Title: Shooting accident!!
Retrieved: 12/28/2014
Last Post: 01/18/2009
[various rantings deleted]
Last evening I learned of an accident involving a percussion rifle. The rifle was not well maintained and there were issues with the powder being used. The information I have is from the Range Officer who almost lost his life. At a very large youth event they were firing several percussion rifles. The gun involved was loaded, capped and fired (but nothing happened so the adult supposed to be supervising this had it reloaded). It was capped and fired again without a discharge and again fully loaded, capped and fired w/o discharge. Then the gun was carried to the range officer who endeavored to unload it with a CO2 ball discharger but couldn't. He then, (without soaking the barrel to kill the charges) attempted to pull the ball with a brass T handled rod. The screw stripped out of the 3d ball after moving about halfway out of the barrel. He tried again to get the screw to take a bite in the ball which forced the ball back down the bore.
At that point the gun fired discharging the 2d and 3d balls, and the brass rod. Some how the range officer, who was twisting the T handle at the time, escaped uninjured but thorougly shaken and somewhat blackened. The first charge was still in the barrel. To this point there had been quite a few mistakes made in handling misfires and lack of familiarity with safety procedures. The biggest ones being the selection of adult supervisors/range officers without proper training.
When I got to the discussion last evening they were debating what made the middle charge go off. Most were postulating dieseling as the third ball was rammed back down. Why this would effect the second charge didn't make sense to me. So I asked about what powders were involved. That answer was even more startling. The range officer said he didn't know (but he was the one who provided it) as it came from a donor in a 10lb cloth bag and was original black powder. But he didn't think it was any good as there were so many misfires with it and it was so very dirty.
My question is what powder might this have been. Possibly mining powder or military naval gun powder?
Second question is what do you suppose ignited the center charge? My only reasonable conclusion seems to be the physical shock of ramming the 3d charge back down onto the 2d ball. Is this possible? If it had been dieseling (a mostly discredited possiblity) it should have been the 3d charge not the second that fired. Of course the 3d could have ignited first and had enough fire get past the second ball and patch to ignite charge 2.
This event will reoccur later this spring. However, having learned of this accident, supervision will be vastly different. Several NRA and NMLRA range officers have become involved and two blackpowder clubs have a number of knowledgable NMLRA instructors who will be the supervisors on the line with the youngsters. There will not be any powder of unknown origin, and the well worn (abused) rifles will all be replaced with new ones. I was proud of all the guys who stepped forward to make this a first class (safe) event once they learned of the need.
Perhaps we should all make a positive effort to reach out to the organizations in our local areas which might be putting on similar events for youngsters such as the Scouts, 4H and others and let them know we stand ready to assist with properly certified supervision. I know some of these organizations already have standards for such programs, but there is obviously still a lack of sufficient qualified personnel to control the events and we might just be saving someone kid or grandkids from such a dangerous situtation.
Mad Monk
January 15, 2009
Forget the dieseling theory. That started making the rounds after someone misunderstood something I had written.
We know that it was not a slow ignition, or hangfire. That would have ignited the first charge, not the second charge.
The cloth bag powder was most likely old military powder. The cloth bags of black powder that had been used in large-caliber artillery loading ran around 1 pound in weight. But I have no idea as to how many pounds of bp went into the bags used as the intermediate primer in the 16-inch naval guns.
Some military contractors purchased black powder in cloth bags, not trusting plastic bags in cardboard boxes. These contractors have assembly lines where people scoop black powder out of the bags to be measured out for specific purposes. Bag charges used in salute cannons comes to mind.
The most logical explaination is that when the top charge was rammed down onto the other charges there was an impact shock ignition of the powder comprising the second charge in the bore.
Normally black powder is said to be only moderately sensitive to impact shock ignition that is based on a standardized laboratory test. This test is a fairly common one in the chemical industry used to quantify the impact shock ignition sensitivity to a variety of chemicals.
The standard test uses a holder with a 1/4" hole machined in it. A 1/4" diameter plunger goes into this hole. These two items have highly polished surfaces. The critical surfaces are the portion of the plunger that rests on the sample being tested and the bottom of the hole in the holder where the sample being tested rests. Any surface imperfections may act to give false readings. This would be readings at impact energy levels below those with highly polished surfaces.
