A little too much lift

[MeowMix]

Anyone else here get a good chuckle out of putting a little too much lift into their guns? For me it was a star gun that I was testing my new pink stars in, and was sorta estimating lift, and my tiny little star shot out of that gun with a muzzle flare of about 6 feet, and around 100 feet up, gave me quite a bit of amusement.

[vinny1892]

Ive done some similar stuff when testing my lift using baseballs. Calculated based on weight and sent it. Then did it again with doubled the ammount round about guess anyways and sent it. I lost sight of it and it was never found agian..

[Sulphurstan]

Meowmix

The following thread had interesting infos, especialy about starguns: Lift charge calculation in NEWBIE QUESTIONS

[MadMat]

There was the time I made my charcoal from wood that was semi-rotted and it made BP that was considerably hotter than what I had been making. I had already made my shells with a previous batch of BP and never tested out my "new" BP and loaded up my lift charges with what I assumed would be the correct amount. The first shell was also the last out of that particular gun as it was blown apart. My shell got a decidedly oval shape to the burst as well, since it was still in rapid ascent when the time fuse set it off. I guess you could consider the whole situation a failure but I get a chuckle when I think of what the expression on my face was when it happened. P.S. It was also the last time I ever used a wound paper gun

Edited May 7, 2018 by MadMat

[vinny1892]

What was the semi rotten wood you used by chance? Ive got some punky willow im going to try out. Edited May 8, 2018 by vinny1892

[MadMat]

It was black willow. I initially used it because the bark came off easily and being a little softer, the wood pieces were easier to cut up into the pieces that fit inside my retort. I have tried other types of wood (sumac, pine and red cedar) and they all made faster BP when the wood was starting to soften up from deterioration.