Small, cheap smoke grenades

[Anthony]

I was browsing Screwfix.com and in the Plumbing - Gas Fittings sections, they got some smoke generators which I presume are used to test flues and chimneys for leaks, blockages, etc.

They're pretty cheap and easily available through their website:

10 pack, 9gm, orange smoke, 65 second burn time - £4.49

<img src="http://www.screwfix.com/PICTURES/8158.jpg" alt="" />

10 pack, 3gm, grey smoke, 45 second burn time - £2.39

<img src="http://www.screwfix.com/PICTURES/2692.jpg" alt="" />

50 pack, 9gm, orange, 65 sec - £16.75

[No Pic]

100 pack 3gm, grey, 45 sec - £19.99

<img src="http://www.screwfix.com/PICTURES/8589.jpg" alt="" />

Notice how the 3gm cartridges have what look like tail fins? Might be interesting for firing out of a launcher.

<small>[ April 07, 2002, 09:27 PM: Message edited by: Anthony ]</small>

[green beret]

Do you think they would ship overseas?

That is really cheap though, they would be useful as signal smokes because of their long burn time, also good for filling rooms.....

[RTC]

Anyone know what mixture it is?

[nbk2000]

Fuck the smoke, I see cluster bomblets!

Remove the smoke crap, line with BBs, fill with cast HE, insert impact fuse in point, and dispense with projectors.

[TheBicher]

Unfortionatly, delivery is limited to the UK.

From the checkout page:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Delivery is currently only available to destinations in the UK.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Too bad, they looked good, and cheap!

<small>[ April 08, 2002, 12:50 AM: Message edited by: TheBicher ]</small>

[mongo blongo]

Excellent! I think I will try those orange ones! :) Thanks!!!!

[barney]

So what do you reckon is in it?

[RTC]

If anyone want's to buy some that live's oversea's mail me and we can arrange something, I think i'll be ordering some soon, which do you think though, 10decent size, or a 100 smaller ones? Anyone know the diameter of the smaller ones?

<small>[ April 08, 2002, 02:54 PM: Message edited by: RTC ]</small>

[BoB-]

I bought a pack of these while I was in Florida, I was 14 at the time, I only lit a few off then shoved them in a box in my attic, I just recently found them, and I threw one as hard as I could onto the street. No explosion :) these things are stable and could be stored for years. I dont know what they are, but I like that they are fuseless, much easier to keep lit than the smoke "bombs" you buy at fireworks stands.

The ones I have fit perfectly into a 12 gauge Remington heavy dove shotgun shell.

[Yi]

Those things are quite good, I've only tried the grey though....Use 2 boxes of them and you have a large effective smoke screen.

[DBSP]

In sweden there is a company that sells pyrotechnics, you can buy things similar to the ones in this post but larger. They allso sell it in larger ammounts, 0.5-1kg so that you can decide the ammount yourself. You can allso buy these small ones in hunting stores for getting badger and similar animals out of their dens. My friend and I went to a shoting competition, we got some prices and among them there was a package of five of these smoke things, aproximately 1,2x1,2x5 cm. We havent tried them but I'll see if I can buy one and test it.

[Arkangel]

Mine arrived this morning. I have to say, they're a lot smaller than the pictures give the impression of. Am looking forward to some testing. :D

One potential use would be to pop them into an office building to set the fire alarms off (I'm thinking of doing it so I can take the morning off work), and then take advantage of the confusion to evacuate a few laptops or some other handy things.

[Anthony]

A man with a plan... :)

What's the outer diameter of which ever ones you have?

[Arkangel]

The 9g ones are 18mmx32mm, the 3g ones are 13mmx32mm, with the "fins" accounting for 14mm of length. Quite dinky really, however I can see them being used as part of a bursting smoke grenade - cover the end with a blob of BP paste and then put a bundle of them in a cardboard/rubber case with some BP for bursting. The better CS grenades are like that - a rubber body with a dozen sub cannisters.

