quad break shells

[Engineer Cat]

I picked up some 1.4 quad break peanut type shells because they were cheap. I have not tested one yet. I like the novelty of them but watching videos of these particular ones they don't seem to go very high which seems unsafe to me. Sometimes when I'm bored I take apart older can shells and sperate the components to make other effects. After I modify them I always bring them to the same weight they were or less and I don't mess with the lift charge. I always put whatever the lift amount that was in the shell originally back in. I haven't had a problem with that.

I'm wondering if I boost the lift charge by a little in these quad break shells if they will go a bit higher safely. One of my concern is they come with their own fiberglass mortar but it seems a bit thin. The shells are to small to put in the mortars I shoot the cans from. My second concern is the possibility of the lift charge being to strong for the time fuse and first shell and it causes the first shell to flowerpot causing a chain reaction with the remaining three shells barley leaving the mortar when they go off.

Curious if anyone else had tried this or if I should just accept that they break at whatever height they break at.

[Greenville Pyro]

I would accept that they are what they are. The fact of the matter is that these shells can still have a max of 60gm. Now factor that into a lift, and 4 separate breaks. You either can have better breaks, but less lift, or more lift and crappy breaks. Altering the lift charge I believe to be unsafe and potentially illegal as now you're adding powder and potentially going over the max. Just my 2c

[PyroJoeNEPA]

The time fuse is a fixed delay which you have no control over, so, even if you added more lift to get them to go higher, the fuse might ignite the burst before you get any additional height out of them....

[Engineer Cat]

The time fuse is a fixed delay which you have no control over, so, even if you added more lift to get them to go higher, the fuse might ignite the burst before you get any additional height out of them....

Thanks Joe, I was thinking that could be a potential problem also.


I would accept that they are what they are. The fact of the matter is that these shells can still have a max of 60gm. Now factor that into a lift, and 4 separate breaks. You either can have better breaks, but less lift, or more lift and crappy breaks. Altering the lift charge I believe to be unsafe and potentially illegal as now you're adding powder and potentially going over the max. Just my 2c

Thanks for the info. I agree the best option is to just shoot them as they are.

[Arclight]

I've messed around with the lift charge a bit reloading 26.5mm flares. You can get more velocity out of a shell, but you also raise the pressure in the tube and risk having the shell break up in flight or otherwise fail. You might also need a longer tube to really take advantage of the extra powder vs. just making a bigger muzzle flash.

If you are shooting from a safe distance, I don't think it would hurt to try some variations. Just assume that a failure is more likely.

[Engineer Cat]

Just to follow up I got a chance to shoot the quad shell over the weekend and it went higher than I was expecting. It just goes to show you can't always rely on what you see. For all I know they could of shot that shell out of a tube they shoot excals out of which is to big for these shells.