Náboje - výmetná náplň

Cartridges - ejection cartridge.


For a very long time, black powder was used as an ejection charge in firearms, even as far back as the early days of the first uniform metallic cartridges in the late 19th century. Black powder is a mixture of potassium ledge, sulphur and charcoal. The properties of black powder can be influenced by the ratio of the components, the grain size and to some extent the type of charcoal. Black powder is still used today, e.g. as an ammunition for signal cartridges or for firing historical weapons or their replicas, for the production of timing compounds, fuses, etc. Black powder as an ammunition has some negative properties. The powder gets wet very easily, a significant proportion of solids remains in the gun after firing, and it has a relatively low power, and these were the main reasons for the search for and subsequent introduction of a more suitable ammunition, i.e. semi-smoke and later smokeless powder.


Modern smokeless powders may be broadly divided into nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine, according to the method of manufacture. The properties of these powders can be influenced in many ways, according to the requirements of their use. Obviously, powder for the 6.35 Browning cartridge should have different properties than powder for the 700 Nitro Express cartridge, not to mention the large (cannon) caliber cartridges. The size, shape, porosity, and additional treatments (smoothing, graphitizing, phlegmatizing, etc.) of the powder grains are factors that affect their burn rate and thus suitability for use in different cartridges. Smokeless powders may be plate, strip, tube, roller, seven-hole, or the powder grains may have some other shapes. Powder for short gun cartridges should burn quickly to make the best use of its energy potential before the bullet leaves the barrel; for hunting cartridges with heavier bullets and in longer barrels, slower burning powder is used. Powder burn rate significantly affects internal ballistics, which is well known by those who reload bullets for their own use. For home reloading needs, there are a considerable number of foreign and domestic smokeless powders on the market in addition to other components.


There are many physical and explosive properties of the powder that are taken into account when selecting it for a given cartridge. I will mention at least a few for all of them:
The heat of explosion represents the amount of heat energy released by the combustion of 1 kg of ammunition under defined conditions.
The explosion temperature determines the rate of burning at pressures above 100 MPa.
The specific volume of gases is the volume occupied by the gases produced by the combustion of 1 kg of ammunition.
Specific gravity is the mass of 1 cubic cm of ammunition.
Chemical stability A stabiliser, usually diphenylamine or centralite, is added to the powder to ensure chemical stability. Chemical instability in the early days of smokeless powder production was the cause of several major accidents where large quantities of ammunition exploded unexpectedly.


It is beyond the scope of this brief introduction to the rather complex subject of gunpowder use and production to list other criteria and to elaborate on the requirements of modern powders and production processes. Perhaps worthy of mention is the area of caseless ammunition, where the combustible primer, the type of powder, the binder for the actual powder grains, the final shape, and several other important required characteristics had to be resolved. The advantages of this ammunition are obvious, the gun is simpler, lighter, and so are the bullets, which are lighter and cheaper. But, like the electrically fired cartridge, rimless cartridges have not made any inroads and are almost exclusively used with conventional cartridges as we know them from the second half of the 19th century.


Ivo Caras, Vladislav Badalík "Ammunition for small arms" Ars-Arm Prague 1995
URL : https://www.valka.cz/Naboje-vymetna-napln-t114882#399759 Version : 0
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