Fire Piston Effect

freedom475

New member
After reading the thread about Adams accident. The fire piston was the first thing that I thought of. I see that it was mentioned by the 3rd page but some kept hinting that it was probly a hot coal left in the barrel or static??

Many kind of blew off the idea of a fire piston.... this is VERY REAL and until you have seen one work it is hard to believe. They will fire only compressing the air of a chamber that contains 1/4"x2" of capacity... a 50cal barrel 28 inchs long has a lot of air trapped that has to go somewhere.

Static, from the tests that I have seen, just will NOT light real Black Powder. I know Pyrodex is different but it is even harder to iggnite with flame.

Hot coal is possible but after the aloted time and the fact that the hard pellets went in first... Highly Unlikely that this was the case.

This leaves only the Fire Piston effect....

I make fire pistons and after seeing the first one light up, with very little effort, I immediately thought of my Muzzleloaders and have been much more careful how fast I ram my ball/boolits down now. It is highly possible that in-lines would be more effected by this simply because the vent hole is in the middle and the hard pellets and plastic sabots a lot of guys use would just help to seal the bore even that much more.

I hope this info helps someone and be careful out there guys...

And always think FIRE PISTON
 
FWIW, I agree completely. It's very likely the Adams incident was due to a compression ignition and not the hot ember many were considering. And it was certainly not static electricity.
 
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