Using smokeless to split logs?

[Silvercreek Farmer]

I've used BP substitute to great effect. Pawnshop has some cheap opened powder (2400 among others), would it work?

[Outpost75]

C4 works even better 8-)

[runfiverun]

you have to totally contain it so the expanding gas can't escape until the pressure builds beyond the containers capability to hold it.
think pipe bomb.

[kmrra]

Use Tannerite if you want splinters

[Silvercreek Farmer]

you have to totally contain it so the expanding gas can't escape until the pressure builds beyond the containers capability to hold it.
think pipe bomb.

So no just packing with dry dirt like I do BP substitute?

[rockrat]

No, different burn charateristics

[Pipefitter]

Dixie Gun Works used to sell a black powder log splitter. Think of a wedge with a cavity in the area you would hit with a sledgehammer, fill the cavity with black powder, add a fuse and then set an anvil on top. Light the fuse and run like the dickens.........

[runfiverun]

all you'll get doing that is a poof of smoke.

black burns the same in the open as it does contained.... POOF gone.
it generates lower pressure but it does it all right now and it generates all of it's gas right now too.

smokeless burns and creates gas too [just at different speeds]
if you lay it out in the open in a line it will just lazily burn it's way down the line. [sometimes not even as fast as you can walk]
if you subject it to a confined area pressure and heat will make sure it burns better.

clay's burns similarly to black powder only clean that's why you see loads with it where it's max weight is a start load for everything else.
it's pressure line looks like this [l]

[labdwakin]

Which reminds me of my very first loads for 45 ACP... I didn't know you needed to calibrate digital scales... so I loaded up some 155 grn SWC and off we went... according to JTKnives and his load data app... they were smoking along and somewhere around 1760 fps... I had loaded 7.3 grains of Clays by mistake when the max load was 5.1 or so... when I realized the mistake it made me a LOT more careful... thankfully I was shooting them in a VERY rugged platform so I got away with it.

[RogerDat]

Wouldn't a hydraulic log splitter be easier?

Or a heavy metal wedge that is suspended from an A frame like a swing set. Use a pulley and run a loop of line around the rim or a lawn tractor back wheel with the back end of the lawn tractor up on stands. Then run the loop through the pulley and attached to the heavy metal wedge.

Pushing on the rope with a stick by the wheel causes rope to wind around the rim. Raises the wedge, when the stick is pulled back the loop slips and the wedge drops. The stick is like an idler pulley clutch for winding the loop of line.

This is how they used to pound shallow stab wells. A post pounder hanging from a swing set, driven by a lawn tractor back wheel. Pound an 1.5 inch pipe and well point down 15 foot into the ground so I would guess it can split a log.

Let me know how it works out. On the plus side don't think the FBI will visit if you have a pounder wedge. Might if you start blowing logs up.

[hutch18414]

Wouldn't a hydraulic log splitter be easier?

Or a heavy metal wedge that is suspended from an A frame like a swing set. Use a pulley and run a loop of line around the rim or a lawn tractor back wheel with the back end of the lawn tractor up on stands. Then run the loop through the pulley and attached to the heavy metal wedge.

Pushing on the rope with a stick by the wheel causes rope to wind around the rim. Raises the wedge, when the stick is pulled back the loop slips and the wedge drops. The stick is like an idler pulley clutch for winding the loop of line.

This is how they used to pound shallow stab wells. A post pounder hanging from a swing set, driven by a lawn tractor back wheel. Pound an 1.5 inch pipe and well point down 15 foot into the ground so I would guess it can split a log.

Let me know how it works out. On the plus side don't think the FBI will visit if you have a pounder wedge. Might if you start blowing logs up.

But that sounds absolutely boring compared to the excitement of a little booming log splitting!

[OS OK]

Tanerite will getter done, BP too if you plug your log-bomb just right...there's just one concern you might consider...well two actually.
One is having to pick up all the firewood from being scattered across half a football field...
The other is this...

Man loses leg by shooting lawn mower full of explosives - YouTube (http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrSbgOIdn9YRikAeCxXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEycDB2aXZ rBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDVUkyQzNfMQRzZWMDc3I-/RV=2/RE=1484777225/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fwatch%3fv%3dS6V 0S1m5a7U/RK=0/RS=xuEcbDHm3Ag3YxywkfujCkgoqyk-) ...a chunk of firewood flying at 2K FPS oughta do the same thing...yep, give her a go, just get us a good video to watch too.

When they interview you on the 6:00 News at a hospital bedside...please don't tell them you are a member of our forum here.

[pmer]

So is this for really big logs OR is the phrase "hold my beer" used in the process? LOL

[Blanket]

no smokeless wont work. Black powder wedges are best saved for large diameter trunks so they can be handled. Used right all it does is split the trunk lengthwise in several pieces not launch them

[OS OK]

We learned to never, never do the 'Hold my beer...watch this' thing, while your busy doing something stupid...your buddy is chugging your beer!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

all you'll get doing that is a poof of smoke.

black burns the same in the open as it does contained.... POOF gone.
it generates lower pressure but it does it all right now and it generates all of it's gas right now too.


Not quite. I don't know how long a poof is, but I would guess a tenth to a half second. Most of a black powder charge burns in the barrel, and a bullet which takes a tenth of a second to travel two feet has a terminal velocity of 3.2ft./sec. The burning rate
of black powder is approximately proportional to the pressure upon it, while with smokeless it varies from much more, to much much more. So with black powder confinement counts for quite a bit, while with smokeless confinement (including accidental confinement, such as an oversized or overweight bullet) counts for a lot more.

I think it would probably work if you glued or drove a wooden dowel, pierced for the fuse, into the hole on top of the charge. It is quite a bit of trouble, but a lot cheaper than a hydraulic splitter in pre-rental days. So, I suppose, were those explosive wedges, and much better for a stump you wanted rid of, and couldn't get a hydraulic spliter round the far side of. You wouldn't fill them with powder before driving them in... No, nobody would, you might think, but it might have had something to do with their departure from the market.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Pawnshop has some cheap opened powder (2400 among others), would it work?

What does it take to get a person to part with his reloading supplies? Extreme need, maybe? I would be very wary of using opened cans of powder for anything much besides log-splitting or scientific amusement.

[Blanket]

by the way most splitting wedges hold less than 150 grains of black and will split a 36" x 8' log in at least 1/2. They usually had about a 5/8 bore and were made like a very heavy barrel turned to a taper to be loaded and driven into the end of the log. Some of them had chains attached with a spike on it to be driven into another chunk of wood used to block the wedge against the one to be split.

[KCSO]

No No No Black Powder only!!!

[Tackleberry41]

Wont get the same results w smokeless as you do BP or BP subs. Just doesn't burn the same way and why BP is considered an explosive while smokeless is just a propellant.

[RoyEllis]

C4 works even better 8-)
But not quite as well as RDX or PETN....[smilie=1:

[cold1]

Not for logs but rocks! I looked up the MSDS for these things and they look to be using a double base powder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_FdGuIMH4o