Beach Shoot #20 - More 30 mm Mines
Date: 2004-01-24
Description
Simple 30 mm mines, made from a few turns of kraft crimped or choked closed at one end.
The lift, 5 g of -20+40 mesh pulverone, was tipped into the bottom and a two layer disk pushed down over the top.
An unmeasured number of stars was then added and the piped match placed in the middle of the stars with two strands of match reaching out into the stars. Finally the top of the bag was closed around the match pipe and taped in place with masking tape.
Very expedient production methods as an experiment. The mine bag was actually formed on a 25 mm OD shell former. The mine containing blue stars had a choked bottom seal, the d1 glitter device a triangle fold.
Comments
Worked OK.
The blue mine didn't lift very high and the effects landed still burning. I am not really sure why, it wasn't as loud of a lift as the glitter mine, but both contained exactly 5 g of lift. The star mass was about equal as well, but now I really wished I had weighed the stars too. It also went off a little soon, I was only about 5 metres away, quite safe but too close to appreciate the effect. The match pipe was a little short so the fuse was resting on the mortar lip and near vertical, the wind probably blew sparks into the open end of the match pipe skipping a significant amount of the blackmatch.
The glitter mine looked great though!
The only fallout recovered was the bag of the blue mine, which never left the mortar, the top having been blow out cleanly. The glitter mine is assumed to have blown its bag clear, perhaps bursting out the bottom first.
While these are only about 1" mines I would like a slightly higher lift, so some experimentation is required. I think I am experenced enough to try 2" mines now as well.
Attachments
| title | type | size |
|---|---|---|
| Test Video (KP Blue Stars) | video/x-msvideo | 924.552 kbytes |
| Test Video (D1 Glitter Stars) | video/x-msvideo | 793.194 kbytes |
| Pre-Test Picture | image/jpeg | 70.738 kbytes |
| Post-Mortem Picture | image/jpeg | 34.215 kbytes |