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Vista Outdoor, a parent company to many firearms businesses, told Newsweek that it will substantially increase its ammunition prices due to "an anticipated global shortage of gunpowder."The Minnesota-based company confirmed the authenticity of a December 1 letter sent to customers that it would go ahead with an across-the-board increase of its ammunition and gunpowder prices on January 1."Due to world events our suppliers have notified us of unprecedented demand for and an anticipated global shortage of gunpowder, and thus has increased our prices substantially," Vice President of Sales, Sporting Products Brett Nelson said in the letter. "We must therefore raise...

Gunpowder by Jack Kelly is the best history on the subject this writer has encountered. It is not a “how to” book, although the essentials of how to make black powder are covered in enough detail that one could do so. The book elaborates on the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of persons who died while making black powder over the roughly 800 years of its primacy. “Gunpowder” starts with an examination of the long development of the “fire drug” in China, from about 1050 A.D. to 1230 A.D. During this 180-year period, Chinese “fire drug” producers learned to increase...

According to Chinese folk tale, a man named Wan-Hoo made the first attempt to carry a man in a rocket propelled vehicle in around 1500. He reportedly took two large horizontal stakes and tied a seat between them. Under the primitive device were placed 47 rockets set to be lit all at the same time. When the rockets were ignited, they burned erratically and could not provide effective thrust to move the contraption. Wan-Hoo is said to have burned to death in the resulting fire.

A deadly explosion at an ammunition disposal plant in Russia's western Ryazan province on Friday killed at least 17 people, Russia's official news agency TASS reported. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation said a criminal investigation had been launched into the blast. According to Reuters, an entire shift of workers was at the site when the brick building was ripped apart. Emergency services were alerted at 8:22 a.m. Moscow time to a fire at the Shilovsky district, Lesnoy village, Ryazan region, Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations said. A video circulating on social media on Friday purportedly shows the moment...

New evidence suggests Iran received help from Venezuela with its nuclear program despite a decade of U.N.-mandated sanctions aimed at curbing the rouge regime’s controversial nuclear and ballistic missile programs. A 2009 document obtained by Brazil’s leading weekly, Veja magazine, shows late dictator President Hugo Chavez signing off on the release of funds to help Iran with its nuclear ambitions. Specifically, the document states the funds were to be designated for the import of equipment for a gunpowder factory and the development of production plants for nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose, elements used in rocket propulsion for Iran’s government. There is also...

A Department of Defense official tells CNN's Barbara Starr that a search of the hotel room found Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo had enough to make two bombs. The ingredients included gunpowder, shotgun shells, a pressure cooker, 18 pounds of sugar used to enhance the explosion and Christmas lights to be used as a timer. At the surplus store Abdo bought a uniform and asked to have Fort Hood patches sewn on.

In June of 2016, the ATF announced that nitrocellulose, including nitrocellulose wetted with water or alcohol, would be considered a high explosive.  This change in regulation was simply announced in the June ATF EXPLOSIVES Industry Newsletter, without a comment period or any previous consideration.This change had a potentially devastating effect on ammunition manufacturers and manufacturers of smokeless gunpowder.  If the ruling was upheld, it would have required enormous changes in gunpowder manufacture, making ammunition significantly more expensive, and likely halting the manufacture of smokeless gunpowder for a considerable period while changes to existing procedures were worked out, tested, and...

Remember, remember! The fifth of November, The Gunpowder treason and plot; I know of no reason Why the Gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot! Guy Fawkes and his companions Did the scheme contrive, To blow the King and Parliament All up alive. Threescore barrels, laid below, To prove old England's overthrow. But, by God's providence, him they catch, With a dark lantern, lighting a match! A stick and a stake For King James's sake! If you won't give me one, I'll take two, The better for me, And the worse for you. A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,...

The surface of the Moon is covered with a fine powdery material that scientists refer to it as “lunar regolith”. Nearly the entire lunar surface is covered with regolith, and bedrock is only visible on the walls of very steep craters. The Moon regolith was formed over billions of years by constant meteorite impacts on the surface of the Moon. Scientists estimate that the lunar regolith extends down 4-5 meters in some places, and even as deep as 15 meters in the older highland areas. ... However, landings performed by robotic Surveyor spacecraft showed that the lunar soil was firm...

Robert Lintner, 64 was seen holding his wife outside his home and calling for neighbors to call police.  He had been stabbed in the neck by his wife in a domestic dispute.   His wife is 65.   She was arrested, and he was treated and released.  Then it gets interesting.   Remember, this is New Jersey, where the government says that you have no rights to weapons, only what the state allows you.  From nj.com: Following standard protocol, officers responding to the domestic incident tried to secure any weapons in the house, the chief said. When Lintner would not...

