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Oxygen...no no in the gun room.
sandwarrior
Member Posts: 5,453 ✭✭✭
bsthedeerhunter,
I don't think something was covered here that needs to be covered. That is that pure (or even better than 90% pure) oxygen has a bad tendency to start oxidizing, and then rapidly oxidize fuel (especially petroleum).
Meaning, mix pure oxygen with any oil (natural case lube included) and you WILL have a fire. Without any source of flame to get it going either.
Do not do it. If you want to purify your reloading room use nitrogen and wear a SCBA.
I don't think something was covered here that needs to be covered. That is that pure (or even better than 90% pure) oxygen has a bad tendency to start oxidizing, and then rapidly oxidize fuel (especially petroleum).
Meaning, mix pure oxygen with any oil (natural case lube included) and you WILL have a fire. Without any source of flame to get it going either.
Do not do it. If you want to purify your reloading room use nitrogen and wear a SCBA.
Comments
Enriching the air around you while trying to ad the oxygen to the cartridge case, would cause your body's oxygen sensors to say to your brain"hey..i have way to much oxygen her...stop the lungs" this would in fact make your respiratory system shut down if you got too much into the air...before the room exploded.
Best
EDIT 1
Beantown,
It is no joke about the high oxygen concentrations shutting down the respiratory system. They do not put patients on 100% pure oxygen in ICU units. Even a non rebreather mask only delivers about 50% at best. The patients are put on a percentage of 100% pure oxygen. This comes from past AMET experience. I am sure cpermd will be able to fully explain it. This holds true especially for persons in cardio-pulmanary distress states.
Nice that you could wear a tie to this event....[;)]...[:D]
beantown,
Nice that you could wear a tie to this event....[;)]...[:D]
Thanks. I know the invitations said "casual" but I always try to look my best at social functions. [;)]
This is how I usually dress when I go to the range:
Now in seriousness, of course you want SOME oxygen in the reloading room. . .assuming you want to breathe while reloading!
On the other hand, apart from the sheer stupidity involved in even trying it (let alone trying it in a room with open containers of gunpowder), it would actually take a tremendous amount of work to even GET your workroom to contain 100% oxygen, since you'd need a big supply of it and an airtight seal to keep it in.
In terms of the harm in breathing 100% oxygen. . .that's a "yes" and a "no". In practice, medical patients (in ICUs for example) are put on 100% oxygen all the time, and they aren't hurt by it. So long as they don't have bad chronic lung disease this doesn't knock out their breathing centers.
As another example, the astronauts in the early Apollo space program were breathing 100% oxygen for over a week at a time, and they weren't hurt by it either. . .well not just by breathing it. The 100% pure O2 environment was probably a major contributing factor to the fire that destroyed Apollo 1 in 1967, killing the three astronauts aboard.
One would think that the "rocket scientists" involved might have realized that this wasn't such a good idea, but hindsight is always 20/20.
Without getting into the physiology of why (see flagellated dead horse above), if you are otherwise healthy, you won't be harmed just by breathing pure O2 for limited periods of time. It *can* cause a problem if you are breathing it for extended periods of time, or breathing it under greater than normal atmospheric pressure.
Dueling edits:
For TSR1965, you're right that nominally 100% O2 via cannula or rebreather mask (which I've heard hilariously referred to as "the bong of O2 delivery systems" by an ex-hippie trauma surgeon) isn't really delivering 100% O2 since its diluted by air.
But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen in the ICU setting. The usual way to deliver 100% O2 is via intubated mechanical ventilation, and it does happen from time to time.
This can be done for various reasons, but one common one is a little extra 100% O2 "kick" in already-intubated patients right before and after procedures that might temporarily interrupt breathing (eg suctioning, bronchoscopy).
Other potential medical indications for 100% O2 (or possibly even greater hyperbaric delivery, if available) would include CO poisoning, severe burn injury, and sepsis. Its getting outside my personal experience, but I understand its also used for treating decompression disease in divers. Again, key is limited exposure. . .they only get the 100% O2 for relatively short periods of time, then get quickly weaned down to lesser O2.
FWIW, I've also heard that Navy Seal candidates are "stress" tested with 100% O2 via occluding facemask for 30 minutes, to weed out ones who might not tolerate high O2 levels in their diving apparatus.
For Sandwarrior: Your point about the dangers of pure O2 as an oxidizer is good.
In terms of in manufacturing ammo in oxygen-POOR environments (which is exactly the OPPOSITE of the original question), if you've ever opened up one of the Commie-block ammo "spam" cans (many of which are actually still around from the Cold war days), you've probably noticed they're vacuum-packed like a canned ham! I think this is clearly to help preserve the contents.
Back in the day, the "poor mans" way of creating an O2-depleted environment was by burning a candle or other flammable material in the container right before sealing it. The flame would use up all the O2 in the sealed container then go out. Obviously you aren't going to do that with live ammo, but you could obtain a similar effect by dropping in some O2 scavenging material into an airtight container.
