Childhood Memories of Our First Home made Firecrackers

Any of you make home made firecrackers when you were young?
I mean to young to be allowed to have them per mom and dad.
Do you believe it may have contributed to you building bigger and bigger home made explosive devices as you aged?
What is it about something that goes boom that we love to see, feel and hear?

A phone call last night with my brother got us to reminiscing about making our first fire crackers when we were younger.
Anyone remember the kids cap guns that used a roll of caps?
Well my brother and I think we stumbled on to how or why we started making them.

Well one hot muggy day, too hot to be running around capping each other, we were sitting under a shade tree popping off a cap at a time. Being young country boys more at home running up and down the river banks with our wrist rocket sling shots in hand and pockets full of nice hard not quite ripe crab apples, we always managed to find something we weren't suppose to be doing. One day after a major crab apple battle we'd seen the neighbor across the roads driveway was covered with them. Paid it no mind but later when he got home and had pulled in he'd crushed them thus stained his driveway . He was a particular one with perfect grass and manicured bushes. Well he threw such a fit even though we denied it was us....... until he pointed out we had the only crab apple tree on the street. Well, we found ourselves grounded to the yard once again.

So while sitting under that very tree I started to pull a roll of caps and without tearing them off the roll would fold one over the other until you had a stack of caps. We grabbed a sewing needle and would push the point from the center bottom up through the center of the caps until it popped up through the top of the stack. Now to bind it, we found using masking tape worked best to wrap it tight but leaving the top with the needles point open. We had it figured out, very proud of ourselves. Leaving the top open would allow us to stick the head of the match there for our fuse, but only after pulling out the needle. We learned the hard way at how slowly you'd have to pull that needle out..... too quick and boom, you'd have to start all over. The needle was how you pierced the center of the caps powder load and kept it lined up as you folding each cap zig zag style back and forth. Finally we caught on how to extract the needle without setting it off. Our first try, by placing a match head on the top and lighting the end was a success much bigger boom than we could have ever expected. Problem was you couldn't light and throw because it would blow out the match. Later after finding a rather large longer needle, I believe it was for leather work we were able to stack up to 3 cap rolls on. This blast nearly equaled the smaller cherry bombs we could buy when out of state on trips. We managed to blow up that neighbors mail box, but still got busted. We proudly served our time, while making bigger and better home made fire crackers.

Of course over the years after many birthdays we progressed to much larger ka-booms now having access to black powder..... etc. Information that maybe I shouldn't share.

Just a memory from long ago I thought I'd share. :rolleyes:
Funny how many gun enthusiast have similar experiences.

Regards and Never Convicted
Charlie-Painter777

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Originally Posted by painter777

Anyone remember the kids cap guns that used a roll of caps?

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I do remember having those. I had a box of the roll up caps and wondered if the little gun that fired them was magic or did they just take a whack to detonate? I took a whole roll in the box out to the stable floor, which was concrete...set it down and hit it with the claw hammer. Immediately I had my answer...

Sames as you painter we used a piece of 1/2 inch PVC @ 2-3' long with tuppenny rockets a 2 man bazooka team taking pot shots at various things including stray cats and bird (no animals were hit or injured) they were about as accurate as a handful of wheat chucked in a dust storm but it was fun watching the smoke trail heading in the targets general direction!
We had 4 penny crackers (Fourpnie Bangers we called them) which resembled a half a stick of dynamite they were the largest you could get they had a double fuse so you broke one end off near the cracker so you had double the length of fuse to run away, sneaking around on Guy Fox night armed with these lethal things saw a few mail boxes bent out of shape.
You could at a pinch push it most of the way into a 1 pint milk bottle then light the wick and push it all the way in was a tight fit but could be done you had two options throw it and hope it went off in the air or leave it sat there and scarper fragmented pretty well.
I progressed into making gun powder at home also thermite powder both packed into a 3/4" copper pipe flattened at one end I used a sodium nitrate mix to light the thing it worked well a fair few times the last one I packed the mix too tightly and had a detonation showering some of dads cars with shrapnel to say my ring was stinging was an understatment......
Yes if you listen to John Williamsons "Cracker Night" thats how it was for us kids in the 60's good clean fun and yes all our cats ended up under our beds with saucers for eyes lots of fond memories Charlie:thup:

Done that one as well Jim by heck it certainly made one's ears ring........

