Thought I'd update this thread rather than post on the current 1100 Blow Up thread
https://www.trapshooters.com/threads/1100-went-boom.786269/
Light load detonation
"When Bad Things Happen To Good Guns", November 1996
Guns magazine, Charles E. Petty. (p. 43) - I couldn't find the article digitized
Light Loads can Explode Page
M.L. (Mic) McPherson,
Metallic Cartridge Reloading, 1996
Detonation: What can happen when, for whatever reason, the primer flash delivers insufficient hear to ignite enough of the propellant charge to create a self-sustaining reaction. If too little propellant initially ignites, either the bullet will never move and too little heat will exist to cause the rapid ignition of additional granules or, as the bullet initially accelerate, adiabatic cooling can reduce resulting gas temperature enough to prevent the rapid ignition of additional granules. In the former instance, the unignited propellant, which is melted into a very dense clump at the front of the case, can cook for a period before it subsequently ignites. In the latter instance, as pressure drops, the bullet can slow and even stop within the bore. Again, the unignited granules can subsequently ignite.
In either instance,
if the initially unignited mass does ignite eventually, a standing-pressure-wave will result. If subsequent bullet acceleration and propellant burning have an unfortunate coincidence of rates (which is fundamentally likely),
pressure near the peak of the standing wave will reach a gun-destroying level. This is
not some esoteric theory: The Krupp commission proved this in 1888 and all too many others have demonstrated this many times since. I have seen three rifles destroyed by this process.
2008 study regarding the risk of smokeless powder use in IED
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=27&ved=0ahUKEwj8k4jEpI3cAhUhxVQKHYHwDvQ4FBAWCD4wBg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtic.mil%2Fcgi-bin%2FGetTRDoc%3FLocation%3DU2%26doc%3DGetTRDoc.pdf%26AD%3DADA491715&usg=AOvVaw2uok3rqoZZnd6FzCtlAdaC
“The test results validate a fundamental distinction between the manner in which smokeless powder is designed to react (deflagrate) to a given stimuli (ammunition primer) and the manner in which it is
capable of reacting (detonating) to unintended stimuli (detonator).”
p. 17
In March of
1943 a chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Tenney L. Davis published
The Chemistry of Powders and Explosives...as a textbook for chemistry and chemical engineering graduate students at MIT. The following excerpt is taken from page 4 of the book:
“...classes of explosives materials overlap somewhat, for the behavior of a number of them is determined by the nature of the stimuli to which there are subjected and by the manner in which they are used. Black powder has probably never been known, even in the hideous explosions which have occurred at black powder mills, to do anything but burn.
Smokeless powder which is made from colloided nitrocellulose, especially if it exists in a state of fine subdivision, is a vigorous high explosive and
may be detonated by means of a sufficiently powerful initiator.”
The author sites a 1988 Canadian study in
Mining Resource Engineering, “The Deflagration to Detonation of Transition of Gun and Small Arms Propellants”
“Most propellants will detonate
when suitably initiated by an explosive source.”
https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/explosives/acquisition-storage-sale/9829 2017
Smokeless Powder is a single-based or double-based colloidal nitrocellulose mixture. These nitrocellulose mixtures are extremely flammable and can deflagrate easily under normal conditions.
Under specific conditions, smokeless powder can detonate.
However,
all the articles and youtubes of smokeless powder detonation require a Detonator; usually Black Powder and/or a commercial Plain Detonator No. 8
SO - as said previously, smokeless shotgun powders CAN, under experimental conditions or with the use of a detonator, be made to detonate.
I have seen no article documenting detonation using shotgun primers or in a shotshell.
As also said previously, anyone is most welcome to post links to articles or references to the contrary.
