How safe it is to electrify a live ammo?

fiddler said:
Are you for real? When you blow yourself up, you make all us firearm owners look bad. I don't know how you got your firearms license, but it was obviously a stupid mistake.
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Anything this guy does will not reflect on me. Or you. Just as Wrong Way says.
Forcing people to get government permission in the form of a "firearms license" is the obviously stupid mistake.

To the OP: you can include a live round of ammo in a circuit and nothing will happen, unless somehow you can create high resistance through said cartridge. At which point, if it got hot enough, the powder/primer would self ignite.

Doesn't sound like a ground breaking, interesting experiment to me.
 
I would strongly advise against doing this, however, may you decide to do it anyway, please post the video on here. lol!
 
Be sure to hold onto both ends of the wire tightly. There's no way electricity is going to do anything to an FMJ to make it an SP. Geezuz!
 
Wrong Way said:
Just like people look at me, as a driver, with scorn because some other guy drove drunk? Lighten up man...seriously.

OP: Nothing will likely come from the current itself, but set up properly the current passing through the round will cause it to get hot enough for ignition.
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Are you for real? :) All of the bedwetting hipsters and handwringing cityiots don't call for car band whenever there's ANY kind of car accident :S
 
sunray said:
Be sure to hold onto both ends of the wire tightly. There's no way electricity is going to do anything to an FMJ to make it an SP. Geezuz!
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He's talking about electrolysis. (I believe that's the correct term).

Basically you make a salt water bath (liquid conductor) and connect one DC side to the item to be stripped and put the other in the liquid. Any part of the object to be stripped that is placed in the bath ends up having material removed or deposited on it depending on how you hook it up. I'm a little fuzzy on it because it's been a while since I've done it. When I was doing it, it was to strip chrome, nickel and copper off plastic automotive parts.

So yes, there is a way that electricity is going to make an FMJ into a SP... provided the jacket is all copper, that's exactly what it'll do.

GEEZUZ! :p

I will say, however, that the OP is making this much more complicated, possibly dangerous and messy than it needs to be. In the end, the results still may not be great. Get a cheap reloading press and buy a box of purpose built soft points and do some Mexican match.

I recently did this with some norinco 7.62x39, and I didn't bother equalizing the powder charges because I found them to chrony quite consistently anyway. Loaded in some 123 gr V-Max, did 200 rounds quite quickly. Might do some more with PRVI soft points for hunting with my SKS.
 
liberal-hater said:
Anything this guy does will not reflect on me. Or you. Just as Wrong Way says.
Forcing people to get government permission in the form of a "firearms license" is the obviously stupid mistake.

To the OP: you can include a live round of ammo in a circuit and nothing will happen, unless somehow you can create high resistance through said cartridge. At which point, if it got hot enough, the powder/primer would self ignite.
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Yes, it will reflect on you when you tell the OP that putting a live round of ammo in a 12VDC circuit won't do anything. That will depend highly on the resistance values of the conductors used to place the round into the circuit. It will also depend highly on what round is used. For example... what if it's steel cased? OOOOOOOOOPS!!! Lots of advice being thrown around here, with little to no details.

The OP isn't even talking about just connecting straight up 12vdc to a round, he's talking about submerging the tip in an electrolysis bath, which won't even apply electricity to any ignitable part of the round.
 
If you decide to do this, please have your next of kin post the video to YouTube.....



bazooka.jpg
 
apart from the fact the OP would not be able to control which metals flow which way without a Major outlay of cash (think probably $10k plus.), as soon as some of the copper material is gone the projectile will become loose in the case and either fall out or allow the electrolyte bath to enter the cartridge--not so good for powder and primer. Results could be observed by hanging the round in a container of brine with a stainless bolt also suspended in the brine, and then immerse a length of extension cord with current running thru it (from outlet to perhaps a clock, this will set up an induction field) and wait. This will turn the round into a sacrificial anode. Electrolysis will occur. The results will not meet expectations
 
householdreg said:
I'm newbie, I want run a experiment related to electrify a live ammo, I want to know if it is safe to do so.:evil:

Want to try around 12V DC.

Let me refine my question, I have some Czech surplus 7.62x39. I want to sink one of the live ammos, only sink the tip of bullet head into home made salt water as positive pole; use pencil as negative pole, apply some current from some DC source, maybe from a old school adapter for phone. The copper will be removed from the tip and FMJ-NonFMJ mission accomplish with almost no cost.

I want to know if it is safe to do so.
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Yes, it should be safe to do this. Make sure you point the tip of the ammo right between your eyes when you hit the light switch.
 
