Old CW4
BANNED
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2006
- Messages
- 870
For those of you who are not model airplane or helicopter buffs, a glowplug is a neat little item that looks something like a miniature auto sparkplug. A standard glowplug uses a 1.5 volt battery to 'light' it. To start a model engine, the contact for the glowplug to its battery is made and the plug very quickly (a millisecond or so) glows red. You spin the motor by whatever means and as soon as it starts, the battery circuit to the glowplug is disconnected and the plug stays hot from the burning fuel.
Quite a few years back, I was suddenly hit with the bright idea of using a glowplug to fire a muzzle loader rather than percussion caps. Why not? The glowplugs take a compression ratio of 20 to one or more and survive for a long time in nitro-methane fuel mixtures. I made up a couple of 50 cal pistols on my lathe/mill, one brass, one steel, and drilled and tapped them for glowplugs rather than cap nipples. Hey! They work great and I can use one (1) AA rechargeable cell and a microswitch to replace all the lockwork, trigger, etc. I've fired the brass 50 pistol more than 60 times with pyrodex and the plug keeps right on working. I made a third muzzle loader with the glowplug centered at the back of the barrel. However, I didn't like looking right at the tip of the plug to fire so I threaded the outer diameter of the barrel and machined a big cap to screw on over the plug, with a hole in it for the one contact wire. So, like the first two pistols, the hole in the cap will deflect the blast to the side in the (unlikely) event the glowplug totally fails. I wrote up the plans for this and sold them in an ad in Guns and Ammo at the time and now here's the basic idea for free.
As a long term survival item should the world as we know it comes to an end, a simple means of igniting a muzzle loader using long-lived glowplugs and easily rechargeable batteries could be an ace in the hole. If/when conditions warrant, I can manufacture powder (propellents) from a variety of easily obtained substances, sulphur, saltpeter, and charcoal being some of the easiest to come up with to make black powder.
Other advantages of the glowplug and switch ignation method are the ability to have the switch, the trigger, anywhere you like, even in the form of a foot pedal, in your other hand, mouth, or wherever, and microswitches can be extremely sensitive which equates to a 'trigger pull' of ounces if you like while adding a positive slide or flip switch in line to act as a safety.
I make no claims as to the ultimate safety of the glowplug method and assume anyone trying this will exercise caution and common sense. So, if you blow some part of your body off it's your problem and not mine. However, as stated above, the plugs are very strong and I've never had a problem while sticking to reasonable powder charges.
Quite a few years back, I was suddenly hit with the bright idea of using a glowplug to fire a muzzle loader rather than percussion caps. Why not? The glowplugs take a compression ratio of 20 to one or more and survive for a long time in nitro-methane fuel mixtures. I made up a couple of 50 cal pistols on my lathe/mill, one brass, one steel, and drilled and tapped them for glowplugs rather than cap nipples. Hey! They work great and I can use one (1) AA rechargeable cell and a microswitch to replace all the lockwork, trigger, etc. I've fired the brass 50 pistol more than 60 times with pyrodex and the plug keeps right on working. I made a third muzzle loader with the glowplug centered at the back of the barrel. However, I didn't like looking right at the tip of the plug to fire so I threaded the outer diameter of the barrel and machined a big cap to screw on over the plug, with a hole in it for the one contact wire. So, like the first two pistols, the hole in the cap will deflect the blast to the side in the (unlikely) event the glowplug totally fails. I wrote up the plans for this and sold them in an ad in Guns and Ammo at the time and now here's the basic idea for free.
As a long term survival item should the world as we know it comes to an end, a simple means of igniting a muzzle loader using long-lived glowplugs and easily rechargeable batteries could be an ace in the hole. If/when conditions warrant, I can manufacture powder (propellents) from a variety of easily obtained substances, sulphur, saltpeter, and charcoal being some of the easiest to come up with to make black powder.
Other advantages of the glowplug and switch ignation method are the ability to have the switch, the trigger, anywhere you like, even in the form of a foot pedal, in your other hand, mouth, or wherever, and microswitches can be extremely sensitive which equates to a 'trigger pull' of ounces if you like while adding a positive slide or flip switch in line to act as a safety.
I make no claims as to the ultimate safety of the glowplug method and assume anyone trying this will exercise caution and common sense. So, if you blow some part of your body off it's your problem and not mine. However, as stated above, the plugs are very strong and I've never had a problem while sticking to reasonable powder charges.
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