This sample holder is affixed to a large heavy base to prevent rebounding that would cause multiple impacts with one "hammer" drop.
There are a pair of rails that extend vertically above the specimen holder. A 2 Kg weight rides on these guides. The guides are calibrated for height. When you run this test you have a specified weight of sample in the holder with the plunger resting on the sample. You raise the "hammer" to a specific height and release it. It free falls and strikes the plunger. If there are no ignitions in ten drops you move to a greater height and do 10 more drops. You note the greatest height at which 10 drops give no ignition and continue increasing the height until you have 10 ignitions for 10 drops. This data then goes onto a graph. Most of the time the data forms an "S" curve on the graph.
But the whole test is based on the fact that you have the plunger and the base with a specified amount of surface area that is highly polished.
In this test you have the kinetic energy of the falling weight (hammer) being converted to heat energy where the grains of powder would be in contact with the face of the plunger and the bottom of the hole. Any surface irregularities would concentrate the force in very small areas which would greatly increase the amount of heat generated on the contact points.
There have been several deaths and serious injuries with smokeless cartridge rifles where loaded cartridges were stuck in the chamber. The shooter would take a rod and run it down the bore until it touched the bullet. Then take a mallet and hit the rod to drive the cartridge out of the chamber. The fatal accidents involved full cases of powder where the base of the bullet rested directly onto the grains of smokeless powder. One or two blows was all it took to light the charge in the cartridge from heat generated where a few powder grains were in contact with the base of the bullet.
In the case of a round ball in the bore with heavy blows on a ramrod you have a very small area where this kinetic energy is being converted to heat. If the powder was old and the grains crumbling it would be easier to ignite in this manner compared to a good hard-grain powder.
In the fall hammer test the saving grace with black powder is that the blow from the falling "hammer" ususally crushes the grains which adsorbs, or dampens, the blow. If you were to rapidly drop the hammer several times you could easily get ignition of the powder since each blow would add a bit more heat to the powder in contact with the face of the plunger.
This is one explosive test that gives data not totally applicable to field use. It is used to compare various explosive compositions. The data obtained is at best relative and certainly far from absolute.
Roger Fisher
January 15, 2009
Well now, I for one thank you for that explaination and it makes sense. We can all assume that the fellow that pounded down that 3rd charge and ball was by then 'stronger' than usual due to being quite angry - excited - embarassed! :o
Every club should have the simple slotted steel L bracket mounted on the line to a post, tree or whatever to hook that rod knob on to to pull the ball. We for one no longer allow anyone to pull the ball by hanging on to the rod! The CO2 rig should be tried first then the L bracket!
Candle Snuffer
January 15, 2009
Quote from: Roger Fisher on January 15, 2009, 07:56:00 PM
Every club should have the simple slotted steel L bracket mounted on the
line to a post, tree or whatever to hook that rod knob on to to pull the ball.
We for one no longer allow anyone to pull the ball by hanging on to the rod!
The CO2 rig should be tried first then the L bracket!
I to thank you for the explanation.
I also agree with you as well Roger about having a CO2 rig, and the set up for pulling a ball.
Now for my personal opinion;
I also will add that I will not pull anyone's load if their firearm fails, period! If mine, or my son, or daughter's, or wife's, muzzle loader would fail to fire, and we've exhausted the powder under the nipple or digging out and working some powder through the vent of our flinters,,, and I don't have a CO2 rig available,,, I will pull the ball only after pouring water into the bore, drum, vent area, and waiting for awhile.
I simply will not pull anyother person's ball except those I've said above (if ever came to it) as for the exact reason given in the story that started this thread.
My opinion is simply my opinion, but I will not baby set idiots, though I will certainly point out idiotic moves to those I see performing them and who are endangering everyone else such as loading a loaded firearm over and over because the first charge didn't go off. How stupid is this? I think we all know the answer to that one.
Maybe I'm a hard'a$$ over this, but by god if you're going to own and shoot one of these smokepoles (or any firearm) read the instructions, ask questions, get someone to teach you, but by god learn how to use it and care for it.
