I'm trying to get some info on the detonating shells the old boys used in the larger muzzle loaders for big game.

Anyone have any references to these or theory to share?

Karl.

Seems like Sir Samuel Baker used them and I think he referred to them in his books. So did Gordon-Cumming, I believe.

Karl,

In the US I think that our BATF classifies such shells as destructive devices, in the same category as hand grenades and mortar shells. Consequently, it would take a special license to obtain them, and notification to the BATF is required before transporting them state to state. In other words, I do not think you can get them from here unfortunately.

Ross Seyfried wrote about using them on an Australian buffalo hunt, in either a 4 or 8 bore. The article appeared in Rifle magazine around 2 years ago.

Best,
Joe

500,
I'm just curious as to what they actualy were. Its probably the last area of big game hunting I have not read to pieces.

Next joe, can I get some more info off you about this rifle magazine. Any website etc?

Karl.

here this is from samuel baker's book the nile tributaries of abyssinia.

Yes I did type this all out just for you

Page 172
One single rifle, that carried a half pound explosive shell, of holland of bond street; this was nicknamed by the arabs jenna el mootfah (child of a cannon) and for the sake of brevity I called it the baby

page 311
I quickly fired the baby, with an explosive shell...The recoil of baby loaded with ten crachms of the strongest powder and a half pound shell, spun me round like a top.

page 313
I was currious to examine the effect of the half pound shell: it had entered the flank on the right side, breaking the rib upon which it had exploded, it had then passed through the stomach and the lower portion of the lungs, both of which were shattered, and breaking one of the fore ribs on the left side, it had lodged beneath the skin of the sholder

They are only restristed if over 50 cal and 1/4 oz ofexpolsive they are easy to make. Just drill a hole the size of a small pistol primer fill with fine black powder drop a steel shot no. 6 works good over the powder seat the pistol primer over that. I have had them go off as low as 600fps in water filled jugs. It really cuts down on the penitration.

Thanks for the time Roma rana. By the way what was the animal in the last excerpt?

Pdog,
That sounds like more of a 'positive expansion' situation rather than a true explosive effect on the target. Would this be correct?

I have been doing a bit of homework on the percussion fulminates and one source said over 12,000fps explosive velocity, whatever that really means.

Karl.

[ 06-19-2003, 16:43: Message edited by: Karl ]

"over 12,000fps explosive velocity, whatever that really means."

Karl, this is one I remember from Chemistry class, I think. An explosion is just a very fast form of combustion. Explosive velocity is a term for measuring that speed. A 12,000 fps explosive velocity means that if you laid out a continuous strip of said explosive for 12,000 feet and ignited one end, the explosion would reach the other end in one second. I believe that is the definition and application, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Rick

I thought that a 12000 fps explosive released gas from the explosion at a top velocity of 12000 fps. Ignition takes time, so if you laid down a strip of the explosive 12000 feet long, I think it would take more than 1 second to blow from one end to the other (due to ignition time).

There are also deflagrations, which aren't quite fast enough to be termed explosives, but burn darn fast none the less. For instance, someone could say that the deflagration of combustible gasses caused substantial overpressure, which to you and me would still look like an explosion.

elephant

So the powder charge in the 2 bore was 10 drahms. That is 275 grains of BP. Interesting. I remember certain people saying that the 2 bore held upwards of 450 grains of powder.

Axel

Axel- The actualy explosive used in these shells was Mercury fulminate. Show us how smart you are and please provide an exact chemical formula. I'll be waiting and grading Good luck!-Rob

A rough guide I have found (just by reading so no doubt a real BP hunter might contradict me) is the ball weight divided by 4 is the maximum charge in BP.
This is for muzzleloaders anyway.

So 4 bore around 1 oz-435gns or so.

2 bore max I guess would be double- 800grains.

Maybe they didn't bother pushing them too hard since they were going to explode anyway?

Karl.

500grains,

http://www.fireandsafety.eku.edu/VFRE-99/Theory/Definitions/definitions-1.htm

Scroll about halfway down to Section 6.-Detonation.

Velocity of Explosion

The rate at which the detonation/combustion wave travels through the explosive product.

