Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Flash Powder and Blasting Cap

Flash Powder and Blasting Cap

FeedMe94 - 21-5-2019 at 06:13

Hello ,
A friend of mine recently told me that he is using small amount of primary in Al Foil to detonate his KClO4 / Dark Al / S flash powder with greater results than just a fuse. Any more info on this ?

MineMan - 21-5-2019 at 17:29

Nope. But why

? Would be interesting to try. But sulfur does increase the sensitivity a bit. A good bit.
Regular FP is quite powerful. Underestimated. There are much more powerful variants that are even insensitive to flame and static... but I am not ready to share them.

FeedMe94 - 21-5-2019 at 23:43

Dornier told me about Shimizu's book once. In the book he shows some tests he did and he find out that 64 KClO4 , 23 Dark Al and 13 S will give the loudest report. Since then its the only KClO4 comp im using with success. It wont even go off with a hammer hit

MineMan - 23-5-2019 at 09:06

It is loud!

I didn’t know it was insensitive. Thank you for the info!

What would be most interesting would be replacing half of the kclo4 with AN and detonating.

sad face

fundes - 9-7-2019 at 14:23

Quote: Originally posted by MineMan

Nope. But why

now that's a disappointment

...

Rocinante - 10-7-2019 at 07:00

The papers I've read place KClO4 flash powders at 80 % of TNT in far field impulse.

AN/Al 75:25 is at the very least 120 % of TNT or half more powerful than flash. If you have a blasting cap, slightly thermobaric ammonals are far better, safer, more powerful and cheaper than flash.

caterpillar - 11-7-2019 at 03:08

Quote: Originally posted by Rocinante

The papers I've read place KClO4 flash powders at 80 % of TNT in far field impulse.

AN/Al 75:25 is at the very least 120 % of TNT or half more powerful than flash. If you have a blasting cap, slightly thermobaric ammonals are far better, safer, more powerful and cheaper than flash.

I made such mix: AN/Al/C 72:25:3 and once was able to initiate it with the aid of smoke powder (but only once). Later I mixed ammonium picrate with Al and AN. But some powerful detonator is a must. This mix is very insensitive.

FeedMe94 - 6-5-2022 at 10:50

Quote: Originally posted by MineMan

Nope. But why

Maybe you are about to share anything now?

I hope you are doing good

MineMan - 6-5-2022 at 16:12

Quote: Originally posted by FeedMe94

Quote: Originally posted by MineMan

Nope. But why

Maybe you are about to share anything now?

I hope you are doing good

I did share it. It went under the radar. Whole thread about it. I didn’t want to share, I wanted to patent it but I thought posting is claiming the intellectual property. Flash comps can absolutely replace lead azide. I am still kind of uncomfortable talking about it…. Because I feel these could even be used for nuclear ddt detonators… and the implications of a primary explosive that is binary and dry powdered mixed.

Fantasma4500 - 14-5-2022 at 16:03

alright im gonna share a bit.
a friend of mine found out that taking quite crude mesh MgAl- and using a flashpowder initiation device- containing "hotflash" as he would call it- potent KClO4 flash, he would usually put a small perchlorate firecracker in the dead center of his devices- and it would work
we have since produced black MgAl and this works well with KClO4- we have even managed to set off 60:40 KNO3 MgAl with what we call "crudemesh"- its an unfiltered bunch of MgAl containing quite crude stuff of up to- hm- 80 mesh but also consists of about 20-40% black MgAl- +400 mesh
we have made many tests, one session especially stands out- it was 10 grammes, we were about 20 meters away, and for each blast it became increasingly uncomfortable, even holding our ears- initiating flash does indeed add sound to the bang, but it makes it a bit sharper too. as in less low frequencies

this flash initiation proved itself with chlorate-sugar as well. one arguement could be central ignition does something on its own, i believe it does. quickfuse have been used also to give some sort of effect- center-ignition, just a gram of strong FP in aluminium foil- fuse leading into foil pouch and the fuse carefully thought out to not ignite the main charge
but generally we use insulin glass tubes, they hold about 3g FP and are easy to seal up
more bizarre designs of even tripple-initiations have been used, and they seem to kick off KNO3 MgAl better
we did try CuO-MgAl thermite but the ignition of the thermite somehow failed so we never bothered to really see if it could be heatshocking
ideally you wanna use a container for the initiation device that fragments- and glass is great for this as its turned into fine dust and doesnt have much reach

other people have found it that 90:10 KClO3 Al has much more power than oxygen balanced mixes- why? do we not lose some power somewhere, does the chlorate just need to be destabilized by metal? it was replicated and its truly powerful.

with these devices i have been able to simplify the design so much that it basically has no real container- just wrap some foil around your first, dump in powder, dump in initiator, crimp it tightly and smoothly around the initiator and wrap string around it, somewhat tightly. we were able to make worryingly compact 20g firecrackers with this and "jute" string

as for sound of straight up FP and initiated, it could seem like its a 20% increase in loudness
if a papertube is used it doesnt appear to make any difference at all to wrap string around it, it doesnt take much containment to go off- its almost too easy

for crudemesh we have prior ground up the MgAl in a coffee grinder total 30 minutes, 5 minutes at a time but it appears just 10 minutes grinding is plenty fine, this will yield about 200g and if going by 60:40 yield 500g flashpowder
coffee grinder can easily handle little-finger sized pieces of MgAl, but the grinding must be done with some thought. ideally wearing thick welding gloves, having the whole lid sealed up with duct tape to avoid dust hazard and maybe a pot to put the coffee grinder in, and adding butane into the grinding chamber to lessen explosion risk
a grinder must be designated to only grind metal powders as the dust inside the grinder can mix and explode
preferably.. even sunglasses so you dont end up flashbanged if it does ignite, and clearing the sorrounding area from fire hazards.