[Dave A]

Does any one have a good method of producing colored smoke? The reason I ask is that the Boy Scout camp my son attends hosts an event called RAMS Rifle, Archery, Muzzleloading, Shotgun. This is a cool program open to Scouts aged 14 and older who are interested in obtaining shooting sorts merit badges or who simply enjoy a week of shooting fun.
Among the things they do is the flag ceremony for striking the colores at the end of the day. This is accompanied by a rifle salute. It would be cool to be able to produce red, white, and blue smoke but this is a difficult task to pull off. White smoke is no problem but the other colors are proving difficult to produce. Among the things tried have been carpenters stringline chalk and and the pulverized innards of the little smoke ball fire works. In both cases the white smoke from the powder charge overwhelms the coloring agent. Any suggestions wil be most welcome.:confused:

[HUnter58]

I don't if this willn help or not.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/firecombustionchemistry/a/coloredsmoke.htm

[highorder]

how much volume do you need? those little colored balls are quite effective daidy chained together by the half dozen.

[ATAShooter]

We did it with inlines at a trapshoot one time for colors ....
Grind up the big sticks of sidewalk chalk ( colors you need ) into a fine powder,

50gr of 777 then use a 50 cal felt wad, Use your powder measure and use chalk powder up to the 100gr line, then top off with another felt wad. Pack VERY lightly. Makes a nice colored cloud.

[JCT]

You can buy kits for colored smoke at www.firefox-fx.com
You need potassium chlorate and organic dyes. I remember something about burn rate modifiers to cool the reaction which makes a richer color, I think people use baking soda here.
I'd hate to burn chlorate in a gun though, it's very corrosive to metal. You might post this question at the rec.pyrotechnics google group. Everyone there knows all about colored smokes!

[ArmedBear]

Hmmm...

I wonder about just putting colored chalk dust in a smokeless 12 Gauge shell...

Is a shotgun salute acceptable, or does it really have to be a rifle?

[ATAShooter]

Never tried the shotshell one....

[Pulp]

I've done both blue and red straight line chalk in shotgun, the red works better than the blue, but I shoot BP in shotgun, so the BP smoke kinda overrides the chalk dust.
Some folks over in SASS suggest the powdered cement dyes. But they also say it is VERY messy and gets all over your loading bench.

[ArmedBear]

Yeah, I'd shoot smokeless powder in the shotgun, for two reasons:

1. It won't obscure the chalk dust (or whatever).
2. You don't have to clean the shotgun after the evening flag salute.