pyrochris

All of my aluminum containing stars are very soft and crumple easily, even after a week. I am using dextrin as a binder.

Why Oh Why?

Thanks

Given a FIXED shell size and mortar size, and lift charge, is there a way to SAFELY reduce the muzzle report from an HDPE mortar?

For example, would drilling small holes near the top of the mortar do anything?

The reason why I ask is because I just bought some shells and some mortars. They are supposedly compatible with eachother, but the muzzle report is a *BANG*, whereas I know they should be more of a *THUMP*.

I like the performance of these shells, I've set off 20 of them without problems. But it just seems so unnatural for the muzzle report to be so loud!

I thought about taking some of the lift out of the shells, but I don't want to lose any altitude...

Just so everyone knows, I changed this topic around so it would seem more interesting and bring more people to post! I still have the original text on MS word...

Anyway, I have been using KP to break small shells (2 inch and 1-3/4 inch shells). I don't really want to use H3 in my shells, since I hear it's pretty dangerous and besides, I don't have any potassium chlorate to make it with. Adding flash powder seems to straiten the trajectory of the stars, but at the same time shatters many of them, making the shell look "off"

I was thinking possibly spiking my shells with excessive amounts of twine, but last time I tried that the shell didn't turn out very well either.

I was also thinking that perhaps I need to shorten the time fuse and reduce lift amount to lower the breaking altitude.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any responses.