acid.

PYREX
June 8th, 2002, 05:21 AM
Yesterday I made an experiment with various SP's. I used the powder from 9mm Para, .223 Remington and .308 Winchester. The first two can easily be detonated by a hard hammer blow, (not much harder than AP!). So I thougt that it should be possible to detonate them in small cardboard tubes with AP pressed on top.
The 9mm powder was flaked, the .223 Rem balls and the .308 Win had the shape of small tubes.

The cardboard tubes were 28mm long and 5mm in diameter. I filled them half with SP and 10mm AP pressed on top. They were taped on a 1mm Al-plate.

None of the SP's detonated. Not even the DBSP from the pistol catridge which showed to be only a little less sensitive to shock than AP. The AP made a deep dent which stopped exactly at the border line to the SP.

Does anyone know a place on the net (or a book) where the fillings of common catridges are described? I'm thinking of something like distinction SBSP/DBSP, nitrogen content etc.

The reason why I'm experimenting with SP is because I see AN/SP as a potential booster for ANFO for those who can't get hold of nitromethane.

DBSP
June 8th, 2002, 06:58 AM
I once filled a CO2 cartidge with DBSP and filled a 22WM shell with lead styphnate which I used as det. It did go off well but I don't have any idea of how it got started, by by the flame or by the shock.

Madog555
June 8th, 2002, 09:10 AM
i used to experiment very unsucessfuly with SP, i have hercules red dot. i remenber some dude here "The Real" wasnt he a big fan of DBSP?

now, if i wanted to det DBSP i would use 1.5g PETN in a pipe.

Mr Cool
June 9th, 2002, 08:34 AM
PYREX: I've already mentioned a mixture with AN and NC that can be detonated, and probably used as a booster for ANFO. I think it was in the topic about cap sensitive AN mixtures from KIFE.

A-BOMB
June 9th, 2002, 01:13 PM
I love Smokeless powder, I got a couple of gallons of "Herco" right now to experiment with. And I too have made and mentioned AN+NC explosvies. I love Smokeless.

PYREX
June 9th, 2002, 04:25 PM
Could you post some results of your experiments? Did you need to add microshperes in the AN/SP mixtures?

Energy84
June 9th, 2002, 11:56 PM
I believe that double base powders are generally used in shotgun shells. The can of herc that I have says to use only in field load shotgun shells. There is a warning not to use it in magnum shells or rifle loads.
My guess is that the stuff is too powerful in large quantity's (magnum shotshells) or in heavy confinement (rifle shells). If you live in Canada, I believe that powder and primers can be purchased without a liscence. I called up a gunshop and asked specifically about "reloading regulations" and the guy said that you don't need a liscence for any reloading supplys, including all types of powders :)
At $25 for 1lb. it looks like I'm gonna have a very fun summer/canada day! :D

Cricket
June 11th, 2002, 05:49 PM
I have thought a lot about why AP/NC is so much more powerful than straight AP. I used to make loads of AP and just put it in small piles and light it or poke it with a red hot wire. One day I poked a small clump of AP/NC with a red hot bread tie and ouch! I guess it splattered me with small pieces of NC. It must have detonated the AP and left the NC to burn. I think it blew all the NC outwards acting like shrapnel in a way. And maybe the reason it is more powerful in the sense that it will dent a piece of metal more is because NC is much more dense than the surrounding air, giving it more impact. I could be totaly wrong, but this is all I can think of.

CyclonitePyro
June 11th, 2002, 07:07 PM
I used to put "Bullseye" DBSP in film canisters, a length of pen as long as the canister filled with AP putty (made with the same DBSP) would detonate it. It's pretty powerful with a 30% nitroglycerine content.

A_W
June 12th, 2002, 12:07 PM
What's the difference between "Hercules red-dot", and "green-dot"?

Bignutsami
June 18th, 2002, 03:08 AM
From what ive read it seems not very sensitive, although its interesting that a hammer blow will detonate it, perhaps one could make some good exploding targets out of cast smokeless.

Pyrex, Its doughtful that such a place would exist to find powder charge for rounds, as its likely proprietry info and would be different for each different brand, best bet is to go to the brands homepage and try from their with e-mails.

A_W, Red-dot is a faster powder then Green-dot (deflagration), whether this means its velocity of detonation will be higher, i dont know.

Ive been pulling what info I can out of the pic. in 'Makeshift Arsenal', AR2213 is Australian (imported into other countrys as H4831) which is the single based powder, is an extruded tubular powder and quite slow for use in high capacity, small bore rounds, it seemed to produce a partial detonation but certainly not fully. Green-dot is a flake powder, and looks as though it was a complete detonation. I estimate the tubular powder to weigh maybe twice that if the flake if it wasnt compressed (compressing flake without a press is very hard. so unlikely).

In the picture 10g det. cord was used to initiate it, so that means around 1g of PETN was used to det. each charge.

The targets just a piece of CGI, around 1.2mm thick Iron sheet.

Someone with experience, what do you think of the power of the double based charge by looking at the picture? how would it compare to improvised stuff like ANFO,ANNM etc.?

