Printable View
My grandson has been after me to load a cartridge for him that produces lots of smoke on firing.
I decided a brass 12 gauge shell with a caseful of FFG topped with a card wad (no projectile) and just enough crimp to hold it together.
Does this sound reasonable or should I try to figure something else?
Sure! And put a little flour in the payload. :-P
Shooting on a real damp day (right after a rain hopefully ) will do the trick or high humidity. Outside of that I have no experience. james
Oh yeah.
Shot shells used to be loaded with holy black.
When smokeless came along, they still had a 'dram equivalent' printed on the box that reffered to BP.
Before the internet came to be-- Nobody could tell you what it meant, but it was there.
If ya want an interesting thing to look up, and are not easily frustrated---- try to figure a 'dram' load for it.
Black powder and confetti.
I'm still from the old School :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Winger Ed.
2 Drams is about 55 grains :D
I was gonna say a 3 dram equivalent load (common) is about 80 grains ----close enough I guess ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lead pot
Try some Vaseline - It smokes pretty strongly.
A full 12 gauge brass shell would be a lot of BP. If it was me I’d use 70-80 grains with some wads over top and see how that worked. Since it’s a blank you could probably up the powder charge some but doubt you’d need a case full to get a healthy BANG and lots of smoke. Instead of crimping the brass shell, a hard card wad can be glued in with hot glue or DUCO cement. At least that’s how I seal my brass BP shotgun shells. Mine are loaded with around 80 grains FFG and equal volume of shot though - I’ve never had a need for blanks.
I've always found soft lube & unique could put up a reasonable smoke screen after a magazine or two.
I get a decent cloud with my home made lube made from Mrs. Wingers old fu-fu candles.
It does have a smell too.
I had one guy at the range ask me if I got my ammo from some place in San Francisco.
That was funny!Quote:
Originally Posted by Winger Ed.
I guess I am just a worry wart, but I would be concerned with cleaning my shotgun after shooting a load.
I was going to use a H&R single shot 12 gauge Ought to clean pretty easy I think at least compared to a pump gun.Quote:
Originally Posted by jednorris
I'd try 80-100 grains of black, with wads and corn meal. A 12-gauge case full of black would be a LOT of powder!
I load what amounts to a 3 dram load in my Grandpa's old single.....an 1890's Shattucks perfection.........and it'l make you wish you'd brought a gas mask on a damp spring morning..............really, you don't need much more than about 80 to do what you want........plus I like the flour suggestion. Cleanup's a breeze with a smoothbore.........just run some soapy water thru the tube and followup with hot to dry quickly.
Incidentally I'll mention that I have had an on and off problem with a garbage can raiding bear and I may have solved my issue with a perimeter alarm rigged on my can using a cut down .12 plastic/80 gr's of 3f topped by two hard card wads & roll crimped............loud as can be and one dose of that late last month and he hasn't been back........
Above flour was mentioned Flour under the acceleration of powder can compress and turn to cement sticking to case and barrel walls causing trouble possibly even damaging a gun .
I had this happen in a heavy seamless pipe (3/4" I.D.) I was trying to make a loud noise with the flour column was probably much higher then would be in any shell but it was not much black powder and the seamless pipe split.