JavaScript is disabled
Our website requires JavaScript to function properly. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings before proceeding.
This article is fishy. The author wore an ESD strap and had a metal top table. Was the table grounded?

I have static problems with my press, too. My press frame is grounded, but that only helps so much when the static charge is on the plastic tube of the dispenser. I just run a wire to the nearest outlet strip. It's only there to bleed away static charge, not act as a fault ground, so even a weak ground is better than none.

At work my desk chair is on a floor protector, so when I get up and touch something grounded, I get zapped when it's dry. I understand how this stuff works, and part of my work is studying electrostatic discharge and its ignition risk. Static discharge is a really, really hard nut to crack, and we're not the only ones having this problem. Industrial processes of all kinds are threatened by this problem on a regular basis.
 
Post #40 seems to confirm the event as real. If anything on the internet is real. Ground straps on reloading equipment? Is that one of those, "Who knew?" events? This might qualify as a freak accident, I'd say. Never thinking about ignition from static electricity, I've made it a practice over the years to cap the container of powder after I dump some in the measure. Just a habit; did I read about it in one of the many reloading manuals? I don't recall now.

Static electricity, hmmm. This time of year, my cat Jaspurr is fond of laying in front of the wood stove. It gets pretty dry in the house with wood heat; I notice some snapping of static electricity in Jaspurr's fur when I stroke him. I'd better make sure there aren't any kernels of smokeless powder on the rug that the cat is laying on. You never know, he might get all his fur burned off in a similar freak accident.

Relaxing near the wood stove:
a92IJkM.jpg


Now here's some static electricity. Jaspurr got into some polystyrene foam packing material, can't shake it off.
sr3n8TA.jpg
 
Post #40 seems to confirm the event as real. If anything on the internet is real. Ground straps on reloading equipment? Is that one of those, "Who knew?" events? This might qualify as a freak accident, I'd say. Never thinking about ignition from static electricity, I've made it a practice over the years to cap the container of powder after I dump some in the measure. Just a habit; did I read about it in one of the many reloading manuals? I don't recall now.

<<SNIP>>
Now here's some static electricity. Jaspurr got into some polystyrene foam packing material, can't shake it off.
View attachment 440118

Keeping all powder covered unless in active use is a very good decision.
If you pay close attention, you'll often see the powder do little dances or stand up together in addition to the usual sticking to plastic surfaces, which confirms that static charge is affecting them. Your options are many, but the problem is that most of the solutions affect your ability to reload efficiently. Eventually I'm going to try a strip of metal tape down inside my powder reservoir and see what that does.
Static charge is best thought of something that affects the surface of an insulating material, or the entirety of a metal structure. You build up your own charge as well. There's an electric model for that... If everything around you is grounded or has a path to ground, the likely remaining source of static charge is you. I do like the idea of a static wrist strap; I'll have to think about how to incorporate that into my reloading bench.
Static charge inside your powder reservoir comes from the particles moving around and rubbing the plastic body, sort of like the packing peanuts and your cat. The better the insulator, the more charge it can gather and hold. Cat fur sheets are a real thing, sold just for making static, if that's a little weird to you. Soap is conductive just enough that wiping things down with a dryer sheet (antistatic sprays are primarily water and detergent, FYI) is often the trick to preventing charge generation. Wipe your cat down with a dryer sheet and while he'll feel that something's wrong, you get to avoid the arky sparky.
There are really thick books that examine in great detail the amount of electric spark energy that it takes to ignite something, be it powders, jet fuel, food powders, and even metal particles and powders. Heavy stuff, that.

Your cat with the packing peanuts, though, that cracked me right up!
 
One last trip down memory lane.......when we moved from NE PDX (Alameda) to gresham we were "allowed" to shoot bb guns and 22 shorts into hay bales in our backyard..........only "ganstas" are allowed that privilege now in NE PDX

Cigarlvr313, you didn't by chance attend Alameda Grade School. I graduated from Alameda in 1965. I remember most of the Gresham area being farms and picked berries there some summers.
 
My loading area is in the garage attached to the house. It isn't included in the heated area of the home. However, it gets passive heat from the rooms above it. So the humidity at my loading bench is higher than inside the house. I store my powder in a dry, heated area and only move it one container at a time into the garage for active reloading. I stand on rubber anti-fatigue mats for work, so I'm not grounded for reloading purposes. I've only noticed static electricity in my powder measure a couple of times with flake powders; a few flakes didn't want to shake out, clung to the plastic reservoir walls. Never seen the extruded kernels doing the dance in my experience.