Other than that they should be easy to fire out of a 12guage or something - face down, the BP would ignite then as well. Just not sure if they'd cope with the launch stresses.

I also got a load of matches as well. I was quite impressed with the amount of smoke the matches generated, for such a tiny thing.

Distributor in UK is Hayes UK in Billingshurst, but the cartridges are manufactured by Bjornax AB in Sweden. Might be worth seeing if they have any other products.

[Arkangel]

I don't believe it.......

I just went out onto a little side roof of our office building to set one of the little ones off. lit it with a smoke match.

Half way through the burn, with a moderate amount of smoke billowing around, I looked down to the street, and saw 2 fire trucks parked below (probably for a false alarm nearby), and all these fucking firemen looking up at ME!!!!! :D

Couldn't stop laughing, and just waved!

[RTC]

LOL!, you should've said "Oh sorry fireman, should I put my cigar out?"

[Anthony]

I'll have to get some of the larger ones, they sound like a better size for shooting from 12bore zip.

[Arkangel]

The Orange ones are a lot more impressive. I'm sure I asked for a big pot of them, but got grey. They did send me a couple of boxes of orange and they are certainly more striking

[mongo blongo]

I will get some SOON! and post results, these sound fun!!!! :D

[RTC]

:) There's suddenly going to be a huge order for these at ScrewFix Direct.. Wonder what they'll think of it?

[mongo blongo]

orders = money! Who cares? :)
edit- i hope they got some left!

<small>[ April 10, 2002, 10:43 PM: Message edited by: mongo blongo ]</small>

[Arkangel]

Sorry guys,

As soon as Anthony posted the link, I placed a massive order to corner the market - you'll have to deal with me directly now, at VASTLY inflated prices - he he he he!

[Azazel]

lolzor :D :p <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> :cool:

[RTC]

To whomever ever ordered some of these from ScrewFix Direct, how long did it take for you to get the order from the time you ordered it, till the time it was delivered?

If one was to take up NBK's idea of mini bomblet's, what do you think the best method of a delivery system would be?

[Arkangel]

If you place the order before 5pm, they try to get it to you the next day. You can pay more to get it earlier in the day £4 before 12, £6 before 10.

They were REALLY quick.

Personally, I would make a paste with alcohol/BP (or some other easily ignited compound) and put a decent blob on the top of each. Then put them in a plastic or rubber tub with a BP Bursting charge. They SHOULD work like a firework mortar shell. You could then fire the cannister from a spud gun :D

The other thing (I've just checked and the fit is PERFECT) would be to reload a 12 guage cartridge with one of these. You may have to put the blob on again, but these would be great for firing through a window or maybe even a thin door/caravan wall etc

With a pump action you could fill a room with smoke in seconds

<small>[ April 11, 2002, 08:09 PM: Message edited by: Arkangel ]</small>

[VX]

We get plumbers asking for these things all the time where I work, we dont sell them but they are sold at all good plumbers merchants, :) .(They are used for checking flues etc)

[Arkangel]

So what you're saying is that you work at a SHIT plumbers merchants? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

[VX]

No, I work at a DIY store, not a plumbers merchant, but we still get a lot of tradespeople (including plumbers) coming in. :)

[nbk2000]

I'd use a buried pipe projector.

The bomblets would be loaded into a canister of slighly smaller diameter than the pipe.

They'd be in tightly packed layers sitting on top of flashpaper. The flashpaper is to ignite them. There's a central tube running the entire length of the tube that has holes drilled where the flashpaper would be in contact with it.

A BP charge in the nose flashes and ignites the flashpaper. The nose is connected by plastic shear pins and is blown off by the pressure. The flashpaper ignites the bomblets and blows them out of the canister.

If you used the little smoke things as is, launching into a stadium or crowd, you'd have people running for their lives thinking the ragheads were gassing them.

You could remove the smoke comp and replace it with a pyrotechnic tear gas agent instead for even more fun.

