Is excess powder really blown out?

[zimmerstutzen]

Depends on the tide and moon phase.

Ok smart alec, "average". the point is that it is far less than the incredible pressure of the gases pushing the ball out the barrel. ie atmospheric air is not more dense than the burning gases in the barrel.

 

[Carbon 6]

Negative air flow rooms in hospitals, sometimes have slightly lower air pressure.

I think they have both negative and positive flow rooms.

Isolation room would be negative, an operating room would be positive.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Spence 10 said "Well, this has devolved to something very like tea time among the Laputans. " The family of the weight lifting coach, Laputin? Please explain.

 

[Carbon 6]

Ok smart alec, "average". .

Winter or summer?
Just kidding!

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I think they have both negative and positive flow rooms.

Isolation room would be negative, an operating room would be positive.

Yep, my Mrs. was in a negative airflow room for a few days. Then the idiot at the pathology lab realized that patient slides had been mixed up and the infectious patient was called back to the hospital and isolated.

 

[Carbon 6]

Spence 10 said "Well, this has devolved to something very like tea time among the Laputans. " The family of the weight lifting coach, Laputin? Please explain.

Another Gulliver reference.
Gulliver ate a lot of mushrooms, spotted ones.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Oh. The lilliputians.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Spence 10 said "Well, this has devolved to something very like tea time among the Laputans. " The family of the weight lifting coach, Laputin? Please explain.

No, no. Not the Lilliputians. The inhabitants of Laputan - the floating city. Very highly advanced . . . but their clothes didn't fit well because they tried to measure and cut the cloth in degrees. Great knowledge but little technology. (As me Dad would say: "highly educated idiots"). And one of the books my Dad read to me at bedtime (Robinson Crusoe, too).

And, astonishingly, Swift wrote that the Laputan Astronomers were so advanced they knew of two moons around Mars . . . 151 years before it became scientific knowledge in the real world!

 

[Carbon 6]

Yep, my Mrs. was in a negative airflow room for a few days. Then the idiot at the pathology lab realized that patient slides had been mixed up and the infectious patient was called back to the hospital and isolated.

Ah yes, isolation. That brings back memories.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

No, no. Not the Lilliputians. The inhabitants of Laputan - the floating city. Very highly advanced . . . but their clothes didn't fit well because they tried to measure and cut the cloth in degrees. Great knowledge but little technology. (As me Dad would say: "highly educated idiots"). And one of the books my Dad read to me at bedtime (Robinson Crusoe, too).

And, astonishingly, Swift wrote that the Laputan Astronomers were so advanced they knew of two moons around Mars . . . 151 years before it became scientific knowledge in the real world!

Swift must have had some good drugs or really moldy bread (ergot poisoning) Ever read A Modest Proposal?

 

[Stantheman86]

All I know is , I was shooting 75 grains of ffg out of my. 54 Mississippi yesterday I saw little burning nuggets in the grass of the rifle range . I had to walk out and step on them. 60 grains didn't do this.

 

[Carbon 6]

All I know is , I was shooting 75 grains of ffg out of my. 54 Mississippi yesterday I saw little burning nuggets in the grass of the rifle range . I had to walk out and step on them. 60 grains didn't do this.

So you just assume it was burning gunpowder ?
Gunpowder that burned slow enough for you to walk up un put it out after you observed it burning ?
What kind of gunpowder where you using?

Sounds like some of the powder might have been oil or lube contaminated.

 

[Stantheman86]

All I know is , 75 grain charges caused this , 60 grains never did. I touched one of the burning nuggets and it was indeed powder chunks, Goex 2f. There's no way 5 seconds of patch lube being on the charge is going to contaminate it that much

 

[RHensley]

When I used Hoppies no.9 cleaner for lube the patch being wet from the hoppies had an efect on the powder but when I switched to tallow it didn't. or I couldn't see that it did. The tallow was slick but not wet. But when I switched that's when I had to start swabbing between shots . In an era at the end of the ball or powder was a little cruddy (hope this sounds right) and was hard to get the ball seated. so a squizzed cleaning patch until it was just damp cleaned that out and allowed me to shoot on.

 

[Carbon 6]

If the "powder" doesn't behave like powder, why do we assume it's powder ?
Or at the very least we should presume that it has been modified in some way.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Spence 10 said "Well, this has devolved to something very like tea time among the Laputans. " The family of the weight lifting coach, Laputin? Please explain.

I think the reference is to the partisan debates among the Lilliputians in "Gulliver's Travels".

 

[reddog]

"Ever read A Modest Proposal"

18th century Soylent Green?

 

[Grenadier1758]

Yes, I have read "A Modest Proposal" by Swift. I would be concerned that some folks wouldn't think it was hyperbole mixed with satire.

Now, what is the likelihood that unburned powder is falling to the ground? I am more concerned about unburned powder that is scraped off my measure at the range.

If acceptable performance is achieved, then why speculate that unburned powder is out there on the ground?

 

[Spike]

Posters in recent threads have expressed the opinion that any gun can burn only a certain amount of powder, depending on barrel length, and that if more is loaded the excess will be blown out of the barrel unburned. It is said to be possible to shoot over a sheet, collect and reuse the powder undamaged. This is an idea that has been around since I got into the hobby almost 50 years ago, and has been repeatedly argued on these boards. It’s actually much older than that, and is described and denied in the literature at least from early 18th century by distinguished experimenters, including the father of ballistics, Benjamin Robins, and the Royal Society. Their conclusion was that that “the powder is completely enflamed before the ball or shot arrives at the mouth of the shortest barrel ever made use of.”

It is my personal belief that this is one of those pesky ideas that is passed down from graybeard to neophyte like religious dogma, never to be questioned, but with no rigorous testing to prove or disprove it.

Is anyone aware of any scientific appraisal that has ever been done regarding this question?
I have chronographed loads up to 150 Gr and the velocity keeps increasing
Spence

I have chronographed loads up to 150 grains and the velocity keeps increasing. Also the recoil

 

[Beaver Trapper]

Is there a correlation between increased velocity and increased accuracy as you increase the powder load?