Extracting Lead Styphnate from .22's with acetone

[tay1392]

Hello everyone, I know I am new here but just hear me out. This is a good idea if you want to try it.

1. First, get yourself a little capfull of acetone.

2. Take the bullet and smokeless powder out of a .22 (or any rimfire shell)

3. Put a few drops of Acetone in the shell (or more depending on your shell)

4. Get a toothpick and stir it all up and pour onto a piece of aluminum foil

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj218/buttsexftw/IMG_0143.jpg

5. Wait for it to dry and use as needed. I dont suggest storing as Lead Styphnate is a very sensitive Primary.

I hope this is a fun thing try for all of you guys. ;)

[Positron]

Yes newbie, this has been done before.

http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?t=386&highlight=lead+styphnate

I appreciate your willingness to contribute, but suggest that you spend some time using the search engine (UTFSE) before posting any "new" information. If you do come to the conclusion that you have new stuff, make sure it goes into the right place...otherwise it will be cluttering things up. This is the nicest forum I've ever seen...and people here are protective of it, for good reason.

[Charles Owlen Picket]

We could discuss the merits of extraction of primary via commercially available primers. This IS an OTC source for material that could not elsewhere be bought with ease. However, it's noteworthy that with the extraction process outlined, the return is not very substantial and (more importantly) the material is very impure.

Primers vary in their composition due to their application to impact received and their embodiment within the cartridge design. Some contain more or less LS and the ratio of tetrazene, lead salts of trinitrophloroglucanol, & hot flame primaries that are trade secret stuff will vary quite a bit. Patents will show the percentages of binder vs. primer; but with some it's pretty high.
What's more the level of powdered glass is pretty high.
I have played with comparisons of shotgun primers and Lg. mag rifle primers and concluded that the former have more material to be pulled.....however that material has more glass in it. What's more, forget color of the material. Some companies specifically color the material for clean-up purposes within the mfg process (so it may be seen clearly, etc).

THAT is why microscopes become a worthy tool. Their uses continue to provide more information than would be first thought possible.

[rangegal]

Would you say its safe to scrape the lead styph. up with a razor blade to load a detonator? Or do I need to do that when its still damp with acetone? I put a few drops of acetone in a .22 shell the other week but I was to scared to stick a toothpick or anything into it. I didn't want to find out what would happen if it went off full of acetone. But since you did it first I guess I'll try it too. I don't have any good primaries right now and anything is better than AP if you ask me.

A single .22 primer is actually sufficient to set off some explosives by its self if initiated properly. After seeing a video of NG being detonated by a shotgun shell primer initiated by thermite I discovered I could detonated the primer by putting a blowtorch on a .22 shell. I then filled the shell with NG behind a log, put the blowtorch on it and ran. I had already timed how long it takes to set off once the flame touches it, and it was at least 4 seconds each time. The shell had sprayed the log in tiny sub millimeter squared peices of brass and there was a dent in the metal barrel I had set the shell on. Upon further inspection I noticed a piece of .22 shell hit the tip of my blowtorch and ripped a tiny piece out of it...

I too am glad I bought a microscope when I started getting into science. Whenever I'm wondering about something new I've found or something I've made I just throw it under the microscope and see what I can learn about it by just observing it, you can't always get the info you want from looking at it, but it always helps make inferences.

[Charles Owlen Picket]

Personally speaking I will never say something is safe to do even if I do it because I don't know what the "touch" of the reader will be like. I once made that mistake and the idiot pushed the limits of the envelope and the material reacted. However know that this lead styphnate has usually some powdered glass and some tetrazene in it making is a bit sensitive.....However while it is whetted with alcohol it SHOULD be able to manipulate with no great concern.....so long as you don't GRIND THE MATERIAL IN THE PROCESS. -=Use Caution=-

[Masonjar Chemist]

If some one were to do extraction from multiple shells at once, wouldn't it be feasible to filter out the powdered glass while the styphnate and tetazene are dissolved? Then to get rid of the tetrazene, just boil the solution in water for a few minutes, and it will decompose.

[Bert]

The priming mix is designed to be sensitive to SHOCK and produce FLAME. You want something that is sensitive to FLAME and produces a strong SHOCK. Even in detonators where it was used, styphnate was mixed into or layered over the primary intended to do the brunt of the work.

[Charles Owlen Picket]

It's important to understand the distinction between the primer in a smokeless powder shell and a detonator, per se'. Bert spoke of the design of the material (LS) as being directed toward the production of flame. Understand that LS is actually not intended to produce the shock impulse that an azide would. You might think that with enough lead styphnate there would be a substantial increase in shock but that is open to conjecture. LS is just not that great of a shock producing material. (There is really no reason to get rid of the tetrazene;, the glass would be a better thing to be rid of...)

It's within the realm of possibility that LS may be a promising base from which to build (chemically) such a composition but as it exists from a primer; the results would not seem too promising. However.....this also depends on the secondary to be initiated. If you were to build an explosive train with NG just behind the LS, your detonation may work quite well.

Discussed before was the idea of a detonator with NG within it, as a "mini-booster" to allow for the use of just such a concept. It would be easy to conceptualize but ideally you would want to separate the dry LS from the liquid NG, etc, etc.

[Yafmot]

You can get a lot more primer mix out of CCI #500 Magnum rifle primers, and it's stupid easy. Over a paper plate, gently and steadily squeeze the primer EDGEWISE with some long nosed pliers. The anvil will fall out, followed by the foil, which you just brush to the side with a toothpick or other small. wooden implement. Then you GENTLY tap the pliers on the plate and the mix will fall out, sometimes in a powder form, sometimes in chunks, and occasionally as a solid pellet.

But you've got to have a touch for these things. It's a very tactile process, and critically so. You only need to deform the cup a little bit. Put the gorilla grip on it, and you're liable to wind up with your thumbnail sticking through your lip, or something.

I once detonated about a half pound of AN/Furfuryl Alcohol with about 15 primers worth of this stuff, so there's definitely some Azide in there, as well as Tetracene. To make sure of that, I talked to a guy at RCBS, a sister company to CCI, and he gave me the whole rundown on it. He also told me anybody would have to be nuts to play with primaries. Pass the Thorazine, please.

[486]

The primer mix in individual primers is shock sensitive, but slow force hasn't set it off in my experience. I was reloading a large batch of .223 and the primer crimps on many of the cases were still in, and it was about every 20th one that had a primer crush in it, some even went in sideways. They spilled out powder [which appears to be the priming compound] but out of around 50 crushed primers none went off.

Just for an example of the sensitivity, also these were non-corrosive primers [not mercuric] and not lead free, so I think they are the same lead styphnate. They were winchester "small rifle" primers, if you want to look up a MSDS on them.