Will that plastic water pipe make static eletricity if use for a funnel drop tube, Most all your powder measures are clear plastic. Thanks
We would use copper if we had a choice, however we don't think you would be exposing yourself to much risk by using the water pipe. The choice is yours to make. Please read info below to see what we believe about static electricity and BP.
I don't believe static will ignite black powder but I will always try to be safe.
I am not saying that static will NOT ignite BP and you should have your own safety standards. Just be safe.
We are glad you brought this topic up again, Doug. It's an important one. Mike and I did hundreds of static electricity/powder tests before we set up a black powder aluminum foil cartridge loading bench in Mike' basement. We zapped little pinches of 3 Fg and 4Fg BP with stun guns, hand held steel wire stock after rubbing a wool sweater on a plastic covered table and the same after shuffling across a synthetic carpet with leather shoes, etc., etc. Not once could we get a poof!
We also whacked little pinches of BP with a 24 oz. Ball Peen hammer on a steel anvil 20 times a day for a week. No bang. However, We NEVER BEAT the BP cartridges we make to the bottom of a cannon bore with an oak dowel and a hammer as in several Utube episodes!! NEVER, ever will we do that!
So, we agree with you that a static elec. chg. probably will not ignite BP, but we will take reasonable precautions, just to be extra safe.
We leave the capped one pound can on the concrete floor to bleed off any static elec. while we load 3 cartridges, then we uncap it and pour 3.5 oz. into a brass measure which feeds the powder scale pan with 3, 400gr. charges of BP. The 1 Lb. can is capped and placed on the floor again. We wear cotton clothing with no steel buttons or snaps, safety glasses and a face shield and thin canvas garden gloves. That's it. We are going on 500 charges made now in 3 years. We feel, not absolutely, but reasonably safe loading cartridges this way.
Doug, Interesting website, thanks for posting it. A while back there was a person who mangled his hand from pre-ignition when he was loading a tennis ball down the tight bore of a long barrel mortar. The powder was loose in the bottom of the bore and it was speculated that the friction of the ball created a static spark which caused ignition. He mangled his hand from cupping it over the end of the rammer. I suppose it could have also been something else that may have caused it fire. Dom
Dom, We have to agree with GGaskill that a static charge wound very likely bleed away via the gun tube. Ignition from that source seems very unlikely. We think that another cause is far more likely and has been proven to be able to ignite BP millions of times in flintlock muskets and rifles. What is a flintlock spark? Most everyone here knows it is a tiny piece of 'incandescent' iron or steel which has been sheared from the Frizzen by the strike of the flint. Friction heats it up and the oxygen in the air we breath allows it to burn.
It just happens that the mineral
quartz has the same hardness on the MOHS Scale as does Flint which is a 7 with diamond at 10 and talc at 1. So, one of the worlds most common minerals can create a spark when it strikes anything steel or vice-versa. Back in my son's Cub Scout days I taught a class on firestarting. Each scout had a little chunk of deburred file and a 2" sqaure of Char-cloth he made by cooking pieces of old blue-jeans in a sealed steel canister. We sat in my front yard and I had them grab a piece of crushed quartz out of my crushed rock landscaping strip under the house's eaves. The time requirement was 5 minutes or less. Not one of them failed this real life survival test.
It was so easy to get a hot spark from that quartz and steel, that I am wondering if this combination could have caused this fellows extreme misfortune.
It is at least possible that a small piece of quartz rock, not much bigger than a grain of sand, which is almost always inexpensive crushed quartz, could cling to the fuzzy fibers of a tennis ball and actually scrape a tiny curl of barrel steel off and inflame it as the ball was thrust home by the rammer. This type of spark WOULD ignite the loose BP at the tube's bottom.
Just a possibility,
Mike and Tracy
