grounding

[txkeeter]

anybody ground their scales /press when loading BP

[country gent]

I dont ground scales or presses. I do wipe the measure down with anti static sheet at the start, it seems to help the powder measure throw better charges. I do the same when loading smokless also.

[17nut]

It takes way more than you would believe to ignite BP!

http://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_experiments/sparks/sparks.html

[mold maker]

I just had a lightening strike that took out a TV, attic fan, door bell, and 2 exhaust fan switches. That means it was present over a good part of the house, including the cave.
I'd expect lightening that did that much damage would be hot enough to be a concern.
Thankfully nothing else was damaged, although it was only $23. over my deductible.

[bigted]

I just had a lightening strike that took out a TV, attic fan, door bell, and 2 exhaust fan switches. That means it was present over a good part of the house, including the cave.
I'd expect lightening that did that much damage would be hot enough to be a concern.
Thankfully nothing else was damaged, although it was only $23. over my deductible.

now thats my kinda luck ... 23 dollars indeed.

i use the Lyman 1200 metering powder dispenser and no ground rod needed. the plastic in the hopper is pretty non static and i cannot imagine anything going wrong. all the dust and fines i have played with in my loading room as well as the muzzleloaders has never given a hint of static problems. almost all of the new flasks and powder measuring devises are being made outta plastic anymore concerning blackpowder and muzzleloaders. heck even the powder comes in a plastic container anymore. i see no danger here in the least. just a sales gimic as far as i can see. now the static sheets rubbing down generating better metering and finer powder charges makes some sense to me more then the grounding issue.

[Kevin Rohrer]

No, I don't ground any of my reloading equipment and have never had a problem with static electricity.

But I do have a question along the same lines: Is there a problem with leaving BP in my brass powder measure for a long period of time?

[bigted]

[QUOTE=Kevin Rohrer;3759920]No, I don't ground any of my reloading equipment and have never had a problem with static electricity.

But I do have a question along the same lines: Is there a problem with leaving BP in my brass powder measure for a long period of time?[/QUOTE

i know of nothing that would create a problem with the exception of the powder causing erosion if moisture somehow gets in there ... like for instance condensation inside the brass along the side where the powder is laying ... then i would think that some soapy water would clean that up. but why would you leave powder of any kind in the hopper?

[bedbugbilly]

There shouldn't be a problem in leaving it in the brass measure any more than leaving BP in a brass powder flask. I've never had any issue with that in over fifty years - as long as it is kept dry and not subject to changing humidity conditions, etc. A brass flask is probably not as air tight as your measure is if it has a tight fitting cap on the chamber as the valve on a flask head, while fairly tight in tolerance still has the possibility of air getting to the powder if the has a number of years of wear to it. Powder kept in my horns is no different than in the can as the horn is air tight.

If you are not going to use your measure for a long time though, I would think it be best that you empty it back in to the original container, if for nothing more, that the next time you go to use your measure you aren't guessing as to what is in it . . especially if your are using a number of different BP brands/granulations.

[Gunlaker]

I do not think it's necessary to bother, however, grounding the measure, press, or whatever, is not really what you want.

By grounding a measure you can make it more likely that a spark will jump from you to the measure if you have a static charge. The proper way to do it is to ensure that you are at the same potential as the measure by wearing a conducting wrist strap that attaches you to the measure :-). This ensures that you are at the same potential.

But I wouldn't bother with any of that regardless.

Chris.

[Lead Fred]

My reloading room is carpeted. I load everything there, never had a problem

[Bent Ramrod]

I empty out my Ideal No. 5 measure after every BPC loading session. Even so, I find if I don't take the brass rotor out once in a while and wipe it down, it develops some sort of tarnishing or mild corrosion that makes it sticky to operate. It's not very humid out here (generally) but what moisture there is no doubt affects the dust that presumably still coats the inside of the empty measure. So I wouldn't advise leaving powder (any powder) in a measure indefinitely.

The only time I ever heard of static electricity being a problem with black powder was back in the '70s with Canadian Industries, Ltd. safety fuse. Somehow they managed to formulate their black powder in such a way as it acted as a capacitor--the static electricity it developed as the powder ran through the machinery stayed in the powder rather than draining off through the grounding.

Thus, when a length of this fuse was cut off for use, a certain amount of static was stored in the column of powder in the center. When it was capped, placed in the charge and lit, the static electricity would begin to concentrate in the ever-shortening length of powder until it could no longer be contained, and then a spark would jump to the nearest ground, which was the metal in the blasting cap. It would jump out the center of the powder column, across the initiator compound in the cap (and there is no doubt that material is static sensitive) to the metal casing of the cap, and, incidentally, set off the cap, and the charge of explosive.

Since there was still some fuse left to burn, and the time to get out of the area had been calculated from the burn time of a length of fuse, this premature explosion was guaranteed to cause a certain amount of distress among the blasting crew. Nobody in production could figure out how CIL black powder had this property, and no other manufacturer in the world had ever run a batch of fuse powder with this property. So the Government stepped in, and decreed that henceforth, a staple had to be driven through the end of the fuse protruding from the cap, to safely drain off the static spark.

Various lengths of capped safety fuse were sold in the good old days by all the manufacturers, and when we would see one with a staple in the business end, we would say, "Ah--Canadian, I see!"

But, of course, none of this would affect discrete charges in separate metal containers that are designed to fire all at once, like cartridges. If static really was a problem, all these Mountain Man Re-enactors (and the originals, for that matter) that walk around agitating a pound of powder in a non-conductive powder horn before pouring it into a metal barrel would have blown themselves up long ago.