Black Powder - Explosive.....

[jim4065]

I got curious about a statement "....can be exploded by impact."

Awhile ago I put a pinch on the anvil and started whacking it with a hammer - no joy. Today I put a bit more on a piece of hard steel (broken shear blade) and beat it again - still no joy.

Electrical sparks and impact both seem to have problems igniting BP - or am I missing something? Has anyone here been able to make it go Bang by impact? Seems like there may be some "disinforming" going on. :roll:

[felix]

What you are missing is the proper frequency to excite the powder. Either heat or vibratory energy via a wave front will set it off. ... felix

[13Echo]

There was an awful lot of black powder fired in cannon shells over the centuries without exploding when the gun fired, and there are an awful lot of duds that hit at considerable velocity without exploding. However if the impact heats the powder sufficiently the powder will explode. Most likely impact can cause explosion by striking a hot spark much like a flintlock. Otherwise I don't think BP is particularly impact sensitive.

Jerry Liles

[4060MAY]

Black Blasting powder will
basis is Potassium Chlorate or Perchlorate

When I was a kid we found (!) a pile of railroad torpedo's
basically made from Potassium Chlorate KCL03 and Sulfer
I tried hitting one with a 20# hammer and the hole is still in the sidewalk at my parent's house, went bang , blew me back with the sledgehammer going over my head, things we learn

[Boz330]

Black Blasting powder will
basis is Potassium Chlorate or Perchlorate

When I was a kid we found (!) a pile of railroad torpedo's
basically made from Potassium Chlorate KCL03 and Sulfer
I tried hitting one with a 20# hammer and the hole is still in the sidewalk at my parent's house, went bang , blew me back with the sledgehammer going over my head, things we learn

WHEEEEWWWW, I'm glad that I'm not the only one that did really dumb stuff when I was a kid. I kept a couple guardian angels on overtime.

We had an incident in one of our hunting camps when I was guiding that is similar. A hunter new to ML hunting loaded 2 complete loads in an inline. He pulled the plug and got the Pyrodex ( I think) pellets out of the 1st load. Then he set the gun on his foot, to save the barrel, inserted a rod and proceeded to try and drive the load out towards the front with a hammer. The pellets between the 2 bullets exploded and the front bullet went through his foot hit the concrete and came back through his foot going the other way. The back bullet exited the breech plug opening which was smaller than the bullet and sprayed his face with shrapnel.
It was 40 miles to the ambulance pick up point and when they looked at him they called stat-flight and dusted him off to Albuquerque. The guy lost a couple toes and his right eye.
His guide wanted to fill the barrel with water and let it sit but the guy wouldn't hear of it with his new gun. Probably wouldn't have worked anyway. Penetrant might have worked though. A ball puller might have worked although I've never had much luck with them. This was before the CO2 jobs were real common.
Bottom line is that I probably won't go beating on any kind of powder to see if it will detonate. I already survived my dumb years.[smilie=b:

Bob

[NickSS]

During the Civil War I read that the interior of Shells were varnished to keep the friction and impact from exploding the shells when they were fired. The Confederates actually made some ammo that would explode on impact (sometimes) and sometime when being fired due to lack of the proper materials for coating the cast iron before inserting the powder.

[hydraulic]

Back in the '60's I worked on the section for the Chicago & Northwestern. We were warned not to try to explode the torpedoes by hitting them with a spike maul, because some guy, somewhere, sometime, had the maul come back and fracture his skull. I don't know if that really happened, but they had me convinced.

[The Double D]

I have made black powder pop with a hammer. Not every hit but occaisonally. Now you wanna make a pop. Smack some 3031--ouch!!

[exblaster]

It is possible to detonate black powder with a hammer if the hammer is moving fast enough. The energy of the hammer when it impacts converts to heat energy witch will ignite the fuel and if the hammer seals the powder well enough it will cause an explosion.


Exblaster

[DLCTEX]

An old fella I knew was infamous in his neighbor hood for blasting the windows out of his house when he shot some old dynamite with a 243 rifle. about 100 yds. from his house. The dynamite had begun to sweat, so he shot it to detonate it. It wouldn't explode until he put it in a metal 5 gal. can and sealed it. He was one of those characters who always managed to pull a good one. DALE

[Scrounger]

Friend I knew years ago in California moved to Colorado. He told me they have "dynamite shoots" there. They take a quarter stick of dynamite, put it in a can or box that's easy to see for a target, and put it out three, four hundred yards. Charge $5 a shot, the guy that sets it off wins all the money. Sounds like something BruceB would like in the Winnemucca shoot.

[longbow]

There are several formulas for black powder using either nitrates (potassium or sodium nitrate) or chlorates (potassium or sodium chlorate). I don't know which are available from commercial suppliers currently but I suspect the nitrate based formulas.

Typically black powder is potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal. To the best of my knowledge this mixture is not impact sensitive in the true sense and does not detonate - it burns. I have seen a can of black powder shot and not explode or even ignite. However, as exblaster points out if there enough energy in the impact - say a large sledge hammer hitting black powder on an anvil - enough heat may be produced to cause ignition.

Potassium chlorate and sulfur will detonate with impact - that is detonate not burn. Black powder made with potassium chlorate, sulfur and charcoal would very likely be impact sensitive.

In Canada black powder is rated as a class A explosive due to the supposition that it is easy to ignite through impact or static electricity and that it burns quickly whether contained or not. Pyrodex and other "replica" black powders are considered propellants because they are harder to ignite.

This is the first time I have heard of Pyrodex being impact sensitive though. Not that I would be inclined to repeat what the fellow in Boz330's story did anyway! Banging or grinding any potentially explosive mixture is not a good thing.

Longbow

[Boz330]

I'm not absolutely sure that the propelant was Pyrodex, but it was a BP substitute. I was not in that camp when it happened and the story was related to me by one of the guides that was there. Very few of our hunters used real BP due the problems of getting it there and or finding it there. Several people have argued that this was impossible, but the fact is, that there is a guy out there minus a right eye and several toes, possible or not.
I don't profess to be a chemist but it might be that in the comprssion of the powder that enough heat was generated to ignite the pellets.

Bob

[4060MAY]

I read somewhere that Pyrodex had a perchlorate base and that is was more corrosive than BP, if the base is correct then it would be pressure sensitive.
IIRC the guy who invented Pyrodex got killed at a plant explosion.

[freedom475]

Poored a spoonful of BP on the wood stove when it was HOT and the BP only hissed,smoked, and burned up without ever flameing.

Friend of mine had a loaded 22-250 stick in the chamber. Couldn't get it out so took it to a smith...he put it in a vice, pulled the bolt, aimed the breech at the open door, and handed my friend a hammer and a steel rod and said "Careful I've seen them go off"....he than left the shop..... about three good wacks and the shell went off.... everything went out the breech... no one worse for wear..... but VERY LOUD and scary.:Fire:

[Boz330]

Poored a spoonful of BP on the wood stove when it was HOT and the BP only hissed,smoked, and burned up without ever flameing.

Friend of mine had a loaded 22-250 stick in the chamber. Couldn't get it out so took it to a smith...he put it in a vice, pulled the bolt, aimed the breech at the open door, and handed my friend a hammer and a steel rod and said "Careful I've seen them go off"....he than left the shop..... about three good wacks and the shell went off.... everything went out the breech... no one worse for wear..... but VERY LOUD and scary.:Fire:

How much did he charge him for that Adrenalin Rush?



Bob