Looks like we each had part of the story, but this looks like the whole shebang. Thanks for giving me the reason to go "hunting" for this.

Rick

[ 06-20-2003, 20:31: Message edited by: Rick Koehler ]

Interesting explanation. Thanks.

Mercury fulminate - C2HgN2O2

kinda looks like this

C=N-O

Hg

O-N=C

couldn't figure out how to make the triple bonds look right so they are equal signs.

Mercury readily complexes with the CNO ligand which results in a wonderfully explosive compound.

It's good to see my college education was worthwhile...

Carl

[ 06-21-2003, 04:24: Message edited by: Anvil63 ]

I've played with explosive .30 rounds, purchased long years ago at gun shows. They do disintegrate readily, and a puff of smoke is often observed upon impact. However, they didn't seem to offer any improvement over a lighter, frangible bullet. You get guaranteed expansion, no matter what the target, but so what? You get no penetration.

Furthermore, you lose a great deal of mass when you drill out the bullet. Thus, you have a long, lightweight bullet. You immediately run into the tradeoff of less case capacity, and a lighter bullet. And you don't get an "explosion" of any real size. Say you get two grains of Bullseye in there. How impressive of a "boom" will two grains of Bullseye make? Not very. Frankly, I doubt the low-explosive filled ones offer any advantage whatsoever, for any application at all.

(If you do decide to play with these, be sure to sink the primer below the nose of the bullet, to protect it when going up the feed ramp! Bad things can happen otherwise. But this really isn't worth trying, and it's probably quite dangerous.)

Now, if one had high-explosive filled bullets, the situation may be different, especially in the larger calibers (.50 BMG, 20mm, etc.). These are probably illegal, regardless of payload size (can you really, legally, own any amount of RDX without a license? I don't think so!). With the high explosives, you can fragment the bullet with less loss of mass, due to the higher pressures generated, but there's a perverse consequence of the higher rate of detonation: the explosive will probably do its thing before the bullet completely penetrates into the target. The explosives usually described for this application have detonation rates on the order of 30,000 fps. So, the bullet contacts the target. Perhaps it has to penetrate 1/2" to generate the force needed to detonate the explosive. Guess what? The explosive "burns" at 10 times the speed of the moving bullet. Thus, the bullet won't penetrate but additional millimeters before the charge fragments the bullet. I suppose this is why the "Raufoss" round has an AP tip-- to allow the tip to keep penetrating (now enhanced by the 2 million PSI of the detonating payload) while the fragments damage personnel and equipment away from the main path of the bullet. But I'll bet the penetration is less than that of a conventional AP round, in hard armor. Everything's a compromise.

For the experimenter, I suggest you play with grease filled hollowpoints, and insanely fast lightweight varmint bullets. These are far safer endeavors.

Pertinax,
First I am not interested in making any explosive rounds.I am too clumsy for a start This is an area of historical interest as I have already stated.

Second no one was talking about small or normal calibre bullets.

The subject matter is 1"+ wide 1400 grain to 3500 grain lead balls, which can benefit from whatever expansion you can give them,(if you want expansion that is)or so the old fellows who used them for hunting believed.

Lastly, the Raufoss round uses an armour peircing plug to the rear of the projectile, not the tip if I remember correctly, and 3 or 4 different incendiary and explosive mixes.

If you are interested in that sort of thing down the bottom of this page is a test showing fragment paths.

http://www.biggerhammer.net/barrett/raufoss/

Karl,

I was just throwing that out there for anyone thinking of actually playing with making the small bore things at home. I've seen (a while back; forgot where I'd seen it) the link you posted, and it is interesting. Nothing like the small bore low-explosive filled rounds at all.

If one desired expansion in those massive lead balls, it probably does work-- and well. Any idea how they initiated the charge? Lord, I hope they weren't firing balls full of a primary explosive. I shudder to think what would happen with premature detonation...

Hi some time back the doulbe gun jornal had an article on the explosive bore bullets. They used pottasiun chloride as an oxidiser and i dont remember the fuel perhaps german black. You might try potasium premanganate and powdered aluiminum. as a mixture 2 parts potas, by weight.