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

it certainly made one's ears ring

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I have a couple BP stories too, could have been worse but no one got killed that day either.

When I was a young lad I came across a box of Meteor track signals in our local railway yard. Smart fellow that I was at the time I took one and decided to hit it with a hammer to see how loud it would be.
Lucky for me I didn't lose a eye or put the hammer through my head. Young and stupid seldom get a second chance.

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Originally Posted by mr.e moose

Meteor track signals

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Again, for those of us knowing what that was at the beginning of the post...one holds their breath. That would have been like hitting a bomb...

Used to set the track dets when we were working in Train order sections not train control (signals)work on the track points or if the signals were down while we were working on them they went at a set distance away from us think it was 500M for the first lot the spacing was 100M between the sets in this sequence which the locomotive will hit first;
1 det - to alert the driver there are workers ahead and to begin to slow down and alert us - space - 2 dets - again to warn us the train is getting closer the driver to bring the train further down 3 dets - space - the train must be under control at this point so it can stop quickly and us to be clear of the rails had 300M before they got our position.

We had the train schedule so work was carried out between units so we did not have to set the dets again get the job done between trains then pick up your dets & go home some noobs forgot a set one day and the rail depot manager tore them to pieces as the train driver did not know what to think had happened because it was night time.
Bright orange & about 2" in dia good enough to wreck your hand

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

Bright orange & about 2" in dia

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Sounds good, let's get some to hang out at 100M for range practice. Maybe for .22s? No doubt when you hit them?

Be nice Jim be like mini tannerite (which we cannot have) they are rigidly controlled as they are registered as an explosive.

The things we did as kids back in the day would gobsmack most nowadays. Saltpetre and sugar smoke bombs, match head rockets , stuffing a .22 through your handlebars as you pedaled through the city to get to your favorite gopher patch. Used to be able to buy firecrackers at the corner store. That disappeared 40 years +ago. You used to be able to go to the gas station, buy a case of oil filters and get a Martini henry thrown in as a bonus. Ef'fen social engineering.

Ain't that the truth Mr E

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Originally Posted by mr.e moose

The things we did as kids back in the day would gobsmack most nowadays. Saltpetre and sugar smoke bombs, match head rockets , stuffing a .22 through your handlebars as you pedaled through the city to get to your favorite gopher patch. Used to be able to buy firecrackers at the corner store. That disappeared 40 years +ago. You used to be able to go to the gas station, buy a case of oil filters and get a Martini henry thrown in as a bonus. Ef'fen social engineering.

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Growing up in NY, fireworks were limited to sparklers and snakes. We made snake bombs by stuffing the pellets in a matchbox with a short fuse, they would make funky smoke for 3 or 4 minutes. Taping sparklers into a bundle was pretty exciting too. Occasionally, an upperclassman with a DL would make the trip to CA and come back with M-80s, ashcans and quarter-sticks!

Russ

Back in 1980 at the age of 13, when my trusty BSA Meteor air rifle was chopped in for a BSA Airsporter, myself and my friends were obsessed by ever increasing power. leading to updated main springs, transfer port reaming etc, plus some gun powder extracted from my mates fathers shot gun cartridges, added to the pellet skirt and sealed with candle wax.

All this made was a "bang" when it hit a rabbits skull, probably did nothing....

Well, it goes without saying that this messing with explosives naturally led us to making rather dangerous home made devices that would on occasion go BOOM when we tested them out in the country...

This all came to a halt when we were stopped by the local Police Seargent on our way to another detonation.

He looked in my backpack, laughed, threw us in the back of his Police Mini Van and took us down to the Station ... We all got our ears clipped and lectured by the Seargent and got the inevitable walloping from our fathers for making our "fireworks"

It was all just country lads youthful highjinks back then, how different it would be viewed today...

An earlier generation was way worse, my father in law at the same age blew up a chicken coop among other things...

We were a bunch of miscreants back then, but then again it was part of growing up. We never had any intent of doing harm and there was the concept of a fair fight, none of this business of a group of thugs ganging up on a lone individual.
Somehow I feel that things have not changed for the better

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Originally Posted by mr.e moose

We were a bunch of miscreants back then, but then again it was part of growing up. We never had any intent of doing harm and there was the concept of a fair fight, none of this business of a group of thugs ganging up on a lone individual.
Somehow I feel that things have not changed for the better

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Definitely not for the better ... We used to have great fun!

