Flames from the muzzle

[FL-Flintlock]

Bill,

Have you ever obtained your KNO3 from manure and if so was it single-critter manure or a mixture?  Collected dry or leached?  Tap or distilled water?

Thanks.
Mark

[Mad Monk]

Mark,

I made a little from some kitty litter I collected.

Keep in mind that you really don't make potassium nitrate to start.  When using manure you lime it with ground lime.  That gives calcium nitrate which you then convert to potassium nitrate via wood ashes.  Potassium nitrate is very rare in nature.

Bat caves produced calcium nitrate. 

Chile has large deposits of sodium nitrate with a small amount of potassium nitrate included in it.

[45-70cannon]

Back in the day, oh I'd say 30 odd years ago, when I was going to the BP shoots at our club, the guys would have the shoots at night and in the snow. Then you could see how big a flame came out of the muzzle and if you shot in the snow, you could see how much powder you were wasting. We shot winters during the day and you would see BP all over the snow. I guess the load you thought you were shooting, just wasn't what you were shooting after all.



45-70

[roundball]

"...you would see BP all over the snow..."

I suspect that was just fouling.....and more powder = more fouling.
If any unburned kernels of BP somehow did manage to exit the muzzle, seems to me that the trememndous heat & flame of the muzzle blast would consume them immediately...how could they survive that

[Daryl]

I'm with your RB - I cannot see any granuals of BP surviving the muzzleblast flame front intact.  Too, as the rear of the patch is scorched heavily by the expanding gasses behind the ball as witnessed on picked up patches, this alone shows the powder is consumed inside the barrel.  If there was intact powder between the patched ball and the powder charge, the patch wouldn't be sorched at all.  Even the 'early' tests with the 14 bore showed all of the 225gr. 2F charge was consumed inside the 32" barrel of the 14 bore. 

The flames are merely the expanding gasses of extreme heat being expelled from the muzzle, not powder burning outside the bore.

[Mad Monk]

Most of what you would see on the snow in front of the shooter is flakes or balls of BP combustion residue.

I set up a big funnel out from the muzzle of my .50 Trade Rifle and fired through the opening.  What was blown out the muzzle collected in the plastic funnel.  I was looking for unburned powder and/or unburned charcoal.  Saw neither of these.  Just fine dust and fluffy balls of BP combustion residue.

Some time take you between shot bore swab patches and just keep them.  If the R.H. is below 30% the residue on the patch usually turns snow white in color.  If the R.H. is a little above 30% the color will be grey.  At high humidity the color will be a green-ish black or jet black in color.

Those of us who shoot flintlocks see these color differences on the residue on the locks at different levels of R.H.

I used to subscribe to the theory that the ml guns were blowing still burning grains of powder out the muzzle.  Then when I started taking a real close look at bore residue I found no unburned charcoal.  Then I looked outside the muzzle via the funnel test.  What was collected on the funnel matched what was pulled from the bore.  That convinced me that the powder was completely consumed well before the ball left the muzzle.  And that agreed with the writings of Noble & Abel in the mid-19th century.  You would have to use some very large grain size powder in a .45 or .50 to get burning grains blown out the muzzle.  I saw that only with one powder and that was the first Chinese Lidu that came in through Corman's.  Their "2F" powder was almost the size of U.S. military intermediate primer powder which is 3 to 4 times large than our 1Fg powder.

[Dphariss]

I think the unburned powder "myth"(?) comes from shooting FG in slug guns (see "The ML Caplock Rifle" by Roberts). I have wondered about this over the years.
It's another flip-flop thing for me. I can't see this working but still the man who told Roberts of this was no fool.
I tried it as a kid with a 32  with PRB and fffg. No powder (maybe some fouling but its been quite some time since I tried this) on white sheets at 65 grains where I quite. But then we have to ask how far will the powder grains travel?
The cloud of gas from the muzzle is very hot and I would think it would envelope the powder and ignite it if made it out the barrel unburned.
The last thing to consider is that Brockway was pulling Roberts leg. These guys were very competitive and sometimes major $ and reputation was involved in a match so?

I find it unlikely that shooting all the powder a barrel will burn will produce the most accurate load.

