Bottle rockets describe any of a large variety of small scale skyrocket. The name derives from people launching them out of bottles and are usually attached to sticks for stabilization so they take a preplanned flight course. These small skyrockets have been made at least since the early decades of the 20th century in many countries including Japan, China, and the former colony of Portuguese Macao.
The term blown blind is used in a situation where some or all of the stars when e.g. an aerial shell breaks or mine is fired, fail to ignite. The most common causes are inadequate priming or bursting/lifting them too hard.. If a break charge too powerful is used the stars in a shell will move so fast they fail to ignite or the flame blows out.
A Blasting Cap, sometimes referred to as a detonator, or simply a cap is a small device with a measured amount of primary explosive contained. They are used to detonate larger amounts of explosives, usually referred to as the main charge. Detonators generally have thick and heavy walls, as to increase the velocity of detonation (VoD) Some caps contain two explosives, a primary and a secondary explosive. These are referred to as compound caps.
Black match, also known as bare match, is a simple fuse that is regularly used in pyrotechnics, is very easily ignited and typically burns about 1 inch (2.5 cm) per second, depending on the quality of the black powder used. Commercially it is used almost exclusively for the manufacture of quick match or in priming.
Sulphurless Black Powder is a common variant of Black Powder that contains no sulphur. This uncommon variety is used when it is desirable to prevent the contact between the sulphur and other chemicals, e.g. chlorates, for safety reasons.
Black powder slurry is a paste made from black powder that is used to help light various pyrotechnic devices. It is the most common way to prime pyrotechnics. There are two commonly used forms of black powder slurry.
The first is water soluble and is usually made by adding 1 to 5% dextrin by weight to fine black powder and adding just enough water to make the mixture the consistency of thin pancake batter.
Pulverone sometimes refered as granulated, is ball milled black powder that has been slightly moistened so that it just clings together and pressed through a fine screen (a window screen will work). The resultant granules are dried and used for a number of different tasks. While you can leave the black powder in the ball milled state for packing in tubes - it will be a fine dust and very hard to work with.
Meal powder is the fine dust left over when black powder is corned and screened to separate it into different grain sizes. It is used extensively in various pyrotechnic procedures, usually to prime other compositions. It can also be used in many fireworks to add power and substantially increasing the height of the firework. Meal powder is a side product of milling high-quality black powder.
Corning is the process by which meal powder, or finely divided black powder, is compressed into cakes, crushed, and then screened by particle size into different size categories. This process alters the burn rate of black powder, giving it more flexibility for different applications.
In general corned BP (slightly wetted, pressed with a hydraulic press, let dry, crushed and screened) is nothing faster than hand-granulated or "riced" BP. Some people have shown that the opposite can be true.
Black powder is a chemical mixture invented in the 9th century and was practically the only known propellant and explosive until the middle of the 19th century. As such it has been superseded by more efficient explosives such as smokeless powders and TNT. It is still manufactured today although primarly used in fireworks, model rocket engines, and in reproductions of muzzleloading weapons.
