A proletariat experiment...

[Reese]

At 10:11 PM 7/23/01, Petro wrote:
 >>The bottle is a little smaller than a 15 lb bottle, of course the 15 lb's
 >>refers to the weight of the bottle itself, it is closer to 50 lbs if it is
 >>fully charged with carbon dioxide (which we have no way to know whether it
 >>it was charged or what it was (once?) charged with).
 >
 >	Well, memory may be playing tricks on me, but from what I remember
 >from my fire fighting training in the Marine Corps, 15 pounds was the weight
 >of the agent.

I spoke of a standard 15 lb CO2 bottle, fully charged with nozzle and horn
they weigh 49.5 lbs in the US Navy, if you are trying to remember those same
bottles then you are remembering incorrectly.  The bottle was about the same
diameter but shorter in height, so maybe PKP but I don't think the civilian
community has a true equivalent to that.  PKP bottles have 18 lbs of agent.

 >	A 50 pound bottle would really defeat the purpose of a portable
 >fire extinguisher.

Tell it to the numbskull who designed the FP-180.  That number is supposed
to represent the # of gallons per minute the device will flow, but is often
jokingly associated with the weight of the "portable" piece of firefighting
gear.  Finally, the navy dispensed with them, outside of a few fixed-type
installations where there was no pretense of "portability."

 >There are many people who would have trouble holding the
 >bottle in one had and pointing the nozzle with the other.

Such people are weeded out in boot camp.  There are many people who cannot
pat their head and rub their tummy while chewing bubblegum, they are weeded
out in boot camp too.  Many of them cannot even look where they are walking,
and so we find them walking in front of traffic and all manner of places
they should not be.

 >	Even a 35 pound (25 pounds agent, 10 pounds bottle) bottle is hard
 >to manage at times.

No shit.  So remember it being heavier, it was when fully charged.

 >	Depending on the construction of the container you could add another
 >5 to 10 pounds for the bottle etc.

15 lbs bottle, 50 lbs total weight including agent.  I'll check out the
security classification on the PMS card and if it's unrestricted, scan
one and post the url after I upload it.

Reese