Maybe it's my age, but I simply have no tolorance anylonger for idiotic people who seem to think they know it all and in reality know very damn little about what they're doing simply because they don't want to spend the time learning "a" proper way of doing things. This seems to be our society these days...
Sorry for going on so... but it's the idiots that give our sport/hobby a bad name when they bring their stupidity and know it all attitude to our house which just happens to be our shooting ranges and great outdoors. Their ignorance gives all of us a blackeye.
Take the time to learn how to do things the right way. It sure saves a lot of trouble and possible greif...
Mad Monk
January 15, 2009
To quote the original posting.
The range officer said he didn't know (but he was the one who provided it)
as it came from a donor in a 10lb cloth bag and was original black powder.
But he didn't think it was any good as there were so many misfires with it and
it was so very dirty.
Now I keep hearing that black powder will store indefinitely and keep its strength during long periods of storage.
Whenever I would go into my work and writings on how black powder can deteriorate, and sometimes rather rapidly, I am taken to task. By those who have never seen it so therefor it does not happen.
The question here is what sort of a container the cloth bag of powder was stored in.
If you store black powder in a container that allows air in and out with atmospheric pressure changes you will see both physical and chemical changes in the powder. In most cases making it rather dangerous to use in a gun.
As the moisture content of the powder is cycled by moisture pick up and moisture give back to the air in the container that "breathes" there is a migration of potassium nitrate from within the grains. This will be seen as a fine coating of white crystals on the surfaces of the grains. The extent of this has a lot to do with the purity of the potassium nitrate used to make the powder and how high the humidity gets in the area where it is stored.
This migration of potassium nitrate weakens the grains of powder. First at the surface and then working down into the grains. The grains begin to loose their mechanical strength, soften and crumble.
At the same time you can see a loss of sulfur through chemical changes brought about by an increased amount of moisture in the powder. The sulfur forming an oxide which then forms sulfurous acid with the small amounts of moisture present. Initially this chemical change is slowed by the presence of caustic mineral matter from the charcoal ingredient. Potassium carbonate (potash) in the charcoal acting as something of an anti-acid and stabilizer. But once that small amount of potash is used up in the process this acidification change in the powder picks up speed.
The loss of sulfur alone will make the powder increasingly more difficult to ignite. The actual ignition temperature rises as the process goes on.
At times you can see very long hangfires with such powder. Sometimes hang fires in a percussion gun of several minutes.
I know of one where the shooter tried to fire the gun. Did not go off. Tried with another cap without results. Then leaned the rifle up against a tree and started digging through his possibles bag to get a nipple wrench out. While leaning up against the tree the rifle fired.
There had been several such incidents reported.
You really have to wonder why the range officer did not get rid of the powder as soon as he noticed the many misfires and dirty powder. While it may have been cheap, as in free, it mad no sense to use it at a youth event where few would know the ins and outs of dealing with black powder firearms. While his intentions might have been well meaning, using such powder is a serious error in judgement.
Bill D
January 15, 2009
Mad Monk, What would you feel the life expectancy of black powder in original unopened cans is?
Scott Bumpus
January 15, 2009
For what its worth, If the co2 fails a good way to move remove the charge on a percussion gun is with a grease gun. hold it tight over the nipple and pump. i have never had this to fail and always seemed safe enough since i was behind the gun and filling the bore with grease. Clean up with kerosene.
Jerry V Lape
January 16, 2009
Thanks for reminding me about the use of a grease gun. This evening the range officer in the incident sought me out and asked me to help them with the same event coming up in March. I learned that the supervisory person who had the student reload the gun three times was not an adult, but a 16 or 17 year old who had only fired a muzzleloader as part of the same program a year earlier. Apparently there were only 5 or 6 adults for the 30 firing points, the balance were senior students. I think we are going to have a very large meeting of all the range safety personnel long before this thing goes into motion in late March. We have brought in a very experienced NRA Master to be the new range officer, and we will hopefully have an experienced adult for every shooter. The supervisors will be getting additional instruction before they go. There are also several experienced NMLRA trainers involved now as well.
