Some folks spray compressed air instead. Lots of things to be read on the interwebs.
They use compressed air to make it quieter??
Ok, I was envisioning air from a tank.Remove oxygen from the can to kill the muzzle flash.
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Ok, I was envisioning air from a tank.
Is compressed air from a can something different?
The intent is to replace the oxygen in the can (in the first or blast chamber) with some inert gas whether it be CO2, Nitrogen, etc. Compressed air still contains oxygen. This is usually used to reduce first round pop and is more common on rimfire cans. First round pop is a secondary burn related to exposure to more oxygen. Some can manufacturers recommend running the can “wet” to reduce first round pop. Some people use wire pulling gel, spray type lubricants, water,etc. The key is it does not take much.
I hope that you don't think you answered my question, and this was for some other reason.
A small amount of propellant from the cartridge follows the bullet down the barrel, burning slowly due to the oxidizer being mostly used up in the initial bang. Once it hits air either outside the muzzle or in the can, there's now more oxygen available to speed up the burn. Voila, muzzle flash.
The compressed air cans are usually nitrogen or CO2.
The cans for cleaning dust from electronics and stuff. Air from an air compressor wouldn’t help much unless there was a ton of water in the tank.
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In the case of muzzle flash I suspect it is a result of the conversion of the water to steam (1 gallon of water creates 1700 gallons of steam). With the little bit of water a resulting steam changes the air:fuel ratio to one that no longer supports combustion. (Too rich, more fuel than oxygen)
The water pulls heat from the gasses exiting the muzzle and prevents combustion.
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Yes the conversion of liquid water to steam uses the heat energy to make the conversion. This is one of the reasons water is used to put out fires. It takes a lot of energy to make the phase change from liquid to gas thereby reducing the temperature of the environment.