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I saw a show on one of the cable stations (Discovery Channel?) about explosives. The showed a part in which they were using high explosive for underground hard-rock mining, or maybe just for tunneling.
Your basic drill the holes, wire, cap, andstuff, the charges, then connect everything to the primer cord. Nothing unusual so far.
Then they went outside, and things were different than I expected. They didn't connect wires to an electric detonator. They said they were too dangerous, radio waves, lightning, etc. What they connected to was a device that held a shotgun primer, and a 'hammer/trigger'. When they pulled the 'trigger', the primer fired. Actually they had to do that twice. The first was a dud, but I couldn't tell if the primer misfired; or if it fired, and didn't detonate the explosives.
Now this is the interesting part to me. They just fired that primer down what they called a simple plastic tube. It certainly looked like that.
Now my question. Was that just a hollow tube that carried that charge several hundred feet? That doesn't seem possible. Or does the tube contain some sort material to carry the charge to the blasting cap?
Your basic drill the holes, wire, cap, andstuff, the charges, then connect everything to the primer cord. Nothing unusual so far.
Then they went outside, and things were different than I expected. They didn't connect wires to an electric detonator. They said they were too dangerous, radio waves, lightning, etc. What they connected to was a device that held a shotgun primer, and a 'hammer/trigger'. When they pulled the 'trigger', the primer fired. Actually they had to do that twice. The first was a dud, but I couldn't tell if the primer misfired; or if it fired, and didn't detonate the explosives.
Now this is the interesting part to me. They just fired that primer down what they called a simple plastic tube. It certainly looked like that.
Now my question. Was that just a hollow tube that carried that charge several hundred feet? That doesn't seem possible. Or does the tube contain some sort material to carry the charge to the blasting cap?