Primitive Black Powder Grenades
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- Black powder grenades are the great grand parents of the modern hand grenades we are all familiar with today. Before the days of fancy mechanical-pyrotechnic fuses, steel bodies, and high explosives, our ancestors tossed primitive hulls full of black powder and hoped for the best. Someone asked us to see if these things would work long ago. Well, we finally got to testing out how effective these primitive black powder grenades really are. We made a bunch of these black powder grenades and testing their fragmentation abilities as well as how effective they are as as battle field weapon. I guess this makes us now history experts on ancient weapons.
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Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
03:35 - Legality Of Making Grenades
05:10 - Introducing The Primitive Grenade Design
06:44 - Testing The First Grenade
07:48 - Testing The Second Grenade
08:53 - Detonating An M67 Hand Grenade
11:16 - Discussing The Battlefield Grenade Toss Scenario
13:37 - First Grenade Toss
13:50 - Second Grenade Toss
14:23 - Third Grenade Toss
14:50 - Test Results
17:08 - Conclusion - บันเทิง
I know we sort of did these grenades out of sequence by jumping right to iron hulled grenades. Believe it or not, working with ceramics to make usable spheres out of clay isn't not the easiest. Jake is channeling his inner artistic side to work on making clay grenades for the next video.
So, now that we have tested out these primitive grenades, what other ancient explosive devices do people want to see recreated for scientific/entertainment purposes?
everything I know about grenades I learned from Looney Toons
Enjoy watching your channel from the great state of Wyoming!
I want to see you do dumb and dangerous things with flammable gases, pure oxygen, and confined spaces.
Can you post some information or point to some resources you're using for smaller scale iron casting? All the information I can find is about bronze or aluminum casting, but my understanding is that casting iron requires SIGNIFICANTLY higher temperatures. I've been looking for other projects, but not able to find a ton of info
How about making some "clone correct" Greek Fire?
YES!!!!! No one else has a video actually exploding the old iron black powder grenades!
We aim to please
That’s because the YT overlords hate stuff like this
@@crankygunreviewsthe ATF too, they’re considered destructive devices and have to be registered as well as needing a license to make them.
Probably because its like, illegal asf unless you have the proper paperwork done
@@Salamandra40k yeah that too
Early grenades had lead balls included in the filling in addition to the powder which probably increased the fragmentation effect. The word "grenade" is derived from the word "pomegranate" because the weapon is basically the same shape as the fruit and the lead balls inside resemble its seeds. Guess you get to revisit this sometime in the future...
The earliest ones were without lead balls. French doctor shrapnel is credited for making the lead balls common.
Inside they do nothing
@@sanguinemoon9201 “French Doctor shrapnel” 😂😂😂
@@sanguinemoon9201He was British, but yes.
@@sanguinemoon9201 You mean the englishmen Henry Shrapnel?
The old grenades had a lot of shock and awe factor. Hearing damage and making the enemy scatter helps during battle.
and useful in siege batles for both sides
Another thing to note that was probably already mentioned in comments, but this was the era of tightly packed infantry formation and even if grenades failed to do damage, disorganizing the enemy can be almost as useful as killing them.
Addressing the range issue, Canadians in WW1 used Lacrosse sticks to get extra range from their hand grenades.
Grenades of that type were popular in the Navies of the time, especially the British Royal Navy. They were thrown from the crow's nests on the masts down onto the the main deck where the fighting was going on. Also, the wooden decks of the ships would have meant that the grenades bounced & rolled around, and unlike dirt, they would not have absorbed the energy of the explosion.
This is probably why they were such a favored weapon by pirates on the high seas, many of them came straight from actual navies and would have had experience with them. I bet they're an imposing as hell weapon when you know that you can be getting a bunch of them coming in onto your ship, with little room for running and taking cover.
cool!
Wouldn’t you also hit your own comrades then?
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine imagine the improvised garlic like strings they’d drop on the decks below!
As someone who has studied French & Indian War history, was a reenactor who spent time as a British Grenadier, I can tell you the whole point of the grenades was to try and throw them so that they would explode in the air above the enemy's heads, not on the ground. Grenadiers would have been trained how to time their throw from lighting the fuse to get the best estimate to get the grenade to explode in mid air. There are several fragments and even a couple of original unexploded grenades that have been made safe for display that are from the time period here in a couple different museums and your copies are spot on in appearance.
And a tow row row row to you, sir! That had to be a short career path.
Please try resting the grenades on a light platform at chest height. This would give you a good best case.