To complicate the problem, this is not conducted on a regular range. It is setup in the woods with 20 firing points along one side of a drawl, no benches, or tables. That I will have to see about before I accept the conditions for first time shooters. There will be additional safety equipment arranged as well, and new rifles are being acquired already. This is a large undertaking as there will be potentially 1300 new shooters over a 3 day period. I am already scared and we are a few months away. The pressure to get them all fired in the time alloted doesn't appear to be adequate but I know most of the new safety crew and know that safety will be first.
I like the explanation of the second charge being set off by impact. It was the only one that made much sense to me. Also think you were right about the possible sources of this old black powder in a cloth bag.
The range officer is very contrite now a day. He is a great person but always too much on the "I'm taking charge" side. Not anymore. He is actively seeking wiser counsel.
Mad Monk
January 16, 2009
Quote from: billd on January 15, 2009, 11:15:08 PM
What would you feel the life expectancy of black powder in original
unopened cans is?
That depends on which company produced the powder and when it was produced.
When GOEX operated the old du Pont plant at Moosic, PA they had several periods of production where the powder produced had very little chemical stability. During storage the grains would suffer from increasing surface softness and a chemical conversion of the sulfur. One such period was 1974 during one of the worst droughts on record in the area. Some of this 1974 production gave the military fits and caused a number of "breech blows" in large-caliber military guns. Problems in the 5 and 7 inch naval guns and in 155mm howitzers in the Army.
Then in 1988 into 1990 there was another period of drought production that was seen by some of the shooters. One BP cartridge shooter on this list had some 2F GOEX where the grains broke up during transportation and the 2F ended up looking like 3F in the cans.
The problem is that you never know for sure by looking.
But there is a very simple little test to look for this business about grain surface softening.
Place a few grains of powder on a sheet of white paper. Use a finger nail to try and crush the grains. The flat of the finger nail, not the front edge. When put under pressure the grains should give you an audible snaping sound and simply break up into small chunks.
Powder that has started to go over the hill will not produce that sound. The grains will simply crumble quietly into dust. You may sometimes see where the outside of the grains crumbles easily while leaving a hard core.
I should point out that powder where the grains surfaces get soft will often give poor accuracy and a lot more bore fouling.
doug
January 16, 2009
It would seem to me, more likely that the first charge to fire was the outermost one and that blowby from that explosion set off the second or middle charge. What surprises me is that the first charge apparently did not fire. It is also incomprehendable to me why the range officer continued to add loads when the gun did not fire; particularly load number 3.
I have tried detonating black powder by hitting a small pile on an anvil using a ball peen hammer. I could not get that to work. I was hoping to make paper caps for a tape primed lock.
longcruise
January 16, 2009
Quote
Then take a mallet and hit the rod to drive the cartridge out of the
chamber. The fatal accidents involved full cases of powder where the base of
the bullet rested directly onto the grains of smokeless powder.
MM, this is taking us away from ml guns, but that caused me to wonder about the practice of compressing powder when loading BPC. Have you heard anything or do you have any thoughts on this?
Mad Monk
January 16, 2009
With black powder in black powder cartridge loadings it is not unusual to see some compression of the charges. In most cases this compression to a uniform point in the case involves what you must deal with in working with granular propellant powders.
This is a thing of how much volume is occupied by what weight of powder. How do you get uniform "nesting" of the grains in the case. So that a given weight of powder will occupy almost exactly the same amount of space in the case.
With compression of the charge in the case there may be some fracturing of the edges of the grains. This is usually seen where the compression die is pressing on the top of the powder charge in the case. When you try and compress the charge the force is applied in all directions. If not carefull you can bulge the case in the process. It is this thing about the pressure being exerted in all directions that limts grain edge crushing to the very top of the charge being compressed. This compression can raise velocities and reduce ES data.
There is something of a similar thing with ml rifles. The Kadooty loading rod was designed to do much the same thing. If you weigh a 100 grain charge and pour it into a cyclinder (such as the breech) you will get different volume measurements as far as bore volume occupied by the charge. At the same time if you measure charges by volume you can get different weights.