It was only last week when I was telling my daughter that I used to go treasure hunting, of course you have to stretch a story for a 5 year old but she was more than exited when we hit the beech armed with two shovels and my old Minelab sovereign metal detector...... to try and discover some pirate treasure.

It took me back to when I was a kid Living in Cumbria and not far away from a major training ground of WW2 in fact there were many areas of moorland used, one in particular was an endless supply of live .303 rounds and 2" mortar parachute flares that had never deployed......lots of other stuff too.

The .303 rounds were not always good condition so they were cracked open to get the valuable rocket fuel (strands of cordite)........ we only discovered the force it give off when stuffed in a tube and lit by mistake, so the rockets got bigger and bigger........ after pulling a parachute flare apart the pellet of fuel (the flare) had come out and a small chunk had come off, having the open coal fire I thought I'd see what it burned like.......... not only illuminating our house it must of lit up the whole street...........of course it wasn't long till our rockets were going to a reasonable height and illuminating the Cumbrian fells.

For obvious reasons we never touched the HE mortars that had failed to go off........ but had the honour of lighting the fuse when the Army bomb disposal came up and put them in a pile, fixed some plastic explosive, inserted detonator and the fuse and give me the special matches.........That was a bang hard to reproduce, I very much doubt that would happen anymore, letting a 13 year old kid blow up a pile of 2' HE mortars.

I even made the local press (page 3 of all pages) I remember the papers headlines as I was delivering them at the time and the front headline was about a mobile crane that had had a bit of an accident due to the driver having a few too many (he had actually swerved and hit a wall, behind the wall was a big drop and the crane went over) it was many years later after paying for my pint in the local I was telling the story about the crane, the barman had a bit of a smile on him when said he remembered it very well........... He was the driver of the crane.

I remember as a child of about 10 someone gave me a primer cap from a shot gun cartridge that hadn't been used. Being inquisitive I wondered what would happen if you struck the end by using a 6" nail and hammer. After careful consideration I thought that the most appropriate location to try out this little experiment would be my bedroom with the door shut, to avoid any unwanted interruptions. I proceeded to strike the cap with the said nail and there was one hell of a loud bang, followed by stars in my eyes and ringing in my ears. You wouldn't believe how angry my mother was, she was shouting, she was hysterical and I think that she was expecting to find the back part of the house "blown out" because of the loud bang that she had heard.

CAUTION: I have since been told that the above is highly dangerous because the cap could "blow" back and cause serious body injury. You have been warned, so please don't try to replicate the above.

Using my uncles Metal lathe recently we made a 33mm Thunder Mug (Signal cannon). He then gave me 10 pounds of old fashioned Saltpeter blend Cannon powder. I make 20 gram Charges wrapped in foil for the thunder mug, a 4 inch length of cannon fuse. Sounds like a 40mm M79 HE round when I fire it. Forth of July on the beach is going to be so much fun this year. (here in Washington you can legally buy Air Launch fireworks.)

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

I remember as a child of about 10 someone gave me a primer cap from a shot gun cartridge that hadn't been used. Being inquisitive I wondered what would happen if you struck the end by using a 6" nail and hammer. After careful consideration I thought that the most appropriate location to try out this little experiment would be my bedroom with the door shut, to avoid any unwanted interruptions. I proceeded to strike the cap with the said nail and there was one hell of a loud bang, followed by stars in my eyes and ringing in my ears. You wouldn't believe how angry my mother was, she was shouting, she was hysterical and I think that she was expecting to find the back part of the house "blown out" because of the loud bang that she had heard.

CAUTION: I have since been told that the above is highly dangerous because the cap could "blow" back and cause serious body injury. You have been warned, so please don't try to replicate the above.

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Yeah, I was nine and thought it was a good idea to hit an emply shotgun shell with a nail. In the vice it went, a few minutes later off to the Dr I went for 5 stitches. My first shrapnel wound.


https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...ntvenhje-1.jpg

One fun thing was wooden match heads. I'd take the empty CO cartridge from my pellet pistol and saw off the end. Stuff it with match heads. Cut up my Dad's lawn chair, the tube was a perfect size. It launched out of sight, pretty cool. Until my Dad saw his chair. Warm bottom after that.