Edit #2
Yeah, you could also displace oxygen with an inert gas. Another way to skin the cat. . .
Also, looks like you went through the same sort pure O2 stress testing I referred to above. Interesting.
With respect to ozone, its an inherently unstable molecule that is an even stronger oxidizer than ordinary oxygen. It also generates harmful free radicals, is directly irritating to lungs and mucous membranes, and is usually classified as a pollutant for these reasons. I'm not sure what this has to do with O2 and ammo (see increasingly mutilated dead horse above), but if anyone was thinking about using ozone in loading ammo, that's probably not a good idea either [;)].
What kind of gun is that?...
Honestly, I'm very familiar with breathing O2 and actually being under 2 atmospheres (absolute) of it when I was in the service and in dive school when I got out. Also, when I became an A&P I handle it daily in the airlines servicing aircraft oxygen. What I do know from my training and witnessing it personally, You WILL, not might, have a fire, if pure oxygen and oil of any kind meet. That's my point about safety. It's not an if. And it's a hellish fire like you've rarely seen. Coincidentally, that's why it's an FAA rule (Airworthiness Directive, the queen mother of them all in airplane speak) to never service oxygen with passengers on board or crew members who aren't aware of it going on. The latter part I don't get. If there's a fire there's no chance of getting out.
You did make a very good point that even without a fire, oxygen will unravel the chemical make-up of your powder. {Edit: added} and also do bad things to the surfaces of your brass and bullets.
Which brings me to the last point I made about Nitrogen. Which I didn't think is whipping they dead horse. It's inert (except when you heat it and combine it) so it won't degrade your powder or primers. It's cheap to make. And yes there are rooms filled with it in manufacturing arenas specifically because it limits problems both then and down the road. My cousin told me of rumors of ammunition being loaded in such rooms during the cold war and it's effectiveness. Rumors of course but when we know of such manufacturing processes it doesn't surprise me.
Pilots use supplementary pure oxygen all the time without oxidizing their lungs but that's via a mask at very low pressure. Cockpit environments aren't oxygen rich.
Scuba divers use a pressurized mixture to avoid oxygen narcosis.
Ozone (O3) generators, on the other hand, can and have been damaging to lungs.
Know that combustion is rapid oxidation.
In the presence of free oxygen, slow burning combustibles become fast burning or explosive.
To thoroughly understand what's going on, the whys and wherefores of an oxidation reaction, whether it will go spontaneously or how much external energy is needed to make it go, you need to have at least studied General Chemistry for engineers.
No need to snow you with terms you wont understand to warn you of the hazards of exposing unstable or finely ground materials to free oxygen.
quote:Originally posted by beantownshootah
No two ways about it. Oxygen and the classes of plastics in the Apollo were determined the cause of that cockpit fire, the subsequent research on compatible cockpit materials and components redesign.
Pilots use supplementary pure oxygen all the time without oxidizing their lungs but that's via a mask at very low pressure. Cockpit environments aren't oxygen rich.
Scuba divers use a pressurized mixture to avoid oxygen narcosis.
Ozone (O3) generators, on the other hand, can and have been damaging to lungs.
Know that combustion is rapid oxidation.
In the presence of free oxygen, slow burning combustibles become fast burning or explosive.
To thoroughly understand what's going on, the whys and wherefores of an oxidation reaction, whether it will go spontaneously or how much external energy is needed to make it go, you need to have at least studied General Chemistry for engineers.
No need to snow you with terms you wont understand to warn you of the hazards of exposing unstable or finely ground materials to free oxygen.
V35,
The term is Nitrogen Narcosis. Caused by nitrogen, it is the euphoric feeling (happy drunk if you will) that typically overtakes divers at around 3 atmopheres or 99 feet underwater. Maximum oxygen tolerance for most people is 2 atmospheres or 60 ft. In my previous post I said 2 atm's (absolute) that is 33 ft. or a pressure total of about 29.4 (ab) or 14.7 more than sea level. We stayed at that depth (pressure) in pure O2 for 30 minutes to determine our ability to withstand oxygen toxicity. You need to do that so any dive medical people can take you to that level in pure O2 and be treated for other dive injuries such as an embolism or the bends.
To combat 'nitrogen narcosis' mixtures of helium and reduced ratios of oxygen are used. Reduced oxygen mostly for increased depth. Oxygen toxicity typically causes over-stimulus of the central nervous system. Or what we call CNS hits.
As for the Oxygen generators, we still use them. Installed in their respective positions they are safe[:(!] I'm not always sure about that because I've changed them after they've been deployed. They get really hot. Anyhow, the chemical reaction in them produces O2. The ozone generators you speak of do as you said produce O3. Which doesn't last long because that third atom of O2 wants to combine with something more stable that his two brothers. It will typically 'bump' into it's O3 neighbors and the two extras join to become O2.
Anyhow, the original point of my post was don't use oxygen. But if you want to 'purify' you loading process, do it with an inert gas.
Edit:
V35, BTW the Apollo I is about the best example of O2 fire out there. They used to show it in training films. I'm sure not anymore.