A tactical breacher explains how to safely blow open doors using explosives. They use water to direct blast energy and reduce pressure, place charges with redundant adhesion methods like duct tape and 550-cord, and calculate standoff distances to protect operators. They breach several doors per week.
I have control. 5, 4, 3, 2. Oh shit, that was bigger than I was expecting. Fucking awesome. That was a lot bigger than I thought, man. So you just ducked right over there.
Well, yeah, it's, um, I mean, we've calculated the safe standoff distance for overpressure, plus we're tamping, we're using water as a medium to push, but we also have water on the backside of the explosives for, and that helps push more of the work towards the door. So it also tamps down the overpressure a little bit, and then the water helps with the smoke. Normally you would see a little bit more of a smoke signature if we were using a traditional pushing charge. Water's, water's a great, a great medium to use. Yeah. Liquid of some sort.
How many doors do you guys have? Where do you keep them? A lot. We go through several a week, right?
So every time there's a class out here. So, but like you said, just the way we talked about it, the explosives push the door in enough. To not send it just enough that the locking mechanisms can't engage anymore.
Okay.
And the door is—
and where'd you put it? Open. Where'd you put it?
Well, the charge was here. Here, right? So that plastic— oh, obviously bottles here. This was, uh, we used two methods of adhesion just for redundancy, right, to make sure it doesn't— we don't obviously don't want it to fall off the door before we were ready to detonate. Yeah. So, and you can imagine a tactic, a true tactical scenario, that charge might have to hang there while, right, until we're actually ready to get the entry, depending on the situation. So that's why I carry extra duct tape in case I need to duct tape things on, kind of like your camera. Yes. Yeah, it's the great, the great fix-all.
Yes, we're great users.
Yeah, we, yeah, we use a really, really sticky material and we just kind of have it already preset and we stick it on there. And then there's, we use some 550 cord and use an extra hanger to help support some of that weight.
And the door's no joke, man.
I mean, yeah, I was picturing, yeah, kind of the same as this this door to start, right, and