@@kmech3rdwhen I used to do reenacting, we had dummy grenades made up for us. It was a black Bacci ball with a hole drilled in about halfway about 2 inches in diameter. We would take a row of small firecrackers, line the hole with them and tape a cannon fuse over that. When done right, the fuse would light all the firecrackers at the same time and you would get one loud "pop". You cut the fuse to a certain length, timed it so when you threw it your knew when to chuck it. I got pretty good and was able to usually get it to go off about 4 feet from the ground. I would have to imagine the hardest part with the Grenadiers of the time would be the inconsistency of the fuses.
Did you make sure the fuse was centered in the hull? Ignition from the top would greatly reduce the actual brisance (if you can call it brisance) of black powder. This is very true with cricket bombs as well.
It just takes a few wraps of foil or aluminized tape to prevent early ignition. Trust me, notably better results with low explosives when ignited from the very center.
Excellent observation.
A small open space in the center of the main charge...think core-burning rocket motors.
End of fuse might feature small flash-powder 'booster' to help ignite main charge.
@@pirobot668beta Would a percussion cap work?
It probably wouldn't be set off by a fuse but a small chunk of mercury fulminate (the active ingredient of a cap) would, yes. The fuse would need to be encased to prevent it from setting off the powder before the F of M blew but if that was done the high explosive (the F of M) would certainly make for a more energetic (ie: complete) detonation of the low explosive (the black powder)@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine
@@marvindebot3264 Right, it seems like the most efficient approach.
The Grenadiers of the 1700s used grenades about 15cm across, and were meant to "flood the zone" in line order. That would be hard to replicate on the range, as would the 18th century infantry formations in either closed or open ranks.
These are concepts likely to confuse the modern RCMP, as they appear to be disinclined to enter into disputations of the Punic wars..
Video ideas:
1. I don't think it's very fair to blame black powder for the shortcomings of these grenades, so I propose you do a video comparing M67's with all types of different fillers. I'm talking black powder, BP substitute, smokeless, flash powder, etc. and maybe seeing if you can get hooked up with a few of those ballistic torsos with the fake skeletons and organs to really see how they stack up apples to apples.
2. Veteran Arms makes repro 18th century grenade launchers these things would work with and I bet that would make for some good content since you actually have the range and permission slips to do it.
agree, these grenades was badly designed and weak. just to make them from solid thicker bottle would be more devastating for figurine...
Totally agree. I'd also like to see smokeless pistol powder and blank powder tested.
Agreed. It isn't as much about the energetic source, ie BP vs HE, as it is about the ineffective/inefficient delivery of shrapnel...which is *the* goal. Want more "hits" on target(s)? More shrapnel in the air.
Sidenote...the shape of the shrapnel in BP grenades like this is equally important. Flat/flatter pieces tend to slow down rapidly, as well as "bounce" off vs penetrate, as witnessed in this video.
Grenades, even modern versions, can perform very unpredictably.
I cannot tell you how long I have been searching for a credible source on the effects of early hand grenades - amazing 😊
LMAO .... Canadian neighbor here ...... The RCMP must LOVE you guys !!!
Would love to see some more modern improvised grenades. great video!
You always put out great, accurate information that has probably saved many appendages. I look foward to your science.
ERs hate us for reducing their holiday business. That or love us for keeping them less busy. Can go either way.
Remember when you could walk into your local hardware store and buy a case of dynamite, a dozen dets and a roll of FBT? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I've been wanting to see someone do this for a very long time! I'm glad the way it was explained as well. Some people don't understand the way different explosives work
You have gotten so fantastic on camera. Don't ever stop.
He has hasn't he. Lol still a bit funny awkward.
As an Army veteran, I can attest that you can never throw a hand grenade as far as you think you can.
I wasn't in the military, but just today was at a gun show where they sold the grenade shells. There were actual grenade shells but no power or fuse.
They are a LOT heavier than a person would think.
They are actually optimized to be the perfect weight to throw. Not to heavy not to light. I remember the first one I ever tossed. It felt like the perfect weight and I landed it strait into the tire (target).
@@spcpitts I looked it up & the pineapple grenade that I saw & held today weighed 1.5lbs.
A baseball weighs 5oz.
They're almost 5 times as much heavier than as a baseball is. Imo that's incredibly heavier.
@@ClickClack_Bam In BASIC, our longest ruck march was to the hand grenade range (the drills never tell you what you're actually doing at the time, however). It was about 20 miles spread over two days. Most of the time I was hearing what I thought was artillery in the distance. Turns out it was the hand grenade range. Loud as hell. I got to throw 4 live grenades. They are heavier than you think and are very energetic. Only the Claymore mine was more impressive.
@@g54b95 Thanks for sharing.
Were they full live grenades?
I'm asking because I've seen videos where they place less explosives in training ones under some circumstances.
Or do they start with less loaded ones & progress to the real deal?
Great job on exposing a lesser known topic of early modern warfare !
