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Old May 13, 2001, 01:39 AM   #4
Mike Irwin
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Join Date: April 13, 2000
Location: Northern Virginia
Posts: 41,374
I'm not certain what chemicals are used for flash retardants, but the problems with the powder in the early M-16s WAS related to "chalk" (calcium carbonate), but it wasn't in there to reduce flash. It was put into the powder near the final stages of manufacture to neutralize any remaining acid that had escaped neutralization in previous steps.

By neutralizing the acid the powder became much more stable, and had a much longer shelf life.

Early batches of ball powder (ball powder was still a fairly new technolgy at the time) were treated with upwards of 1.5 percent of calcium carbonate by weight.

This neutralized any left over acid, but it also contributed to clogging of the gas port and tube, and was pretty difficult to remove because it left a hard scale and early guns were issued without proper cleaning kits.

Further experimentation proved that as little as .5 percent by weight of calcium carbonate was enough to neutralize any free acid, and that the fouling problem was virtually eliminated.
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