Demolition Ranch puts some science on it:
My first experience with magnesium was when I had one of those fire starters when I was in grade 9. I brought it over to my friends house where we spent like 30minutes making a big pile about twice that size on his math textbook. We then sparked it, thinking it would be kind of boring… nope… huge flash, lots of smoke and a big hole in his textbook.
4:52 – Honestly I had no idea those 5 things on the Demolition Ranch shirt he always wears are all shotgun shells. I guess it makes sense in hindsight, but they definitely could use some more detail.
Thoughts? Anything else besides magnesium that looks cool loaded in a shotgun shell?
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3 responses to “Magnesium Shotgun Load”
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The amount of smoke generated by the magnesium doesn’t look much different from a black powder shot gun shell, but I bet that flash would look good during a night shoot.
Other things you can add are, powdered aluminum, steel shavings, steel wool, aluminum shavings, titanium…..just about anything. Really no different from fireworks, but expect 4th of July type displays.
Just need to be careful about generating too much pressure in the chamber, which can exceed spec’s, powdered aluminum creates a massive flash (light camera bulbs) but acts like rocket fuel, which can increase pressure and temperatures to no fun levels…..as for damage to the barrel? I’ve never noticed anything. But that’s just me.
There’s a reason we initiate thermite reactions with magnesium. They used to use magnesium strips in disposable flash bulbs for cameras, too, back in the stone age, when everything was in black and white.