In 1984 I aquired @200' of white det cord and a full box of 700 mili-second Du-pont electric dets cannot remember where but that was the circles I was moving through at the time kept the cord in the fridge, we got to thinking go cut some trees down so out the scrub we go with the reel of wire @30' of cord and a det.
Wrap it around a small tree about a foot round tape the det to the outside of the wrap run the 100' wire to the HQ parked up motor running, bonnet up, 4 doors open, hold the neg on then the +ve oh hell bloody great bang, slam the bonnet down, all jump in the bloke behind the passenger gets to wind the reel in as we scarpered.
We went back a few weeks later too inspect the results and were happy with the affect, did it a couple of more times then I got to thinking we were really playing a stupid game as I had never been taught to cut det cord I just cut it like a carrot but you are supposed to pare it like slicing a bean otherwise you exerting a crush force on it and risking it going bang. I ended up giving what was left to a policeman I was friendly with and heard nothing more about it but I would have lost my firearms never to own one again and into jail you go.

Yes I was a bit wild in those days other stories as well but they are just a bit to out there

Looks like all us Milsurpers have a common (explosives based) childhood...

All these stories has me thinking of the changing attitudes of society towards Firearms in general.

Back in 1980, it was a perfectly acceptable and common sight to see someone wondering back through my small town with a rifle or shotgun slung over the shoulder.

If you tried the same thing today in 2017, you would have a dozen red dancing dots trained on your chest before you got to the bottom of the High Street...

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Originally Posted by mrclark303

All these stories has me thinking of the changing attitudes of society towards Firearms in general.

Back in 1980, it was a perfectly acceptable and common sight to see someone wondering back through my small town with a rifle or shotgun slung over the shoulder.

If you tried the same thing today in 2017, you would have a dozen red dancing dots trained on your chest before you got to the bottom of the High Street...

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And don't forget John, back then we had Guns Review..........what a great magazine.

Those red rolls of caps were so much fun in the past. Being a young military minded kid and of course watching to many war movies. What I liked to do was put the whole roll of caps in the trolley tracks and wait for the trolley to come by. BOOM!! The trolley driver would always stop and get out and see what went off. As we hid behind the mailbox laughing. Oh what fond memories of my misguided youth.

Semper Fi
Phil

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Originally Posted by AZPhil

As we hid behind the mailbox laughing

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Phil,
You nailed it..... the laughs.

We had a neighbor down the road that would chase us off when ever he seen us.
We set the tent up in the yard one night and planned our attack. He drove a little car (not very common back then) I believe it was called a Cricket. 5 or 6 of us snuck down there after dark and picked his car up placing the front tires on the porch deck.Rear tires off the first step. We ran across the street and hid behind some bushes, laughing so hard. But, nothing happened, we ran back up and turned the headlights on, then back to hide, again cracking up but again nothing. Then after rounding up a roll of tape, taped his horn on, again back behind the bushes laughing even harder. He ran out with both headlights spotting on him, poor guy probably thinking someone had car wrecked. But when he turned off the horn, then with the sudden silence he could hear us across the road, behind the shaking bushes laughing out loud. Will never forget how fast he could run as we headed every which direction. As he fell behind our pace we could hear him calling each and everyone of us by name. The next day my Father rousted us from the tent and we headed over and picked his car off the porch. I was sure I had a good switching coming, buy my Father started telling us how when younger they had taken a guys hay wagon apart and put it back together on the barn roof. He had a grin the rest of the day, but I knew not to push it.

Good Memories and good fun didn't have to be vandalism.

Thx for sharing
Charlie-Painter777

A lot of us grew up in the 50's & 60's. Korea had just finished. Cowboy TV shows every night in the late 50's. Most of us had a Daisy BB rifle. Combat started in 1962, just when DCM was selling Carbines for $20 and 45 acps for $25. My Dad bought a few. Different attitudes and environment back then. They say your childhood molds your life. What can anyone expect out of growing boys.

I don't know what it's like in the States, but over here it seems like children are wrapped up in cotton wool nowadays.

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Originally Posted by Flying10uk

I don't know what it's like in the States, but over here it seems like children are wrapped up in cotton wool nowadays.

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You got that right F10, spoon fed and spoiled....

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Originally Posted by mrclark303

All these stories has me thinking of the changing attitudes of society towards Firearms in general.

Back in 1980, it was a perfectly acceptable and common sight to see someone wondering back through my small town with a rifle or shotgun slung over the shoulder.

If you tried the same thing today in 2017, you would have a dozen red dancing dots trained on your chest before you got to the bottom of the High Street...

