Haven't had the time to read the whole post, but did read quite a bit of it. There were some very good points made but also some glaring errors. For instnce the bit about compressed air being the cause of obstructional bursts. It was proved many, many years ago by intentional destructive testing a hollow obstruction of same wt would produce an equal bulge to a solid one & as wt of obstruction increased a burst would be produced by equal wts. Call it what you will it is essentially the same thing as the Water Hammer ie the sudden checking of the projectile creates a localized build-up of the following gases from the burning powder which produces first the bulge & if severe enough the Burst.
Also I believe that Dynamite was produced from Nitro-Glycerine, not TNT.
The early DuPont powders mentioned required the black powder volumetric loading, not because they were "Weak" as stated, but because they were intentionally Bulked up to allow for this loading.
PS;
Incidently not certain about the classification of propellent powders vs Black powder but they are not the same. The "Unconfined Sizzling" of smokeless propellent powder is not a characteristic of Black Powder. If you don't believe that just pour some out in a pile & toss a match in it. This is why the laws regarding BP are much more strict than for Smokeless.
Last edited by 2-piper; 09/14/11 08:01 AM.
