Gun cotton instead of smokeless

I think this was tried back in the 19th century during the development of smokeless powder. Too explosive.

I was cruising the internet when I had an interesting idea. Can gun cotton be used as a substitute for smokeless powder? As I understand it, smokeless is just nitrocellulose with some added fire retardants. ---- If a very high quality gun cotton could be obtained, could one run a semi-auto gun off of it? I don't know as I would ever try this out, but it would be interesting.

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Guncotton was used as an explosive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrocellulose

This is worth reading:

Propellants: Smokeless Powders

http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/2010/06/propellants-smokeless-powders.html

As said before, guncotton has too fast a burn rate and it is unstable, which means it deteriorates to a dangerous condition quickly.

It sounds "exciting"

I've been known to try almost anything once, but it's generally for the purpose of solving one problem or another. Just lately I've been finding out that if recommended practices accomplish an objective safely, it's smartest to comply (boring is better).

Unstable, uncontrolled burning rate, deteriorates quickly, explosive, and the early nitrocellulose powders were wildly corrosive and erosive. I'm in, but we will have to use your guns. I , uh, loaned all mine out or they're at the cleaners. Read about cordite sometime!

Nitroguanidine

Gun cotton is like cordite, a waystation on the development of stable, safe nitro gunpowders.

Gun cotton and cordite have some serious, long term stability problems. I would not think of them as a viable substitute.

Stuff a cartridge full and let us know the results.

The Firearms History link in post no 4 covers it pretty well for one page.
If you want detail, see if you can find a copy of Phil Sharpe's Complete Guide to Handloading in the 1953 revision. It covers manufacture of IMR and Ball powder in WWII in some detail.

Back in the day of the Survivalists - who appeared to be preparing to live by banditry and brigandage after widespread disaster, unlike most of the milder mannered 21st century Preppers - one of the many nutso publications included "Poor Man's C-4", which was a DIY for guncotton.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/lab/fo...ations/fsc/april2002/mccord.htm#disablemobile

Does anyone know what type of stabilizers are used with regular smokeless powder? What about substances to make it burn slower?

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And https://www.hodgdon.com/msds.html The MSDS list additives.

I made gun cotton once in high school chemistry.

(Unbeknownst to the teacher.)

All went well, right up to the part about drying it after washing all the nitric acid out of it several times.

Then, I laid it out on top af a steam radiator to dry.

And it blew up about 15 minutes later.

No damage done, as it was not confined.

IMO: Too dangerous and unstable to mess with if you aren't backed into a corner by an opposing army with nothing but your cotton shorts and nitric acid.

rc

What others have said about gun cotton (nitrocellulose) being "too explosive".

Gun cotton, by itself, is not a safe straight-up substitute for gunpowder. Gunpowder, in fact, is a nitrocellulose based propellant. It's essentially dissolved in organic solvents, which evaporate away to form a nitrocellulose based plastic material. This is then rolled into sheets and cut up into the various flakes of different kinds of powders.

The type of gunpowder being made is based on what organic solvents, and other chemicals, are used in the formation of this hard plastic material.


So the answer to your question is a bit more complex:

No, gun cotton by itself isn't a suitable propellent for firearms.

Yes, gun cotton forms the foundation for modern smokeless gunpowders.


Here's a good read on the subject:

http://www.aeragon.com/o/me/ni.html

Hypothetical situation here, but what if we all used flash paper(you see magicians and the like using this).

Different colored papers for different burn rates
Instead of kegs of powder, we buy reams of paper
Instead of 5.0gr bullseye for a 230gr 45 it is 1 cubic inch of white paper
We use paper cutters to trim our charges in bulk instead of powder measures

Imagine the possibilities.

Well, Cordite loads were specified by the number of strands in the "rope" and the length of rope to the 20th of an inch.

I don't think sheets of propellant will work too well in a progressive loader, though.

Ballistite and some other European propellants were made as "cut sheet" powder, though. Think of a crosscut document shredder.

I found this interesting, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ5q9G1lHUc

I witnessed a demonstration on the making of industrial explosives 45 years ago from an acquaintance who designed them for special applications. It was interesting:

He had a blue plastic cylinder about 6" diameter and 12" long to when he poured in cordite. It was white plastic-like rods not unlike the IMR powders in shape, but way bigger...1/4" diameter by 1" long grains. (as I remember).

He filled the tube with a measured amount, then poured a secret proprietary goo into the cylinder until it filled it, capped it off with a cap that had a blasting cap recess.

Then we walked over to a pond on the test site, he pushed in an electric blasting cap, added electrical lead, and heaved the contraption out into the center of the pond. We walked over to the "hide" where the plunger was, and detonated it. Wow! Huge Geyser 100 feet high, 10 feet wide.

Don't think I want to try cordite in my rifle!! The object of the exercise was to find the exact combination of the two ingredients, to make it so there was ZERO trace of the blue plastic container....even a tiny blue remnant the size of a rifle primer meant "back to the drawing board" for him. So we walked around the pond in widening circles looking for blue specks.......never saw a trace.

To think that they dumped large bags of cordite into the breech of big naval guns!

That video was cute but did not mention or show that nitrocellulose is impact sensitive when dry. Whack it with a hammer and it would have gotten more exciting than when lit with a match. Not to mention cap sensitive, if you have a blasting cap.
When guncotton was used for mining, etc., it was usual to make the main charge up with wet guncotton which is much less sensitive and set it off with a small amount of dry guncotton.

The British developed cordite for demolitions and rocket fuel as well as rifle propellant.
It is hot stuff.

There was a period when .458 Win was considered underloaded, about the time they shortened the barrel of the Model 70 African, which made it worse. Less than 2000 fps is not what you want for dangerous game. Some of the few handloaders in Africa found that they could pull down .303 for the Cordite and load .458 with it. A judicious number of strands and they got the .458 up to .450 Nitro ballistics.