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Graduating HS in 1971, it was not uncommon to see rifles & shotguns in vehicles parked in the school parking lot. I can even remember a student selling a gun to another student, he had to go through the principle's office to complete the transaction...

Russ

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Originally Posted by JimF4M1s

Combat started in 1962

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Don't forget Rat Patrol.

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Originally Posted by mrclark303

spoon fed and spoiled..

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Hats on backward, pants or shorts hanging to their knees and a vocabulary that consists of "Huh" "Yeah" "What" "Dude" or "You know what I'm saying". Can't look you in the eye because they can't stop playing on the phone. Drives me nuts.

Can anyone remember:
When the last time you had a knock at the door with a teenager asking if you needed your lawn mowed, leaves raked, snow shoveled, bushes trimmed or any other chore? I sure can't. Easier to remember when I was doing the knocking looking for the odd job. They won't do it because they don't need to. Their time spent on video games, the phones with countless apps and many with parents who don't have a clue as to what they do, or who'd care.
I really worry about these young gals out there that may still be single who may have a little one. The odds of these gals finding a mate.... a 'Good One' are stacked against them. These guys have a small fortune invested in tattoos and many already way behind on multiple child support accounts. And or have multiple DUI's with records.
I'd better stop this rant, this has been a entertaining topic.

Please continue :thup:

Charlie-Painter777

Hah now in the political correctness we have today the children tell their parents what to do, if I dared to share my opinion or back chat my parents it was a perilous excersize.
As a kid growing up I like watching Combat, Rat Patrol, Ripcord, Cisco Kid, Hawaii Five O, 77 Sunset Strip, 12 o'clock High, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, the early versions of Dr Who, Rin Tin Tin yep where you got 15 minutes of show & 5 of ad's now its 5 of movie and 15 of ad's.

It's is quite a good thread with shares of the kind of fun we could have as kids in that era when you could sleep with the keys in your car and sleep with the front door open to your house, building cubby houses up trees in the back yard one we even built below ground oblivious of the obvious danger of a collapse, billy carts, losing heaps of bark in perilous adventures just all round good clean fun.

Charlie,

Rat Patrol started four years after Combat, 1966. I watched it, but I didn't like it as much as Combat.

We would find buckeye's. Use our pocket knife (do kids carry those anymore) and make a little hole. Ram a fire cracker in it, and pretend we hand hand grenades. It was a lot of fun. Now it's hard to find places you can legally even buy fire crackers. I have a few packs of Roman Candles I'm going to shoot off on the 4th. Still a kid at heart.

Only half decent fireworks story I have is in PA you can't buy good stuff if you live here... in Maryland you could buy whatever if you're out of state, they don't ask too many questions. My dad and a few guys he knew would go down to a distributor there, buy the good stuff (mortars, 500gram cakes, etc) in case quantity to meet the minimum sale, then split it all up. Had really memorable fourths with some great shows, certainly as good as you could get without going into true professional grade stuff. Did have one very memorable instance where a mortar was either too tight in it's tube or the initial charge failed and it went off on the ground.

All this got shot off at our neighbor's house which had ample room and was up on a hill, I'd cut their grass during that season. I'd mow the lawn about a day before the show so it'd look good and make sure the cut grass was mulched to avoid issues, then come back probably a week later to do it again like I always did always a bit nervous about hitting potential unexploded ordnance, especially left overs from "warmup act" stuff like bricks of firecrackers but never did. They've since moved so those days are gone, but definitely some of my defining childhood memories.

North Carolina was like northern states: sparklers and snap caps so we made our own devices. Anyone remember the polish canon sending reasonably sized objects hurling at amazing speeds that could dislocate a shoulder (clearly it can be done). Change the projectile to a lightbulb and you spend 30 mins pulling glass out of your friend's body parts. (Jeez)
Next the home made flame thrower: can of longshot raid or the like and hurl flames through the air. What idiots. But really cool looking
Finally the bombs: pressurized cans of whatever... pledge, raid, wd40..... in a bag of newspaper, light, and run like hell... night time was the best to visualize home made Moab. Again, absolutely crazy and stupid.
I will Mimmick the previous disclaimer!!! Don't do this at home...

As a child, I use to love making "go-carts" out of old pram wheels and odd/scrap bits of wood, something you never seem to see children doing nowadays. The fun part was taking it out to try which I sometimes did on a quiet side street that was on a hill. Today you would probably get in trouble for having an unroadworthy vehicle on public highway.