In the testing of this volume to weight relationship you take a 50 cc graduated cylinder and fill it with powder by simply pouring the powder into it. Then gently tap the sides of the cylinder and watch how much the powder settles. That percentage volume change is effected by the difference in sizes of the grains within the mass, how well the surfaces have been polished during powder production and how rounded are the corners and edges of the grains. If the powder grains were perfect spheres there would be no difference or variation in this. but dealing with black powder grains will all of the corners and edges there can be a considerable variation in the weight to volume relationship in 5 or ten throws from a measure.
This is why the polishing step in the powder-making process is so critical to accuracy in the gun. The better polished the powder the fewer hoops the shooter must jump through to get best accuracy out of the load. And ONLY the Swiss have an understanding and grip on this aspect of black powder manufacturing.
Dphariss
January 16, 2009
Some people excessively compress powder charges in BPCRs. In most cases this is to overcome some other deficiency in the loading process or some problem with the chamber etc.
I did a 3 part write up on powder compression in the SPG BP Cartridge News some time back. Back issues might be available.
With a compression die it is very easy to put 3000-4000 psi on the punch face when compressing the powder. But this is done slowly and to my knowledge it has caused no accidents.
I don't compress powder to this extent since I have never seen any advantage to it.
Reducing 10-15% (or more) of the powder charge to dust defeats all the powder makers efforts in granulating and polishing the powder and turns that percentage into something similar to powder made in the 1500s.
Counter productive.
Candle Snuffer
January 16, 2009
I remember those Kadooty Rods being advertised years ago. I never bought one. When I took up muzzle loading 30+ years ago eventually I happened across Shawnee LongRifles when I lived in Ohio. I learned a lot from those ol' boys.
Probably one of the best things I learned was when you push that patched round ball down on the charge - stop when the patched ball sets on top the charge and don't crush the powder by packing it down repeatedly with the ramrod. Mark that ramrod so you know where to stop with a given powder charge. Boy, that sure made a big difference in my shooting scores, and to this day after short starting the patch and ball I try and make one smooth push down the bore with the ramrod stopping when the ball is on top the powder - then checking the mark on the rod to be sure I'm where I need to be.
I have seen folks continue to pound their ramrod down on top the ball after they've seated it and they just don't seem sure of their self if their patch and ball is seated or not, all the time crushing and packing the powder more and more. Never really knew for sure why they thought they had to do that and it made my tamping the load down years ago seem minute compared to what some do.
doug
January 16, 2009
Quote
Some people excessively compress powder charges in BPCRs. In most cases this
is to overcome some other deficiency in the loading process or some problem
with the chamber etc.
In my case, I felt that if a little was good, then a lot was better. Trouble was that it compacts the powder into a large granule resulting in lower velocities at least in my experience. The gun shot up to 12" lower at 100 yds as a result of overcompression.
To put some muzzle loading content on this; if you are loading with a solid brass range rod and thumping it down on the bullet/powder, you can probably also overcompress the powder. Also worth noting that dropping the powder down the barrel is more or less analogous to the drop tube commonly used in cartridge loading.
I remain puzzled however about the apparent detonation of the powder in the accident. I continue to think that there was something that we were not told and am a bit suspicious that the powder in the bag was either not black powder or not completely black powder. As an example I was given some packets of powder, several years ago that the fellow thought was black powder. I was sure that it was not and in fact it turned out to be a type of thermite for welding electrical connections.
Daryl
January 16, 2009
I used to seat the ball down onto the powder and stop when the ball came to the powder, without a 'touch' of compression. I know give the starter (on top of the rod) one light whack with my hand. Failure to do this will result in 50 top 100fps redcution in the velocity and excessive shot to shot variation in speed. Using the one whack, each and every time, exactly the same gives much better results - eithe rin my mind, or on the chronograph. Perhaps this is why some people get over 20fps or more spreads, high to low. Over compression is self defeating and injures the powder. What I do seems to help so I will continue to do this.
I see a lot of folds throwing the rod down onto the loaded charge, time and time again until it 'rings' and bounces almost out of the barrel. They seem to think this is a GOOD thing & nothing will turn them from it. It seems to be prevelent in the Southern and Central part of the Province. Wham, wham, wham, wham, RING! If the accident of this thread was caused by compression/detonation as thought, the age and deterioration of the powder must have been a MAJOR contributing factor - else, these powder charge RINGERS would be detonating all over the place & ringing the barrel would be against the rules of all clubs.