I still have my ancestor's musket at home, it's an 1763 Charleville that saw some use during your revolution and mine and the thing still fires !
Useless to say that I am glad to see some antique explosive devices being shown on YT as they often get less exposure than the ww2 stuff and if you have any more ideas of the same kind I would love to see them (likes "Sapes" or explosive-filled galeries used in siege warfare, great pretext for a lot of kaboom but sadly a lot of work to replicate).
Wishing y'all in Texas the best from countryside France !
Stack 100 lb of unwrapped Velveeta on some plastic explosive and make a CHEESESPLOSION
APCBC - armor piercing cheese ballistic capped
great video! I always wondered about the efficacy of early grenades. it's nice to see a demonstration.
If you ever plan on doing anything with these again, have you considered doing a pattern test like you would with a shotgun. It would likely give a much better representation of the effectiveness of them. You probably would need a sturdy paper like Ramboard, then make a 10x10 square around the area and staple it to some posts.
Love the videos, I really enjoy seeing creative people making a difference in understanding. Thank you.
That was awesome! Been wanting to see this done for a very long time. Thanks guys.
I was always curious about these old timey devices,and doubted their effectiveness. Never have seen a proper YT video about testing them,this being a first. So thanks a lot guys,your work is valuable. On second thought,since these were used when tight formations were common, and throwing range is limited,these would have been used just before a bayonet charge,I think. So just after a last volley fire, a grenade volley,then bayonet charge while grenades going off,adding to the chaos,shock,breaking up order, and unit cohesion just before a bayonet charge,would add to it's effect,I think. I can't imagine soldiers just standing ground,and keeping formation while 2-4 feet in front of them a grenade's fuse is about to burn inside the body.
You guys always make awesome videos!
Great video. Love watching yall. Always good fun.
That was awesome and interesting all at once! Thanks for another great video.
Another day, another win for the pyro nerds
We to please the pyro gods
A short of Jake at a potter's wheel as a teaser for the ceramic grenade video would be fun.
I know where you are going with this, and now it has to happen.
@@OrdnanceLabwe'd better be seeing you channel your inner Patrick Swayze, snuggling up behind him
Always wondered about this, glad to see a presentation on it!
This was incredible. I had no idea these things existed. Thought it was just a modern thing. Cheers for the great video guys.
Something I’d really like to see from you guys is a more extensive shrapnel test, like have a layer of drywall and a target on the other side, I think that would be neat.
I wonder what one fully packed with smokeless powder would do. Cool video though. The history of these is pretty interesting
Closer to the m67, I'd wager.
You need to do one with magnesium powder
@@dannybell926 magnesium powder itself would do nothing, and is very unsafe when mixed with most oxidizers
@@HenrikSherwood Ya the most it would do is catch on fire, and be very difficult to put out
Flash powder would be a lot better
Still cool to see these tested out always curious how they would perform! Cool video
Black powder grenades also had small musket balls in them. The ones I found of the coast of NS did. One I broke open in a moist bucket had 30 plus small lead balls.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police still use these devices to stop rabid beavers.
Those beavers are no joke
Lol
I would think the cast metal would fragment more than a steel one would. So while being cheaper should also be more effective as a grenade.
It is more brittle, but thays the rub. Steel holds out longer, so when it pops there is more energy, which tends the shred the steel finer. With the cast it is likely it will crack on a seem line in the crystals and yield before more pressure is built up that could break the stronger bits. So you end up with a few big pieces going slower vs evenly distributed little pieces at high velocity.
I love the humor in these episodes. And the booms, of course!
Thank you for having a great channel. Keep up the good work.
Great video. What would have been cool to see is how thick the cast iron hulls were compared to that of the modern version.
This was really interesting from a historical standpoint. I have seen mock-ups of these devices, but this is the first time that I have seen a video of them in action.
Awesome video as usual, I loved the smoke that they gave off.👍
Great video! One of the few people to post anything about these old grenades in action.
I wonder if you could mold protrusion on the hull to give it better fragmentation characteristics while keeping the same hull thickness. I think I remember seeing something like that or I might be confusing it with a grapeshot round.
Can you do a video on the limits between fireworks and when it reaches a grenade level?
new favorite channel! Great job guys
I'm trying to get my ceramic skills up to par to make the clay grenades. Then hone my glass blowing skills and make glass hull grenades. Might as well complete the trifecta of primitive hand grenades!
Keep making these videos! The smart ones here are grateful for you thinning out the gene pool!
Ive been watching you guys for a while (tho maybe not as long as the ATF lol) and you guys always impress me. Ive always loved explosives and the science behind them. Keep up the good work guys
Awesome. I was really interested in black powder and this video was perfect.