Back in our youth you'd never heard of a spud gun, like you see around today.
We would take Campbell soup cans and cut both the top and bottoms out of all except the one we'd use for the bottom which we'd only cut the top off, leaving the bottom in tact.
Stack and tape them securely together, basically making our own mortar tube/cannon. Then poke a small hole near the bottom cans side edge. A tennis ball fit perfectly. Use some lighter fluid poured in the top and twirl it around a bit to fill it with the fumes. Drop in the tennis ball, aim, and put a light to the poked hole. Boom off went that ball to (back then) felt like up to 50'+. After getting run out of the neighborhood because of our cannons, we fell back to our home base on the river bank. The river flowed around a big lazy bend. This is where we had dug our fort. There on that peninsula in that fort I'd had my first taste of beer.. a Carling Black Label. Had my first taste of Canadian Mist. Puffed on my first smoke there... a cigarette type cigar called a Winchester. Seen my first set of Hooters in a playboy book. Small radio so we could hear the Detroit Tigers ball games..... Ahhh Al Kaline ! Just never knew what one of your buddies would sneak away from their Dads stash. This was like a 5 star as ground forts would go. Good roof if raining, small fire box if cold but most important it gave us perfect concealment along with a excellent view looking down current, while sitting well up the bank in the tree line. When older punk types would canoe by we'd wait for them to get downriver from us......... pulled some camo brush back.... ready our cannon and fire... then quickly cover back with our camo brush. By this time we were ON TARGET most every time. We'd stay tucked hearing the punks toss their threats, but never knowing where we were. We grew out of the fort but passed it on to the up and comers.

Good times I'll never forget.

Thanks to all for sharing your memories, makes me feel like I was part of the fun.

Cheers All,
Charlie-Painter777

In the mid 60's, we (boys) burned a half-dozen of my little sister's Barbie Dolls with "flamethrowers" made from squeeze bottles of model airplane fuel, which was a mix of alcohol and nitromethane. Those dolls are prolly worth North of 10 grand today!

Russ

I remember the time when me and my brother thought that it would be a good idea to make our own "home made" candles by melting shop bought candles into glass jam jars heated up on my Gran's open fire. All was going fine until my brother managed to break his jam jar, full of molten wax, over the open fire which seemed to have a similar effect to tossing petrol onto a fire. Flames shot up the chimney and set the chimney on fire which started making a roaring noise, at which point my Gran came back into her lounge. On seeing her lounge fire place having taken on the appearance of a blast furnace, Gran started having chest pains which happened when she got very worried about something. She had to take one of her "special" tablets given to her by her Doctor for stressful situations and after a rest she was ok. The chimney fire did eventually burn it's self out but we were banned from making candles ever again.

I have made Tennis Ball cannons, as recently as 2 years ago. Growing up I had a Carbide Cannon that I bought from an ad in a comic book. Now I have my Thunder Mug (Signal cannon) to annoy people with. 20grams of Salt Peter Black powder (Cannon Powder) Can be heard clearly 1 mile away. Still fun at 63 years old.

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Originally Posted by 2A-Jay

I have my Thunder Mug (Signal cannon

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Hello 2A-Jay,
Any chance you could post a picture of it?
Would love to see it.

My 31 year old son still has a pretty wicked Potato Gun complete with a Piezo (SP ? ) sparking lighter, made from some special heavy duty PVC pipe. Some serious noise and launch. I could just imagine what your Thunder Mug would do.

Thanks for your replies !

Regards,
Charlie -Painter777

P.S. July 4th is coming soon. Problem here is our dog is scared to death of thunder or any booms, including just small firecrackers. Scared to death !!

Attachment 84889Attachment 84889


It isn't fancy, infact it is homemade, it is a 33mm smooth bore. The foil wad next to the mug is a 20 gram charge. ignition is by Cannon Fuse through the fuse hole at the base of the bore.

my cousin and i made a mortar. we found some unused railroad flares, the ones with a nail in one end so they could stick them in the ground. we used a metal pipe for the tube, we pushed it into the muddy ground and then dropped in a lite flare, and on top of the flare a co2 cartridge. the first one went off .it blew the cartridge several hundred feet into the air ,out of sight ,the next one seemed like a dud so i picked up the pipe and held it away from my face. the other muddy end was pointed next to my knee. to this day i can still make out the nail hole in my knee . boy those where the days ammonia nitrate at the hardware store was around 20 cents a pound mix it with sugar and charcoal .we always smelled like firecrackers. iam 69 and i still miss the boom we used to make.