Thanks Bill - excellent posts - really good to learn every day.
Mad Monk
January 17, 2009
When black powder is press densified in the powder manufacturing process its burn rate is slowed as a result. If you take black powder directly from the wheel mill its burn rate can be very fast. But mill cake is low in density. As a propelling charge it would be faster. But at the same time it would give high initial breech pressures and it would not be very accurate in a gun.
Press densification slows the burn rate, makes it more manageable in the gun.
So if you wet commercial finished powder to the point where it goes to a mush and then dry it out again you are simply reversing the press densification and returning it to something akin to wheel mill cake.
In press densification you are reducing wheel mill cake volume by about 40% of the starting volume. You get more powder into a smaller space which gives higher velocities and more uniform velocities. Along with a lot better accuracy.
Pletch
January 17, 2009
Steve Chapman and I did an experiment last summer in which we attempted to see how compression affected accuracy. We used a stop on the ramrod and measured compression in fractions of an inch. We started with no compression, then moved the stop in 1/16" intervals. We tested 1/16, 1/8, and 3/16" . Both flint and percussion in the same gun shot the best groups with 3/16" compression
Jerry V Lape
January 17, 2009
Doug, it wasn't the range officer that loaded the additional charges on top of the misfires. It was a 16 or 17 year old senior student who was supposed to be supervising another student a couple years younger. Apparently it eventually dawned on him there was something bigger going on and took the gun to the range officer. Apparently he misunderstood the process of recapping the misfired load, taking that to mean reloading the charge as well. The whole affair was so poorly supervised I am just grateful that no one was injured. We will be on top of the event this year or we will shut it down! There will not be a student shooter without an experienced adult shooter (most will be qualified instructors) and there will be several trainers overseeing sections of the line as well as the range officer. If we can only cover a few shooting points properly that will be the maximum number of points used. Rifles will be cycled off the line to the cleaning and reinspection area on a fairly frequent basis and other ready rifles cycled into use. Powder will be GOEX FFg in target range charges. There will be an CO2 discharges available and I will see to having a grease gun setup handy if we get a difficult one needing unloading. There will also be a soaking trough in the event we need to kill a charge. This event isn't going to have an accident this year - period.
Quote from: Candle Snuffer on January 17, 2009, 08:19:15 PM
I can't remember the documentry exactly but the man who stumble across
wetting the powder down and rolling into balls to dry out before recrushing,,,
if I remember correctly one of his main ingredients was manure, and I'm
thinking (if I remember this right) he used manure because at that time (early
gun powder history in England) he was unable to get Salt Peter... I wish I
had paid better attention to this documentry and took notes. If I recall it
was on one of the History Channels?
Any way to the question; do you have any insight on this manure usage? It was said that the more he re'wetted it and dried out the powder - the stronger it became... and I don't think they were talking about odor... :)
That is utter nonsense. Then as now, there have been a lot of writings on BP that are utter nonsense.
When you look at industrial chemistry books from the first half of the 19th century you will see chapters on "Manure Salts". Up into the late 19th century manure piles were the main source of a number of chemicals. With the exception of the sodium nitrate fiels in Chile all of the potassium nitrate consumed in the world came out of manure piles. Add to this salts such as ammonium chloride. Most of the ammonia based chemicals came out of manure. As did a host of nitrates.
The English into the early 19th century were not noted for their powder making technology. European countries were far ahead of them. Spain, Italy and France being ahead of England.
The English powder makers did not understand the need to purify saltpeter going into gunpowder until late in the 17th century into the early years of the 18th century.
You will see in old English writings that the King had first shot at and saltpeter produced in the realm or imported into the country. Now present day re-enactors relate that directly to the need for saltpeter in gunpowder production.
Few know that in 1550 the then King of England ordered the acid producers in London to cease fouling the air or remove themselves from the city. Mineral acid production was a big item in London at that time.
England used a large amount of nitric acid which requires saltpeter as the source of nitrogen. This nitric acid was a vital part of the purification of silver found in lead ores mined in England. The ore was concentrated, then treated with nitric acid. The silver in the ore would be converted to silver nitrate. Leaving the lead alone. This silver nitrate was then heated. The fumes, lower oxides of nitrogen, would be given off when the silver nitrate decomposed under heat. The fumes given off were recovered to fortify new acid. The resulting silver being required to support wars that used gunpowder.