We don't hear about many of these static electricity ignition events taking place during handloading, do we? At least I never have before this. I'd like to know stats on it; maybe one of those acceptable risk things due to low frequency. Not acceptable to the guy who gets his eyebrows burned off.

If insurance companies only had more direct knowledge of the activities of their insureds. I've been quizzed by my agent a few times, never about anything connected with handloading. Good thing, maybe. I have a personal articles policy with them that covers my firearms; you'd think they might connect the dots but that hasn't happened. Kinda like legislators considering new anti-gun matters, then don't always know what they are dealing with. A couple of decades ago in the neighborhood where I worked before retirement, there was an old guy who was a gun fancier and reloader. His house caught on fire, lots of fire and drama. There was a significant amount of gunpowder involved. At one point the fire dept. withdrew and let it burn on it's own for a while.

Do you know that some insurance companies send inspectors out from time to time and inspect your property that is covered by them? Once again, it's about risk management. They might see firewood on your property. Then say, "We didn't know you had a wood stove. Who installed it?" (Correct answer: "It was installed professionally"). They might not like wood stacked too close to your building (fire hazard, just like the cedar siding on the building itself). They may cite some other hazards, like trees or other such potential liabilities. They might find open access to a crawl space. Or they might check and see how far your building is from the neatest fire hydrant. Things like that.

I'm not volunteering the cat Jaspurr for fur sheet donation. Color of animal, does it have anything to do with anything? We've had many cats over the years, have found that gray males make the best pets. Jaspurr appears to be Russian Blue mix, not purebred. They are known for higher intelligence and personability. The story has it that Russian Blues first came to America on sailing ships; they were prized for keeping down the rodent population aboard vessels. Notice how rats and mice in nature are gray? There's a reason. Might be the same reason gray cats do well at keeping down rodent populations. I've noticed that Jaspurr is about the same color as an East German Army blanket.

I wonder if those sailing ships with cats aboard had litter boxes.
 
I was an Analytical Chemist for about 7 years. The biggest problem with static electricity was causing drifting with the electronic scales. I put them on a grounding mat attached to a ground lead. This helped, but the biggest static remover was a spray (similar to dryer sheets) that we would apply to the weighing pans, table and scale top and plastic/glass draft shields. Leaving it on for a few seconds and wiping off would solve the problem. This should be done to any plastic or metal - funnels, powder dispensers, scale top, table top, etc. You just need to wipe the outside or top of table for it to work. I can't remember the name, but several companies sell the solution. It can also be applied to clothing.

I still have several liters from work. I have even used it on my nitrile and latex gloves. I laugh at the people that complain about their electronic scales that won't hold zero and "float" and they blame the scale. Static straps work OK, but I wouldn't trust them completely and are kind of a pain. Cotton clothes are best for anti-static and keeps radioactive Radon from sticking to you.
 
Another, "I didn't know that," that the electronic scales were affected by static electricity.
Rub a piece of plastic on a synthetic rug or clothing and slowly move it toward the scale plate. The scale will start to read even though you have not added any weight. The more sensitive the scale, the more it will be affected.
 
I use dryer sheets on my powder columns. I also place a dryer sheet directly under my precision electronic scale.
 
This article is fishy. The author wore an ESD strap and had a metal top table. Was the table grounded?

This article is not fishy... it is fictitious!

Please read this article then evaluate the claims of setting off smokeless powder with a static electric spark:
The Electrical Ignition of Gunpowder

I remember reading this article a while ago because I was interested in doing exactly what the articles author wanted to do, set off a charge of smokeless powder electrically. The author of this article was not able to ignite smokeless powder with a taser held in the powder and sparking it repeatedly! Even if the unfortunate sole that set off the powder on his reloading bench with a static shock was using black powder (for some reason) black powder re-loaders use pyrodex these days, a synthetic powder that has similar ignition properties to synthetic smokeless powders and also will not ignite with a mere static spark.

I will cast further doubt on the claim that a static spark set off a metal tray full of smokeless powder and the gentleman suffered awful burn injuries to his hand... and the side of his face... in that every kid that has ever lit off a smokeless powder in an unconstrained pile knows smokeless powder simply does not burn that fast! After holding your lighter flame on the smokeless powder pile for 30 seconds to induce enough heat to ignite the powder the pile of unconstrained powder actually burns pretty slow giving the teen age boys reflexes plenty of time to jerk the hand away from the burning powder leaving a painful but small and relatively mild burn on his thumb as a memento of his shenanigans.

