Regarding primers…

…and getting testy;
There is total energy, and then there is peak power, time to peak power (which in audio circuitry we referred to as “rise time”) and duration of peak or near peak power. So you’d likely want to be able to graph it as power over time, to “really know” what’s happening. Point being of course that total energy would be somewhat inconsequential unless the power were up to a certain level for a certain period.

But maybe you got it just like that already. If so, carry on. Don’t mind me sitting in the corner and muttering.

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4 thoughts on “Regarding primers…

  1. Yes, and there is equipment that lets you capture that information. Strange equipment.
    I remember a box of ammo I bought recently (Speer?) that was labeled as optimized for short barrel handguns. In other words, rise time matters, and it’s a design parameter for ammo.

    • Fast powder for a short barrel. I like a load of 2400 in my 357 cases under a 125 grain bullet. Moves them right along with a MV of about 2150 fps in the lever action. In the 6″ revolver, the blast is nice and thumpy, and it tries to flambé the guy standing next to me. If you can’t shoot them all, you can sure do your best to impress the hell out of ’em. Might make ’em feel unlucky. Of all the guns and loads I shoot, that one gets asked about the most.

      • “If you can’t shoot them all, you can sure do your best to impress the hell out of ‘em.”

        THAT is a great quote, and one I will never forget. Is that yours or George Patton’s?

  2. In the context of our primer tests we are attempting to determine if common contaminants could cause a failure to fire as well as whether one could make a primer dead for safe removal.

    These are different questions than, “Do contaminants affect the properties of a primer?” The obvious answer to this last question is, “Yes!”. Just a small amount of liquid is going to cause a dramatic change. That liquid will need to be vaporized, and perhaps ionized, by the energy of the primer detonation before there is any hope of igniting the propellant charge. There will be dramatic time delays as well as temperature reductions as a result.

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