If one were to mix manure with sulfur it would burn very slowly at best. If you added saltpeter it would burn a bit faster but still be far from strong enough for use as a gunpowder in a firearm.
Basically the relationship between manure and gunpowder was the fact that manure would produce calcium nitrate is properly treated with ground limestone. Then converted to potassium nitrate via wood ashes from hardwoods.
If you look in an older copy of Lange's Chemistry you see a host of different names for calcium and potassium nitrate.
Norway saltpeter was calcium nitrate from Norway. Said to have been collected from the walls of stables.
Then you have Bengal saltpeter which was potassium nitrate exported out of the port of Bengal in India.
Then there was Chile Saltpeter which was sodium nitrate exported out of Chile. And there are others in the list.
The amounts of saltpeter produced in India during the 19th century was huge. In 1860 Lammot duPont purchased roughly 1 million pounds of it in England for war powder production. This was in excess of what England required in their powder plants while they were up to their ears in the Crimean War or other adventures around the world.
But when you read up on saltpeter in the Encyclopedia Britannica in the late 1800's they tell about it being found as crystals on the surface of the ground in dry areas in India. Victorian English couldn't deal with the thought of large numbers of poor in India making a bare living out of mucking about in manure pits.
India was producing in excess of a million pounds a year of potassium nitrate. That would be a lot of people running around arid desolate areas picking up tiny crystals off the surface of the ground.
About 2,000 years ago the Chinese were masters of certain types of chemistry. Manure pile chemical production was one of their more advanced industries. Then India learned it from the Chinese. Picked up by the arab traders in their contacts with both India and Chine. Then the "technology" migrated across the Med to Italy. Then up through Europe. With England being on the far end of this technology exchange chain.
If you look at a copy of Hoovers' translation of Georgius Agricola's De Re Metallica written in 1556 you see a lot of this info on saltpeter and nitric acid detailed. This served as the main mining and engineering text book into the 1700's.
Dphariss
January 17, 2009
Quote from: Larry Pletcher on January 17, 2009, 08:20:04 PM
Steve Chapman and I did an experiment last summer in which we attempted to
see how compression affected accuracy. We used a stop on the ramrod and
measured compression in fractions of an inch. We started with no compression,
then moved the stop in 1/16" intervals. We tested 1/16, 1/8, and 3/16" .
Both flint and percussion in the same gun shot the best groups with 3/16"
compression
You should see if the compression is upsetting the balls. While a barrel is not exactly like a drop tube it is similar and will pack the powder to some extent and 3/16 is about were the pressure needed to compress the powder (assuming one of the softer brands) really starts to increase.
It is possible the if the ball was being upset slightly, squeezed to fit the bore tighter, and this could increase the load inertia and or make a tighter fit in the bore that could increase accuracy and/or result in a more consistent shot to shot velocity. This should be tried with hardened lead to see if it also increases accuracy with balls that will not easily upset.
Excess compression begins to damage the powder grains. Something that was taboo back in the day. The guys that shot ML rifles or the brass suppository type for ACCURACY back in the day were phobic about not crushing the powder grains. This effected accuracy. They used to sift out all the finer granules because having a uniform grain size made the guns shoot better.
If you decide to retry something like this try making a hard copper tube that will fit down the bore to within 3" or so of the breech. This can be adjusted with a clamp to prevent the tube from entering the muzzle. You will likely find this will increase accuracy as well compression or not.
When one starts to do things of this type there are things that are produced that make it seem like one thing when its un unintended consequence that has produced the effect.
Greener (W not W.W) back in the 1830s was worried that the powder being compressed against the projectile, either shot or ball, would not burn properly and burned like a rocket motor since no space existed berween the grains under this very high compression.
I am pretty sure that very wet patches keep the powder right at the base of the ball from burning at all.