Great video and study of first generation cast iron grenades. Was hoping to see modern cast iron waffle pattern grenades using black powder. Japan and a few other coutries used black powder instead of High explosive fillers in WW2. My fathers leg was injured by a Japanse grenade and he bought back a deactivated Japanese grenade as one of his War souvenirs.
I was kinda thinking this is what they would do is use modern hulls with lower powered filler
That would be interesting to see.
This is my favorite channel on youtube. Not just because of the cool explosions, but for the energy and knowledge you guys bring to every video.
That was more info on ancient grenades than I expected, awesome video and history lesson!
Cool video, I enjoy the historical experiments you do.
Would you get better fragmentation if you grind or file crosshatching on the shell to create more consistency and more numerous smaller pieces of fragmentation?
Steel bends, iron and iron-heavy metals fragment. That's why steel isn't used.
cast iron was used because it shatters
@@Aaron-zu3xn Means the same thing.
@@Aaron-zu3xn + it has lower melting temperature than a steel which is nice if you want to cast these for mass production.
These grenades might make a good decoration for your christmas tree
the addition of ballistic gel dummies would be huge. would love to see how the overblast pressure affects the internal organs, and how the shrapnel penetrates
To be honest, the booms of the grenades seem pretty good for black powder, at 7:59 you can see the grass move from the pressure wave, not bad. Also how thick was the metal shell. And could you do a video of pneumatic explosives, like over inflating soda bottle or basketballs?
This is Lo-Kasher, I will be reporting you to the INP for making such devices.
Thank yall so much! Props from NC
Great Vid!!! love these types of concepts!
Ordinance Lab with a legendary comment.
" I guess I'm an explosives expert"
🤣💀
Soldiers back then fought in line formation...much like "buck and ball" grenades would have taken out sections of the formation (which would give a way for cavalry to charge in). Historically, most greandes, grenade launchers and mortars were used in seige warfare of a star fort (the straight lines of a star fort amplified the effectiveness of grenades)
just came across this channel, great stuff, very knowledgeable and with great presentation. you've earned my subscription, thank you and keep up the good work
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Love the videos!! Guys expression the whole time was killing me
That was cool. always wondered if those old grenades did anything at all. Thanks guys.
It seems to work pretty well for what it was. Yall always make good videos keep em comin!
Wonderful and informative as always
Love the video fellas! Keep up the good work
Great video, much love and respect brothers from New York keep up the great scientific work!
incredible to think that such relatively primative forms of grenades could be both extremely usefull in certain scenario's and quite deadly to boot
Imagine being the first people getting this thrown at you and you're just sitting there hella confused before it eventually goes off.
One of the fun things with black powder is that under certain threshold deflagration can become detonation, this usually happens when pressure is allowed to build up without much space to expand. That's why old giant cannons (siege bombards) almost never survived to present day: charged with huge cannonball (which could be just a rounded stone of sufficient size) they often exploded after several shots.
Great video! I use black powder on the regular and make it on occasion. Seems like a cool use!
I love how they even make the "poing" cartoony sound
Another great video as always guys. I would love to see you guys do an antique landmine, like the ones they would have used during the civil war
Definitely a cool video. Black powder was the end all, be all back in its day. Glad I clicked on this one.
Its impressive that you can hear the difference between the black powder and the modern
Great video. Really enjoyed it
Very enjoyable! Thanks!
During the 18th century, armies used black powder which produced a lot of smoke on the battlefield. Because of this, soldiers wore bright colored uniforms so that they could easily identify their allies from their enemies. As the visibility on the battlefield quickly became clouded from all the gun smoke, it was important for soldiers to be able to distinguish who was on which side.
Nice! Black powder is so fun.
Thanks for this one! I've been curious about these things since seeing them depicted in movies such as Master and Commander. Stay classy.
I always thought I was crazy for enjoying watching things explode. I’m glad I’m not alone
Thanks for another great video.
I love this channel because it compares black powder 2 modern munitions. I would love to see how maybe in 18th century SAPI plate could have been made with the materials of the time. As well as how it would fair against the black powder rifles and grenades of the day!
Great video always wondered how good they were
Your guys vids are always worth sharing
Awesome as always....
Loved the “make sure to contact the Royal Canadian Mounted Police”😂
This is an amazing vid. Great comparison
I bought the U.S. army guide to improvised munitions. It shows how to dismantle all sorts of cool sht but I'm glad somebody out there has the balls to actually test it out first.
Love the vids!
Great video guys as usual!!!!!!
I've been trying to find a video of this, thanks!
I don't think people "love" WW2 but are mostly fascinated by all of the associated war machines. Both that and the Great War were terrible in different ways.
Thanks for blowing stuff up for us all!!
Your job looks like a blast!
Hell yea nice video and one of those fragments would be an awesome desk piece
Another brilliant informative video.