Stars blew blind

[swervedriver]

Maybe someone with more experience than I can look at this and let me know what I did wrong. I used 1.5g 7/3 flash dumped over meal covered grass seed. I think I see the bp prime layer taking fire, but I'm not sure. Maybe I need to use a rougher "green meal" prime? The hot prime under the bp is "veline style prime". I did a star gun test first, they work that way, which leads me to think I blew the stars apart, or burst to fast and hard, to much fp boost maybe. thanks

 

3" stars blew blind

[Richtee]

Kinda what it looks like eh... looks like the prime went, but the stars "blew out"?

[TheSidewinder]

Agreed, it looks like the prime ignited but didn't passfire to the comp. Are you certain that they were completely dry??

[swervedriver]

thanks guys, merry christmas. I can't tell if that is the stars taking fire and blowing out before lighting the hot prime, or if that is just the bp coated grass seed flying out. They are bone dry and they light and burn fine on the ground and from a star gun. maybe I should fire them harder from the star gun and see what they do?

[TheSidewinder]

Yeah, fire them hard from a star gun and see what happens. If they go blind, try step-priming the next batch.

[qwezxc12]

thanks guys, merry christmas. I can't tell if that is the stars taking fire and blowing out before lighting the hot prime, or if that is just the bp coated grass seed flying out. They are bone dry and they light and burn fine on the ground and from a star gun. maybe I should fire them harder from the star gun and see what they do?

 

My $.02 - the stars look like they burnt the prime off, but didn't ignite. Which 'prime' is actually lighting - just the BP or the BP & Veline is unclear, but that definitely doesn't look like the burst carrier flying out - it would have been consumed *before* the shell broke, right? I attached a similar example - a 6in I made where the prime took fire, but the stars didn't ignite - not because they were damp, but because I f**ked the formula up with an untested substitution

 

Everyone made good suggestions - if you've already made sure the stars are dry, then check that your meal prime is igniting the veline prime with a stargun test.

[hst45]

From my experience blue stars are notoriously harder to ignite than most colors so good hot primes are needed. I've had the same experience, where the stargun tests lights but the shell blows blind. A hard break doesn't give as much time for the prime to light as the long time in the barrel of the stargun. It looks like your prime lit, so this doesn't seem to be your issue with this shell. I'd try a "softer" break such as whistle mix.

 

As another idea you might try 2" shells as a test bed for new comps. I know that some members don't like these tiny shells as they seem somewhat harder to build, but for me the utilization of comps makes up for it. As size goes up the volume of material goes up exponentially so the cost does too. You can make approximately three 2" shells using the same volume of stars as one 3" shell, so you could test three different primes instead of one in a 3" shell. Good luck.

[swervedriver]

Thanks for the help guys. After shooting them hard through the star gun, they didn't take fire at all. So I rolled them in a rough green mix prime, they're working fine now.