The increasingly wired nature of the world means cyberspace will likely be the world's next large battlefield (if it isn't already). Israel, always at the forefront of military technology, is paying close attention to the way the wind is blowing. Major General Aviv Kochavi, speaking at the annual conference of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, went on record as saying "cyber, in my modest opinion, will soon be revealed to be the biggest revolution in warfare, more than gunpowder and the utilization of air power in the last century." The general's embracing of cyber warfare is...

It's detonation vs deflagration. More slow motion at http://bit.ly/chemslomo More chemistry at http://www.periodicvideos.com/Follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/periodicvideosAnd on Twitter at http://twitter.com/periodicvideosFrom the School of Chemistry at The University of Nottingham: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/chemistry... Periodic Videos films are by video journalist Brady Haran: http://www.bradyharan.com/ Brady's other channels include:http://www.youtube.com/sixtysymbols (Physics and astronomy)http://www.youtube.com/numberphile (Numbers and maths)http://www.youtube.com/DeepSkyVideos (Space stuff)http://www.youtube.com/nottinghamscience (Science and behind the scenes)http://www.youtube.com/foodskey (Food science)http://www.youtube.com/BackstageScience (Big science facilities)http://www.youtube.com/favscientist (Favourite scientists)http://www.youtube.com/bibledex (Academic look at the Bible)http://www.youtube.com/wordsoftheworld (Modern language and culture)http://www.youtube.com/PhilosophyFile (Philosophy stuff) Thanks to Destin from smartereveryday for helping us out!!!

CLEMENTE: “No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It’s not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out. BURNETT: “So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible. CLEMENTE: “No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.” >Snip< “All of that...

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - A semi truck carrying 80 pounds of gun powder overturned Thursday morning closing one lane of Interstate 65 near Lafayette. It happened around 3:30 a.m. in the northbound lanes of I-65 near mile 171 (between the Ind. 38 and Ind. 26 exits). Investigators says the driver swerved to avoid a deer, then overcorrected in the interstate median and finally ended up in a ditch.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday introduced a bill that would require background checks to be run on anyone buying explosive powder, a reaction to last week's Boston Marathon bombing. Reid introduced the bill, S. 792, for Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who has been out sick for much of the year. But in a press statement, Lautenberg said the Boston bombing shows that background checks are needed for explosive materials. "It defies common sense that anyone, even a terrorist, can walk into a store in America and buy explosive powders without a background check or any questions asked,"...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In the wake of the deadly bombing attacks in Boston, U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) today announced that he will reintroduce legislation he has proposed in a prior Congress to require that sales of explosive powder be subject to a background check. He will also file the legislation as an amendment to the gun violence prevention bill currently on the Senate floor. Current law allows an individual to purchase as much as 50 pounds of explosive “black powder” without a background check, and also permits an individual to purchase unlimited amounts of dangerous “smokeless powder” and “black powder...

SNIPPET: "Indonesian anti-terror police, Densus 88 secure a terror suspect's house during a raid in Mojosongo, Solo in Central Java. Indonesian police have arrested 11 members of an Islamic group allegedly planning attacks on American diplomatic missions, a spokesman says." SNIPPET: "The group had planned to hit the US embassy and a US consulate, as well as a building near the Australian embassy in the capital Jakarta that houses the office of American mining giant Freeport-McMoran, police said. Police said they were from a new outfit called HASMI, the Sunni Movement for Indonesian Society, and explosives and a bomb-making manual...

Evanston police are investigating an early morning explosion that left one man dead Tuesday and led to the evacuation of residents and the closure of a middle school. Police secured the area around the Nichols Middle School and Fitzsimmons Park, where the decapitated body of an unidentified male and an explosive device were found shortly before 6 a.m. At Tuesday afternoon news conference, Evanston Police Commander Tom Guenther said authorities were taking the explosion “extremely seriously’’ but did not yet understand what the bomber’s intentions were. Police refused to identify the man who died and said they had not determined...

2. SELF DEFENSE: Do you have the right to remain silent? Then why should you call 911 after a self defense and speak into a police voice recorder? According to defense attorneys, half of all convictions for self-defense incidents rely on frantic adrenalized 911 recordings; Do you have the right to have an attorney present during any questioning? Then why should you call 911 immediately after a self defense and speak into a police voice recorder? -- These and other dangerous paradoxes of the American self-defense system are the topic of my next book, with input from dozens of lawyers,...

KOKOMO, Ind.(Kokomo Tribune) - A woman suffered second-degree burns to her face, hands and arms after a prank at a westside residence went horribly wrong. Assistant Chief Brad Myers of the Kokomo Fire Department said the victim, Heather McCombs, 24, put out a cigarette in a coffee can she was using as an ash tray. The can contained gunpowder. When McCombs' cigarette came into contact with the gunpowder, it ignited, causing the burns...