For shotgun use, I can see it being clean out and having a liquid tear-gas filler, and being capped with a glass disc. This would work similary to the police "ferret" rounds. Shot it through a wall or window, and the tear gas will be ejected into the room.

Shot in some regular smoke to boot, and you've got a very uncomfortable place to be. :D

[Arkangel]

I had my first chance to really play properly with these this weekend, although had no 12 guage available, so couldn't test them in cartridges.

However, taped 3 to the end of a garden cane with an estes motor on. Lit them before firing, and they produced a GREAT trail of smoke for if you want a way of tracking rockets. Noticed that plumes of smoke continued to come up from wherever they landed in a cornfield and it occurred to me that a 60 second burn time is just too long. So, drilled a core down the middle and filled it with a sodium chlorate/sugar mix - and they burn in like 15 seconds now. I guess with variations on that you could make them behave in pretty much any way you want. Anyway, these are pretty cheap and definitely great fun :D

[mongo blongo]

SHIT!!! I forgot to post my results for these!
I got some of the 9gm orange ones. They were ok but the smoke was kind of dark brown/orange. The GOOD thing was what ever the smoke went, it would stain everything bright orange! Good for practical jokes <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />
I also got some of those smoke matches. Not worth getting, but we play with them in the pub. :D
I think the normal White smoke ones would be the best choice.
EDIT- The matches have a good smoke comp on them though!

<small>[ May 12, 2002, 10:02 PM: Message edited by: mongo blongo ]</small>

[Zzzzeta]

Converting these things to coreburners was a pretty sharp idea. I bummed a smoke flare just now from my next door neighbour (a freelance plumber) and drilled a 5mm core which I filled with loose blackpowder; it jetted smoke at an amazing rate.

I'm going to try building a smallbore spudgun which will fling these things a bit of a distance - it should be fairly simple to ignite a blackpowder plug via the flash of the spudgun's propellant charge.

Zzzz

[Arkangel]

I was really pleased with the results too. It changed this from being a bit of cheap entertainment, to becoming a very credible instant smoke screen generator. :D

What I'm thinking of doing is drilling through from the base, rather than the top. Then I'll fill the core with bp or some other comp, and cap the hole with epoxy. You still light them as normal, but how far through you drill determines the delay before the whole thing goes off.

<small>[ May 13, 2002, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: Arkangel ]</small>

[Zzzzeta]

I performed another coreburning test today, this time with 5mm cores drilled at 90 degrees to each other from the sides and intersecting with the 5mm longitudinal core. I loosely filled each cavity with ballmilled BP and made a tissue paper plug for each side hole, with a wetmixed and hardened BP plug in the base hole. Burntime was about half that of the single cored cartridge, around 7 sec. Overall volume and density of smoke seemed slightly less, probably because I had evacuated a reasonable fraction of the original fuel.

Zzzz

[S. Toppholzer]

<a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='5,700,971'.WKU.&OS=PN/5,700,971&RS=PN/5,700,971" target="_blank">Rapid-rel ease smoke hand grenade</a>

[shrek]

Hey...

Some other smoke generators I looked into a while back can be found here:

<a href="http://www.evhill.com/products/products.htm" target="_blank">Vernon Hill, Inc</a>
They look cool, but the price is a little high for me.

[Arkangel]

Did some more testing on Anthony's grenades today, specifically the small 3g ones. I made a 2.5mm core with my shiney new Dremel (Great bit of kit!), and filled it with a crude sugar/sodium chlorate mix. That worked a treat in igniting all the way through the grain, but because this stuff expands so much when it burns, the core will get blocked if you use too small a drill.

Since I'd prepared quite a few of these, I had a tablespon of the comp, which I tossed on the fire. It went off with a whoomp, and instantly produced a big cloud of smoke. I'm therefore going to grind all of my 3g smokes out to get the comp, then experiment with it loosely packed in a jar/can with a better sugar/sodium chlorate comp down the centre as a primer. :)