If you like your ears eyes and fingers I suggest not doing that all it takes is a source to light the powder and since it has no were to go it will expand around you making the brass caseing the most dangerous part of the ammo because it breaks into little pieces that go everywhere. So expect some blood if it goes off.
 
Ok, everyone without a degree in science back off. You don't understand $hit so refrain from commenting.

to the OP
Electrolysis will only remove one metal. if the bullet is composite you'd need many electrolytes.
It's easier to go with corrosion baths. Like ammonia for copper, acid for steel. It'll work just the same.
The engineering challenge here is to have a device that reliable dips the tip of every bullet the same depth into the "soup".
 
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legi0n said:
Ok, everyone without a degree in science back off. You don't understand $hit so refrain from commenting.

to the OP
Electrolysis will only remove one metal. if the bullet is composite you'd need many electrolytes.
It's easier to go with corrosion baths. Like ammonia for copper, acid for steel. It'll work just the same.
The engineering challenge here is to have a device that reliable dips the tip of every bullet the same depth into the "soup".
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Applying chemical and scientific processes to modify an FMJ into a SP are pointless... because an FMJ isn't just a SP with a closed tip! But I guess I needed a degree to figure that out. LOL :p

Stop thinking cheap. The cheap man pays his cheap price twice. Sometimes more, if his hair-brained schemes go awry and damage his health and property. And all this to save what? 25 cents a round? Please.

Even buying an economy single stage reloading press and a set of dies, princess auto side cutters and a couple of boxes of real soft points will yield far better results and take up less space and involve less hassle than devising an electrolysis setup, or corrosion bath. Besides, what do you propose to do with the remaining chemical/metallic "soup" as you put it? What do you need to buy to make a rig to reliably hold the cartridges in the electrolyte/corrosive bath? Think it through. Consider the cost of the WHOLE rig one way, and then consider the cost of doing it mechanically. Then consider the results. You'll come to a reasonable conclusion. Then consider the fact that the mechanical way includes a reloading press that you can use for other calibres and a set of dies that you can use for stand-alone brass case reloading for this calibre (which you still haven't specified).

I applaud you for thinking outside the box, but the fact remains: FMJ isn't a SP with a closed tip that you can just open up and expect it to function as such.
 
nullshine said:
Applying chemical and scientific processes to modify an FMJ into a SP are pointless... because an FMJ isn't just a SP with a closed tip! But I guess I needed a degree to figure that out. LOL :p
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...and yes, you do need a certain kind of degree to comment on the issue.
With people like you we'd still be in the stone age.
Let the guy experiment. Maybe he'll come up with something out of the ordinary.
 
Goddamn this thread is full of fail.

Chem PhD and ex-professor here.

You do not need multiple electrolytes. DC power source, positive to the ammo, negative to whatever the counter electrode is, as long as it conducts, it is fine. Like a nail or piece of pipe. whatever. The only safety concern is the resistance heating of the ammo. This could be an issue as if you want to remove the metals from the tip, you need decent currents. So you would not want to connect the positive to the primer or base of the case, which is more difficult anyway because it is painted. So just alligator clip to the projectile right before the case. You only want the tip submerged to dissolve it anyway. Copper is a better conductor than the steel case, the area being heated is mostly the bullet, which luckily is partly submerged in a heatsink (water) so the chance of the propellant or primer heating enough for ignition is low. (all the same, first time turn on remotely and wait, as well as using a low-current power source). Current can also be controlled by electrode spacing, the closer bullet and other electrode are together, the lower the resistance of the solution, and the higher the current.

In terms of electrolyte, your counter electrode will be producing hydroxide ions which will precipitate copper or iron ions from solution, potentially passivising the bullet and ending the process. You will want something acidic like diluted HCl (muriatic acid from the hardware store) to avoid this.

Now, as the process continues, stuff gets complicated. The bullet is a non-symmetrical electrode, so current densities are higher at points and edges. The very tip will be dissolved first, and you will see blue coming off of it from copper ions in solution. Once the copper is through, the iron core of the surplus ammo is shown. Iron likes to lose electrons more than copper so once the copper is breached the iron core will be removed leaving a copper shell. When all iron in range of electrolyte is consumed, copper will be dissolved off again. It will stop itself once the electrolyte is no longer in contact with the ammo.

Of course, set it up, turn it on remotely for a couple hours, and come back later. The chance of heating it up to ignition temp is low but high enough to warrant a couple precautions.
 
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