hochroter Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 (edited) Sorry if this has been repeated before I tried searching but didn't find my answer. I am finally getting back into this hobby after about a five year absentee and I forgot how much is involved whew! So my buddies and I we have a paintball field and we like to use KNO3/Sugar/NaHCO3 We do the usual mixture cooked down on medium in an electric hotplate until it turns into a peanut butter consistency, load it into the cardboard tube etc... So the question is, instead of cooking down the comp could I just mix the comp dry and perhaps tamp it into the tube and still have the same results? I am noticing the cooked comp burns faster like rocket candy. Again, sorry if this is the wrong section or has been repeated its been a while for me Edited February 6, 2017 by hochroter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Differential Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 There are a lot of posts discussing how to mix R-candy. What you're mixing sounds like a delay mix or a smoke bomb. If you want it to burn faster, omit the baking soda.Use 70/30 KNO3 to sugar, by weight if you're making an end-burner rocket, about 60/40 for a core burner.Melting the ingredients together will give you a faster burn than just mixing and tamping. For a really fast burn, dissolve all the ingredients in hot water, then boil off the water. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 Hochrotor,How you process the material depends on what you're doing with it. Is it just for "smoke grenades"? If so, good, HARD pressing of the well-mixed powders will give you a decent smoke bomb. Lloyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hochroter Posted February 6, 2017 Author Share Posted February 6, 2017 There are a lot of posts discussing how to mix R-candy. What you're mixing sounds like a delay mix or a smoke bomb. If you want it to burn faster, omit the baking soda.Use 70/30 KNO3 to sugar, by weight if you're making an end-burner rocket, about 60/40 for a core burner.Melting the ingredients together will give you a faster burn than just mixing and tamping. For a really fast burn, dissolve all the ingredients in hot water, then boil off the water.Yeah sorry I should of clarified what my application was... Smoke bombs for a paintball field added affect Hochrotor,How you process the material depends on what you're doing with it. Is it just for "smoke grenades"? If so, good, HARD pressing of the well-mixed powders will give you a decent smoke bomb. LloydYeah it is just for smoke grenades. So lloyd hard pressing the comp would give better results than cooking it down? Thanks for both of your replies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloyd Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 It depends on what you declare 'better'. It burns faster per gram (but slower per unit volume) when melted. It burns faster per volume when dry-pressed. I'd estimate that a pressed version in the same tube, filled to the same volume, would probably burn up in 2/3 the time of a cast version. (wouldn't be willing to bet money on that figure, though!) Lloyd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hochroter Posted February 6, 2017 Author Share Posted February 6, 2017 It depends on what you declare 'better'. It burns faster per gram (but slower per unit volume) when melted. It burns faster per volume when dry-pressed. I'd estimate that a pressed version in the same tube, filled to the same volume, would probably burn up in 2/3 the time of a cast version. (wouldn't be willing to bet money on that figure, though!) Lloyd A slower burn rate would be better for what we are doing...I will play with this idea in the next coming days thanks lloyd! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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