WC Blank

[HighCountryGuide]

Going through the boxes of stuff from My wife's dad, there's two boxes of a powder labeled WC Blank. He said he got it way back to load blanks for the Amvets and the Legion. Is it useful for anything else? I love to shoot, but blanks don't do anything for me [smilie=1:

[Poygan]

I believe any powder that was designed for blanks will be too fast to use with any boolits. Personally, I wouldn't take the chance.

[HighCountryGuide]

That's what I was afraid of. I'm green as grass when it comes to reloading and won't take a chance with it. I'll tuck it back in the safe until I can find someone who can use it.

Thanks Poygan!

[Ricochet]

WWII pineapple grenades were loaded with E.C. Blankfire.

Norma R-1 (fastest powder on most burning rate tables) was originally a blank powder. It turned out to be useful for light revolver loads (thus the R-1 designation.) Fast pistol powders work for loading rifle blanks. Don't know whether the particular blank powder you have could be safe to work up for loads like you'd use Bullseye for, say. I wouldn't recommend it. On rifle boards I've often seen questions from people wanting to load saluting blanks for military funerals. I'd hunt up one of those guys and see if I could get it to them.

That crazy old guy in Finland that introduced us to the concept of "cat sneeze" loads used blank powder for them, come to think of it.

[jhrosier]

never,never,never,never,never,never,never,never,ne ver,never,never use any blank powder under a projectile.
The gun will blow up.
That powder is a disaster just waiting to happen.
It is also a great source of nitrogen for your garden, spread thin.

If the cans are original, they will have value to a collector.
The powder is not needed or wanted for collecting purposes.

Jack

[HighCountryGuide]

No cans, just two 5# plastic jugs, each in a cardboard box. I'll store it away and maybe someday I'll find someone who wants it.

[smokemjoe]

I once had a large steel cannon 2.5 bore, 3 in. steel walls. To make a huge loud shattering noise I would put in 1/4 pound black powder and 1/4 pound of that blank powder on top with 3 in. of wadding. You could hear it 3 miles away.

[Bert2368]

A couple of observations:

Blank powder HAS been used to load subsonic "cat sneeze" loads. http://guns.connect.fi/gow/arcane1.html Obviously, there will be no one willing to publish data on this. Read the information in the included link and any experiments you choose to make are your own responsibility... This is NOT a beginner project, or in any way something I would advise you to try.

To the gentleman with the cannon: Putting anything but plain old fashioned BP in a saluting cannon is asking for a blown tube with an excellent chance of someone getting seriously hurt or killed. Doesn't have to happen the first time or every time, but the time it does will be very memorable. I do pyrotechnics for a living, and I've seen the results of people using non-recommended explosives in cannons, concussion mortars and blanks. That thick steel is just more shrapnel when you manage to provoke a true detonation of a single or double based propellant, and your duplex load is a candidate to produce one.

[HighCountryGuide]

A couple of observations:

Blank powder HAS been used to load subsonic "cat sneeze" loads. http://guns.connect.fi/gow/arcane1.html Obviously, there will be no one willing to publish data on this. Read the information in the included link and any experiments you choose to make are your own responsibility... This is NOT a beginner project, or in any way something I would advise you to try.


Don't worry, I ain't messing with it. Momma always said the filter kicked in on the gene pool enough without me helping it along [smilie=1:

I'll just keep it stored, waiting to find someone who wants to trade something good for it. It doesn't take up much room or eat much :wink:

[WickedGoodOutdoors]

Back a long time ago when we used to shoot a lot of ducks with lead pellets I would sometime load up a bunch of blank 12 GA with confetti and throw them in my ammo bag. Just mark them with a spot of paint.

Being that my hunting buddies allways seem to conviently run out of shells they would grab a handful of mine as I had the old Texan reloader and made plenty.

So you can see the surprise when they would line up on a duck and BLAM!





http://gammablog.com/gammablablog/im05/02feb/20/confetti-sky64.jpg

It also works well for making phosporous tracer rounds or Bird Bang for 12 Gages. A little goes a long way. try just a few grains to begin with. maybe 8 to 10 grains.


I bet it would be a great propellent to ESTES model rocket engines!

[Bert2368]

I like the confetti rounds... Bet they don't scrounge your ammo without asking anymore!