The further claim that that the powder in the tray set off additional powder in an open bottle causing burns on the side of the face is even more far fetched. If the powder in the bottle actually did ignite from the burning powder in the pan it would not have done so instantly. Maybe the author of the accident article was thinking he was talking about a substance like "flash powder" used in photography in ancient times... which burns faster and ignites easier than smokeless powder but also does not burn all that fast.

I will purpose that if I was working with highly volatile chemicals, like ether or something, trying to make something that I shouldn't be making and the ether fumes went off severally burning my hand and face what I would do is tell the ER doctor that the burns were caused by a reloading accident... which on the surface sounds pretty plausible... if you have never worked around or experimented with smokeless powder!

P.S. I know about a half dozen reloaders of which I have seen their reloading bench... I have NEVER seen ANY sign of a static strap. But the one time the victim forgets to put his strap back on he suffers massive injuries... yeah right!

--Michael... in the VERY dry climate of central Oregon.
 
Last Edited:
This article is not fishy... it is fictitious!

Please read this article then evaluate the claims of setting off smokeless powder with a static electric spark:
The Electrical Ignition of Gunpowder

P.S. I know about a half dozen reloaders of which I have seen their reloading bench... I have NEVER seen ANY sign of a static strap. But the one time the victim forgets to put his strap back on he suffers massive injuries... yeah right!

--Michael... in the VERY dry climate of central Oregon.

Thanks for that article. In my day job, one of the research areas I support studies what it takes to ignite volatiles from various threats, typically electrical discharge primary and secondary events. The lead researcher is slowly putting together what we call his "theory of everything." The current standard in the field is something called MIE, or minimum ignition energy, typically expressed in joules. We all believe that MIE is a gross simplification, but it's been around awhile and it's going to take a whole lot of research to disrupt the existing thinking. His theory relates to energy density, surface area, heat transfer, time, and other variables. I also support electrostatics research, and have learned that a lay person's definition of electrostatic spark energy may be significantly different from mine. There's an electrostatic phenomena called brush discharge, where electrostatic charge that builds up on a large (typically insulated via plastic, anodize, paint, and other stuff) surface from various charging mechanisms. When it discharges, a really, really, large amount of charge dumps in picoseconds, which means the energy is really, really high for a very, very brief period. Does this powerful but brief energy carry the same risk as a slower but equivalent energy discharge from something like a stun gun? Given that the list of variables that is being pondered still hasn't been explored enough, I've chosen to ground my press for two different reasons. One, there needs to be a place for the charge that builds up on my press to go, and I really don't like the effect that the static electricity has on charge volume repeatability, be it a scale or a powder thrower. I don't see the value to strapping myself, but I haven't experimented with the idea either. The risk of ignition, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty low or non-existent, given that there's not a lot of surface areas for the charge to accumulate on. However, the humidity varies for a million different reasons, and so does the ability of charge to store up. I can't ignore the ignition risk, but I'd like to think I understand the mechanism better than most when I say very, very, very few of us as non-professional reloaders, using normal safety procedures, will have enough risk that we need to be concerned.

By the way, you can do your own experiment (you'll find it enlightening) and doesn't require electricity or your valuable powders. All you need is a candle and plain old baking flour. In a safe outdoors place, merely pour the flour over the candle. You'll find that it takes a very narrow band of powder/air mixture to be able to ignite. Too dense and the candle will get doused, but too little powder vs. air and nothing happens either. You can do this with powdered sugar as well, but sugar carries a lot more energy so I don't recommend trying it unless you're better equipped with safety gear. Smokeless powder is similar in its need for the right air/powder distribution, as well as flow rate, particle size, and so on. Thus my thinking that it takes a whole lot of conditions to be just perfect for static to ignite (and SUSTAIN) any kind of gunpowder on your reloading bench, but it's not theoretically impossible.
 
Nothing's impossible. But, all of the way from making my own black powder in the early 50's until now, without ever seeing anything like that, the needle on my my B.S Meter sure is quivering. :rolleyes:
 
Last Edited:

Upcoming Events

Tillamook Gun & Knife Show
Tillamook, OR
"The Original" Kalispell Gun Show
Kalispell, MT
Kids Firearm Safety 2 Class
Springfield, OR
Teen Rifle 1 Class
Springfield, OR

New Resource Reviews

New Classified Ads

Back Top