I was testing some beeswax/sperm whale oil patch lube (about 1:3 BW to oil by weight) and found that in a 40 caliber shooting a 132 gr picket bullet that the grease on the patch (Iwas just smearing it on one side with a finger tip) had unburned powder grains on still stuck on the patch when I recovered them. This was in a 36" 40 caliber barrel with 80 grains of FFG.
I will likely try this with 50 grains or so to see of it still leaves unburned powder on the patch.
arcticap
January 18, 2009
Despite the belief that bad powder was used at this shoot, I would like to know more about dieseling and whether that could lead to an increased probability [however remote] of having an accidental discharge whenever black powder is loaded?
If it does increase the probability, then I won't mince words. While using black power is an honorable choice for anyone to choose to use for themself, choosing a substitute powder like Pyrodex would seem to be a much safer alternative when the safety of a large number of children are at stake. Even if that means choosing Pyrodex P because it ignites better in percussion guns, or using magnum percussion caps so there's a few less misfires.
Using a substitute powder would seem to actually back up promises for more safety in the future with a commensurate level of action. True or false, wouldn't that effectively lower the probability of having an accidental discharge directly related to simply having loaded with black powder? ::)
Mad Monk
January 18, 2009
The dieseling thing came out of an incident at Friendship some years back. A bp pistol shooter. When he fired the gun the percussion cap went off but not the main charge. Recapped it and tried to fire it again. Still no shot. He put the pistol back into the loading holder, took the rod and went to push the ball back down onto the powder charge as the pressure created by the two caps had moved the ball foreward in the bore. When he pushed the ball down onto the charge the gun discharged.
Now none of those present could conceive of a hangfire of that length in time. So somebody theorized that when the ball was pushed back down the bore it compressed the air under the ball which raised the temperature of the air high enough to ignite the powder. Sort of like an old fire piston.
Trouble with that theory is that the air is heated uniformly so any heat getting to the powder would have been uniform over the surfaces of the grains. No way would that act create enough BTU's to raise the surface temperature of the powder grains to the ignition temperature of the powder.
There were a number of similar incidents at the time involving considerable lengths of time between the firing of the percussion cap and the discharge of the firearm. In one incident the guy could not get the gun to fire so he leaned it up against a tree while he dug through his pouch for some tools. The rifle discharged while leaning up against the tree.
These incidents involved lots of GOEX BP made at the Moosic, PA plant during periods of extreme drought. When the powder produced lacked an acceptable degree of chemical stability. As the chemical changes proceeded in the powder the surfaces of the grains became increasingly more difficult to ignite.
Chuck Dixon had cans of GOEX returned to his shop where it took a propane torch to ignite the powder.
The purity of the water used in BP production will make or break the chemical stability of the finished powder.
I had looked at this chemical stability thing in the lab after reading an article in a chemical industry magazine on how to identify if smokeless had been used in a blown up ml gun.
I collected a lot of black powder samples. This would be leached with acetone. The leaching would then be evaporated and reconstituted with dilute sulfuric acid. Several drops of Diphenylamine would be added. Then watched for a blue color to form. This has long been used as a quick test to look for lower oxides of nitrogen. If the black powder had undergone any chemical decomposition it would give the blue color in the test. If it had not suffered any chemical decomposition there would be no blue color formation. The drought production GOEX out of Moosic gave a stronger color than my IMR used in my .223 loads.
In looking at these different powder samples something came to light.
During the 18th century powder makers used only distilled water in the powder during powder production. Most were purifying their own saltpeter where distilled water was a must. Once they began to use purified saltpeter they purchased they drifted away from distilled water and used plain plant water. This change showed up in the diphenylamine test.
Daryl
January 18, 2009
Quote from: docwhite on January 17, 2009, 11:11:57 AM
It went up in a fluff of smoke and flame just like any other BP.
Of course, this reminds me of the 3 pounds (in an original 5 pound can) of American Deadshot I aquired many years ago. It was the cleanest with no dust (once I removed the rusted steel from inside the can) shiniest, hardest, most uniformly sized, best shooting black powder I've ever used. I found the Deadshot powder mill blew up in 1898, so this powder was very old. I shot it all up around 1975. THAT's the powder I used in that 38" twist Bauska barrel for 1", 5 shot groups at 100 yards. All that is old, is not feeble. It was also the cleanest burning.