Hi Dan,
That may be why the ammeter burned out... :)
I didn't have a scope and wideband CT when I had the 6" coil. In fact, I
didn't even know that wideband CT's even existed until years later... :)
I did measure peak secondary base current with a Pearson wideband CT and
Tek scope on a 10" coil a few years later. Base current pretty much
matched theoretically-predicted current. This was long before the
excellent simulation models and tools we have today. Then, all we had
was basic TC theory, Conservation of Energy, and Excel spreadsheets.
Comparing primary bang size versus secondary peak current, and then
back-figuring peak secondary energy, I found that about 85% of the
primary bang energy made it to the secondary during by the peak of the
first ring-up when P:S coupling (k) was about 0.2. So in that sense,
agreement was pretty good.
Bert