Zambosan
June 18th, 2002, 02:18 PM
Pyrex, there are several books on the topic; my father has a hardbound book of about 400 or so pages listing all the different configurations of center & rim-fire brass, bullet weight, grain size & composition, amount of powder, and the resultant muzzle velocity, and other ballistic data like stability, which will directly translate into precision at the target (not to be confused with accuracy). I think it might be Lyman's Reloading Handbook; I found it in a search on google and it looks similar, although it's the 47th edition and the cover isn't the same as my father's. One interesting fact he found out from all his reloading is that there are inherently stable rounds, like the 22-.250; regardless of the powder charge you use, it's always going to be more stable than many other rounds.

A-BOMB
June 18th, 2002, 02:33 PM
Does anyone know if it is possible to seperate the NG from smokeless to leave just some NC? Well I'm going to try anyway, and does anyone know if "Herco" is SB or DB smokless?

zaibatsu
June 18th, 2002, 04:57 PM
I think I remember someone saying that by using acetone you can dissolve the DBSP, and the NC/NG seperates, leaving two different layers. However, as usual this may be wrong.

Jager
June 18th, 2002, 05:44 PM
NORMA R1 (imported)
Vihtavuori N310
Alliant (Hercules) Bullseye

These are the 3 fastest burning Double Base powders, (Hercules) being the fastest made in the u.s.

<a href="http://www.powerlabs.org/chemlabs/nitrocellulose.htm" target="_blank">http://www.powerlabs.org/chemlabs/nitrocellulose.htm</a>


A-BOMB, all the info on your powder. on the list of the fastest burn rates Herco was 29th.
<a href="http://www.alliantpowder.com/products/MSDS/msds_herco.html" target="_blank">http://www.alliantpowder.com/products/MSDS/msds_herco.html</a>
<a href="http://www.alliantpowder.com/products/herco.php" target="_blank">http://www.alliantpowder.com/products/herco.php</a>

<small>[ June 18, 2002, 09:27 PM: Message edited by: Jager ]</small>

Energy84
June 18th, 2002, 09:47 PM
I've been dissolving DBSP in small amounts of acetone alot lately (basically just saturating the DBSP) and haven't noticed any separation occurring. The only thing to note is that the acetone turns purple, then soaks into the powder. The resultant goo is just a black rubbery substance that is perfectly shapable and dries rock hard. It burns nice (good primer for electric detonators), has a hot flame, but tends to throw sparks.
I still haven't tried to detonate it yet, but probably will when I have some free time this summer.

Madog555
June 18th, 2002, 09:48 PM
i have also herd experiances where small amounts of oil were witnessed floating around when people were makeing AP putty, ect. but the problem here is that NG is also soluble in acetone so you will only get a little is any.

edit- energy, that will be hard to detonate due to high density

<small>[ June 18, 2002, 08:53 PM: Message edited by: Madog555 ]</small>

A-BOMB
June 19th, 2002, 12:23 AM
Well what if I boiled the DBSP? Well I did that anyway and the powder now look a light to darkish tan color and now I have a yellowish water solution, could it be NG? If it is, the powder should burn faster now since the NG is partually removed, I'll see if it burns faster now when it dried.

Microtek
June 19th, 2002, 06:52 AM
I virtually guarantee that NG is cheaper, better, safer and easier to make from scratch, rather than extracting it from smokeless powder; it's just too difficult to separate the two.

A-BOMB
June 19th, 2002, 11:43 AM
Actually microtek, I really just want the NC, but getting the NG would be a added bonus. So I'm going to boil off the water in the yellow solution and I'll see whats left over.

Einstein
July 29th, 2002, 02:50 PM
I think that boiling things like NG/water arenīt healthy...but Iīm not sure if itīs NG, so give it a try (but donīt kill your self :p )

Southern Warrior
July 29th, 2002, 11:55 PM
If I was going attempt to detonate DBSP, I would mix it with a solvent to make it into a putty, and add a small amount of glass micro baloons to aid in sensitvity by creating something similar to air pockets.

Mr Cool
July 30th, 2002, 05:08 PM
KClO3 also does a great job at sensitising NC. Don't just mix it up with a solvent and leave it to dry though, you'll get big voids in it from the solvent evapourating. Crumble it up when it's nearly dry, and press it into a container.

Southern Warrior
July 30th, 2002, 11:33 PM
Hm, it seems as if you've tried the DPSP/KCLO3 metod before. That makes sense to me. What was the ratio of KCLO3/DBSP did you use MrCool?

I'd use a small amount of Picric Acid if I had it.

kingspaz
July 31st, 2002, 08:28 AM
well if thats what you'd use your not thinking straight!
why is nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine washed for weeks with water and bicarb before being used? they are both nitric esters which means they are very sensitive to acid contaminents. acidity catalyses the decomposition of them which can result in spontaneous explosion in storage.
now think, picric acid as the name suggests is acidic! therefore very dangerous to mix with nitric esters such as NC and NG (which together are the main ingredients in DBSP).