I have a friend who once made up a number of "rigged" clay birds and snuck them into the stack at his skeet club- First one was loaded with a contact explosive and flash powder, when it blew up upon being shot everyone there put there heads together, and decided that someone must have accidentally chambered a bird scare round. When a few birds later, one full of a small load of flash and FEATHERS blew up, they started to get suspicious... After a couple more with whistles, stars and tourbilions they knew who the joker had to be.

Estes engines are made with commercial black powder from GOEX. The fuel grain must be compressed very solidly with no air voids or porosity or any propellant that had enough "snort" to function as a rocket fuel will likely blow up instead. It would be difficult to accomplish this with the fine hard grains of a smokeless propellant. There are few applications where smokeless is an easily workable substitute for black powder, due to very different pressure exponents, energy & gas productions as well as mechanical behaviors of these two very different classes of propellants.

Did you read that finnish gun writer's description of using 20 grains of the VV blank powder under a dacron wad to propel .30 cal buckshots in gallery rounds? He meant 20 GRAINS, hand counted, not a weight of 20 grains- Actual weight would be something like 1/5 grain! That's a mouse fart load, but in low wind he was claiming good accuracy to 100m. Turn your .30 cal into a big ol' pellet gun...

[Ricochet]

Yeah, a weight of 20 grains would be about a maximum blank load in a .30-06, I'd think. Way dangerous under a bullet.

[corvette8n]

I think you should fill a 7.62x39 case full under a fmj and mail them one at a time to Al-Qaeda.[smilie=1:

[Hardcast416taylor]

Reminds me of what we used to do to Mr. Victor Charlie. Rounds would first be caputured then "re-loaded" with some nasty concoction of explosives. The next patrol would "sow" these high octane rounds where Mr. Victor Charlie was known to be operating to find. Over time we did find what was left of several AK`s and some SKS rifles that had tried to shoot these re-loads, totaly wrecked like a bomb had blown up. :neutral: Robert

[wiljen]

I've heard of rigging mags so 1 round had enough powder to stick the bullet about half way down the bore and the next round was a mix of powder & C4. Supposedly a great way to wreck a rifle and the shooter.

[Bert2368]

You're thinking of Project Eldest Son? http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:http://www.jcs-group.com/military/war1964/project.html

[rsrocket1]

You're thinking of Project Eldest Son? http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:http://www.jcs-group.com/military/war1964/project.html

Oh man, after reading that article, I wonder if any of that Chi-com ammo made its way back to some entrepreneur and a few "choice" rounds are now waiting to be sold to an unsuspecting surplus 7.62x39 buyer.

I don't suppose shooting glasses would help protect your brains from a bolt being launched with 250,000 psi behind it.

[wheezengeezer]

never,never,never,never,never,never,never,never,ne ver,never,never use any blank powder under a projectile.
The gun will blow up.
That powder is a disaster just waiting to happen.
It is also a great source of nitrogen for your garden, spread thin.

If the cans are original, they will have value to a collector.
The powder is not needed or wanted for collecting purposes.

Jack

Not necessarily so.Looking thru data for military ammunition for 30 cal and 50 cal blanks I come up with this.30 cal,M1909,SR4990.M3,IMR4895. 50 cal,M1A1,700X,M1,WC150

[arjacobson]

Reminds me of what we used to do to Mr. Victor Charlie. Rounds would first be caputured then "re-loaded" with some nasty concoction of explosives. The next patrol would "sow" these high octane rounds where Mr. Victor Charlie was known to be operating to find. Over time we did find what was left of several AK`s and some SKS rifles that had tried to shoot these re-loads, totaly wrecked like a bomb had blown up. :neutral: Robert

NICE work!!!

[johnly]

Not necessarily so.Looking thru data for military ammunition for 30 cal and 50 cal blanks I come up with this.30 cal,M1909,SR4990.M3,IMR4895. 50 cal,M1A1,700X,M1,WC150

I've used IMI blank powder in my 9.3x57 Husky shooting a .375" round ball without a problem. Started at 3 gr. and worked up from there.

John

[shotman]

wow who dug this one up?2009 blank powder is near same as accurate no 7 loads the same
saw an old post not to load with a bullet guess black powder is same but different for a ball. OK