Then we have the fact that fast draw artists and some cowboy action types use handloaded BP blanks to burst balloons.... Use coarse powder like FG.... But this is in a pistol.
Questions, questions.
After thinking about this again this A.M. I think the "pulling Roberts leg" fits as well as anything.
But one of you inquiring mind types can feel free to test this anytime you like
Dan

[chapmans]

  Dan,
  This may not have been an effecient load but when Larry and I were doing the lock test in the pistol there was powder residue on the floor, some of it was 12 to 15 ft away from the barrel, we swept up some and it would ignite. I have been to shoots in the winter at the local matches and there is what looks like unburned powder in the snow in front of the shooters, this would be impossible to sweep up to check but I'm sure it would burn, maybe we are looking at another test!
   Steve Chapman

[Dphariss]

Hi Steve
Testing is what will need to happen.
I honestly just do not know.
I can't see Brockway not knowing what he was talking about.
But???

Dan

[Pete G.]

R.H. below 30% ? No wonder the only color I ever see is black (with a few red specks in it). Right now our R.H is 100%, but we've got a little tropical stuff in off the Gulf. Normally this time of year it is only 95%.

[LynnC]

Chapmans
Those were not ball loads, were they?

I know I've shot blank loads with little or no wad that blew unburned grains from the muzzle

Powder grains could clarly be heard sprinkling the ground

I'm convinced tha Patched ball loads consume the powder much more efficiently............Lynn

[Mad Monk]

  Dan,
  This may not have been an effecient load but when Larry and I were doing the lock test in the pistol there was powder residue on the floor, some of it was 12 to 15 ft away from the barrel, we swept up some and it would ignite. I have been to shoots in the winter at the local matches and there is what looks like unburned powder in the snow in front of the shooters, this would be impossible to sweep up to check but I'm sure it would burn, maybe we are looking at another test!
   Steve Chapman

In my previous post I was thinking of rifle barrels.
Now when you have something like a short pistol barrel you may well see burning powder grains being blown out the muzzle.
I have a little CVA naval cannon I use on the 4th.  With a charge of powder in the .45 caliber bore there is only about 4 inches of travel before the ball leaves the muzzle.  With 3F powder I set the lawn on fire one year during a drought due to the burning powder being blown out the muzzle.  But with a 28" barrel it is not a problem except with powder grain sizes you would never normally see in this gun.

[Dphariss]

R.H. below 30% ? No wonder the only color I ever see is black (with a few red specks in it). Right now our R.H is 100%, but we've got a little tropical stuff in off the Gulf. Normally this time of year it is only 95%.

Its 77 degrees and 26% RH right now in Big Timber, Montana and its been a wet summer. If it was a hot dry day it would be low teens. Seems like I saw something like 9% once this summer.
People wonder why people blow down their bores out here.
http://www.wunderground.com/US/MT/Big_Timber.html
Dan

[chapmans]

 Lynn.
   You are correct, there was no ball only 20 gr. fffg Swiss and a sabot, no other projectile.
   Steve C.

[FL-Flintlock]

Mark,

I made a little from some kitty litter I collected.

Keep in mind that you really don't make potassium nitrate to start.  When using manure you lime it with ground lime.  That gives calcium nitrate which you then convert to potassium nitrate via wood ashes.  Potassium nitrate is very rare in nature.

Bat caves produced calcium nitrate. 

Chile has large deposits of sodium nitrate with a small amount of potassium nitrate included in it.

Thanks Bill.  I was curious about that because back when I was a kid in PA, I worked at a small former dairy farm.  Dairy production was shut down before I started working there, only a few milk cows remained for the people who wanted fresh un-processed milk.  Manure & barn sweepings were dumped in the old feed silo and left sit from around mid July to late spring.  I didn't know anything about it then but before we started selling the silo manure for gardens, a fellow came in and collected all of the "crust" (crystals) that formed on the pile and top of the silo.  I don't know who he was or what he did with it but he's spend the better part of a day crawling around in the silo and putting his gems in ash buckets. 

Funny how one never forgets the constant cycle of mucking, scrubbing and white washing (especially fun in the late summer) ... and that old vacuum tube fence charger that I swear was built to power an electric chair not cow fence!  Woodchuck & deer hunting was good though!