Dragon Eggs Compostion = HE?

[Exothermic]

The dragon eggs mix as everyone knows is powerful and in small amounts unconfined this mixture can self-confine and produce a loud report. This is completly diffrent to any other low explosive I have seen and researched, although flash can self confine, the force produced is minimal compared to these mixtures.
The mixture I use is the basic mix off pfp using- bismuth trioxide,black copper oxide,magnalium and Al powder.
This mix becomes considerably weaker when it is made into balls I.e. dragons eggs, as a powder though it is extremely powerful.

Here is a video of 1g of dragon eggs powder deflagerating on the wall.

http://www.apcforum.net/files/Dragoneggs.wmv

I later did another burn test using 4g and the noise produced equalled the sound of one of my loudest salutes. Again that burn test was done unconfined.
What are peoples views on this? Could dragon eggs mix be classed as a primary high explosive?

[Bert]

The mix itself, no. But some intermediate formed during the reaction... Yes.

No one really understands the mechanism of this reaction, it's gone too fast to easily analyze and there's no obvious profit to be made from a better understanding of it to attract the kind of money it would take to analyze such an ephemeral event.

If you make a small crumb of this comp, it heats up, glows, and explodes. If you make a larger pellet, it heats up, some portion of it explodes, then the fragments in turn heat up and explode.

The explosions of the small bits are violent, brissant events with no additional confinement similar to the explosion of small crumbs of a primary explosive. I certainly wish I knew just what's going on here, but after 20 years of the effect being used commercially, no one to my knowledge has definitely shown how it works. There are still discoveries to be made in inorganic chemistry!

[sparkchaser]

By the looks of what goes into the mixture, it seems as though it's just another flash mixture, albeit a slightly more exotic one than your standard Al/oxidizer mix.

Maybe the bismuth trioxide is a bit more dense than your average oxidizer, causing a mix that self contains easier but requires a bit more heat to release it's oxygen? It would explain the use of magnalium in the mix instead of just Al.

I'm thinking it's a good medium ground between KnO3/KnO4 and FeO3 as far as reactivity to heat, effectively combining the best of both worlds. Lower sensitivity/speed than average flash, higher sensitivity/speed than thermite with magnalium in the mix.

I'm wondering what the oxygen balance of the mis is.

[Guerilla]

I attached an old video of Pb3O4/Mg (<100µm, flake) and Pb3O4/Al (German dark) going off. They were 100g both and spread out on the ground in shallow layers (less than 1cm thick), intending to avoid DDT. The aluminium mixture is on the right and, as is seen, was quite intense, would indeed be interesting to know its whole reaction mechanism.

I'm not preparing such batches of lead tetroxide thermites again anytime soon though. In retrospect it was unforgivenly foolish of me to mix and handle such large batches of lead tetroxide thermites under, at times, almost abusive conditions (sometimes death can be only a few mJ's away heh), but well at least this was a testament to the energetic nature of redlead thermites.

http://www.filehigh.com/viewvid.php?f=30816&i=319032

[Bert]

Mixes with low oxidizer percentages that result in Mg vapor being generated and air burned over the flash pot are used in theatrical flash. They produce a good concussion. Did you ever try the red Lead / Aluminum mix by itself?