The subject of static igniting black powder came up on a recent thread. Some of the discussion involved this link:
http://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/mlexperiments/sparks/sparks.html
I decided to give it a go myself yesterday. I used about 15 grains of fffg Goex, an electric fence charger (puts out at least 5-7 kvolts). Leads were #12 solid copper wire. The black lead was against the work bench and the white lead was just above it about a 1/2". I smothered the end of the black lead with the BP so that it was totally covered then I energized the charger. Used an insulated screwdriver to force the white lead down to make contact. A 2 second arc and no ignition. Then I just let it arc for a solid minute. Nothing exept a teeny little vapor that was barely visible. Now bear in mind that my electrical source is a lot "hotter" than the one used in the link above. Judging by his photos and the arcs, his has got to be a lot higher voltage. He says his is 10kv. My fence charger puts out a lower voltage and higher current. It'c called a "weed burner" type charger and puts out a continuous charge. It's designed to provide enough current to kill weeds that grow up to the hot wire and to keep it clear.
My charger is AC. Static is DC. That might make some difference, but I personally doubt it. The only way to test DC would be with the use of a Vandegraf generator. I don't have one of those. I'm not saying to not take care while handling BP, but this quite interesting.
http://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/mlexperiments/sparks/sparks.html
I decided to give it a go myself yesterday. I used about 15 grains of fffg Goex, an electric fence charger (puts out at least 5-7 kvolts). Leads were #12 solid copper wire. The black lead was against the work bench and the white lead was just above it about a 1/2". I smothered the end of the black lead with the BP so that it was totally covered then I energized the charger. Used an insulated screwdriver to force the white lead down to make contact. A 2 second arc and no ignition. Then I just let it arc for a solid minute. Nothing exept a teeny little vapor that was barely visible. Now bear in mind that my electrical source is a lot "hotter" than the one used in the link above. Judging by his photos and the arcs, his has got to be a lot higher voltage. He says his is 10kv. My fence charger puts out a lower voltage and higher current. It'c called a "weed burner" type charger and puts out a continuous charge. It's designed to provide enough current to kill weeds that grow up to the hot wire and to keep it clear.
My charger is AC. Static is DC. That might make some difference, but I personally doubt it. The only way to test DC would be with the use of a Vandegraf generator. I don't have one of those. I'm not saying to not take care while handling BP, but this quite interesting.