If you have any intentions of doing a Tannerite gender reveal, you need to watch this beforehand.
My Tannerite Gender Reveal Experience
I did a Tannerite gender reveal for my brother and his wife, and it did not go to plan whatsoever. Fortunately, everything ended up working out in the long run. Yet, I had no idea how difficult it was going to be to get it to work the way it was supposed to.
Initially, we had set up the target with the single pound explosive under the colored chalk that was supposed to fly into the air upon detonation. However, when I shot the explosive perfectly in the center of the container (using a 6.5 Creedmoor rifle), the contents simply spilled out and the chalk container just fell over.
Since we had a dud the first time, we just grabbed another single pound container of Tannerite and set the target up again. Unfortunately, the exact thing happened a second time. I shot the container and was greeted with another disappointment.
Troubleshooting
At this point, I am presuming that my rifle isn’t producing enough velocity. Although, Tannerite suggests a projectile traveling over 2000 feet per second to set it off. My rifle was shooting a 143 grain bullet at 2550fps, and my load still wasn’t setting it off.
Therefore, we stepped it up to a .270 Win and gave it a third shot. Thankfully, the Tannerite finally exploded! Conversely, the chalk container simply flew up into the air, virtually unharmed, and landed in the pond at the bottom of the bank.
By now, I am determined to make this thing work however I need to. Fortunately, we had one pound left of Tannerite (thank God we brought four containers). For the final go, we set up the target as we had done the last three times. However, we removed the lid from the chalk container after it was set on top of the prepped explosive.
Final Attempt!
At last, blue powdered chalk was disbursed into the atmosphere!
Overall, I still had a “blast” with the whole event. I just wanted to pass this on to anyone else wanting to do this same type of gender reveal because the instructions on the Tannerite don’t work without some tweaking.
If you do this, take the lid off the chalk container. DO NOT LEAVE THE LID ON! Also, use whatever rifle you can get the highest velocity ammunition for, and use the highest velocity ammo you have available to you. I verified the average velocity of my rifle at 2550fps for a 143g bullet, and that is way higher the advertised velocity necessary to set Tannerite off.
I have set these off with a .308 Winchester before with bullets traveling slower than that. More importantly, the point is, don’t take chances. There are lots of variables that influence the reactivity of explosive targets like this. Therefore, if you are doing a gender reveal party, give it the absolute best chance you can because YOU may only have one shot.
Hope this helps, and good luck to you if you choose to try this out!
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