Boy I bet that would wake the boys up at deer camp, nice job.

Speaking of waking them up, years ago while deer hunting at our tent camp in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP). One of the alarm clocks was set way to early and went off in the middle of the night. The father of the son whose clock went off got ****ed off about and shot 3 or 4 rds from his .45 at it.
He hit the clock, scared us to death along with making us mad about his no brainer move. After settling back in I gave thought as to the direction of his shots and asked where he had parked. Brand new with the dealer stickers still on the window 1985 Dodge Ramcharger had 2 shots in the drivers side front fender, just behind the tire. One last shot in the drivers door. Blew out a power steering line and the power window motor or control.

I just remember LOUD, same thought I get after seeing your Thunder Mug.

Thanks for the pictures...... Wish I could see/hear it go off.
Not sure why but why is it that so many I get to know from Washington are ex navy and.......... on the wild side :-)

Cheers
Charlie-Painter777

I am in the process of making up Charge Packets for the 4th of july on the Beach. Our dog freaks out every 4th of July. And here at the beach where we live (28 miles of drive on beach) Fireworks will be legal from July 3 to july 6. at the Fireworks stands you can buy air launch Mortors. (which I will also buy)

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Originally Posted by painter777

Thanks for the pictures...... Wish I could see/hear it go off.
Not sure why but why is it that so many I get to know from Washington are ex navy and.......... on the wild side :-)

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and to add to the crazy, I was born in Detroit, lived in Garden City till I was 6. Sailors are bred for their inventive entertainment capabilities. I excelled in that department.

I grew up in the 'Down River' area south of Detroit, little town called Flat Rock, about 1/2 between Detroit and Toledo.

Washington State Has a lot of Navy Bases, When I retired from the Navy I retired to Oak Harbor WA on Whidbey Island. I have always tried to stay near a Navy base or any Military base. The Exchange and Commisaries can be great places to shop. Though the exchanges the only real savings you are going to get are in sales tax (there are none) Sailors make some good people (usually) The nearest military base to me now is a Coast Guard Station 30 miles away.

We used to be able to get Potassium Nitrate from a medical supplier just drop in on the way home from High school then they stopped selling it to us so we switched to Soduim nitrate which gave you a type of slag when it burnt no where near as good as the pot nitr.
I backed off that and started to make a thermite powder way more fun and a really brilliant flame all was good until that eventful day I mentioned earlier that my dad took a real dim view of his son playing the amateur alchemist in our backyard.

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Originally Posted by 2A-Jay

Washington State Has a lot of Navy Bases, When I retired from the Navy I retired to Oak Harbor WA on Whidbey Island. I have always tried to stay near a Navy base or any Military base. The Exchange and Commisaries can be great places to shop. Though the exchanges the only real savings you are going to get are in sales tax (there are none) Sailors make some good people (usually) The nearest military base to me now is a Coast Guard Station 30 miles away.

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I live a couple hours away from you in Sequim. Washington is a great place.

wow, I am a member of 3 Firearms forums, The Firearms Forum, Milsurps and Culvers Shooting. Out of the three there are several members that are sshort distances from me. My world keeps getting smaller.

I should probably plead the Fifth but I am sure that the statute of limitations has run out many years ago. Forty plus years ago we got our hands on 4 commercial fireworks (the type used for Canada Day and the Fourth of July).

Armed with the sage advice that they were shot from a 4" sheet metal barrel we grabbed a chunk of dryer pipe and headed off to the bush behind our sub division late one night and dug it into the ground. Dropped one down the pipe, lite the fuse and ran. The propellant charge blew the pipe wide open and we had one of the big loud bangers go off on the ground. Every house in the neighbourhood had the lights go on and a few minutes later the Fire Department showed up. They took their axes to the doors of the Junior High because they thought that one of the boilers had exploded.

We high tailed it out of there only to return another night. Having scrounged a chunk of Sch 40 pipe I welded a base plate and a rebar spike to it and returned the next week with my cronies. The first shot off was a starburst, high in the sky and a perfect success. Next one was what I guess you would call a Chrysanthemum and there was a stirring in the neighbourhood, with one to go we hurried to get the last one off before the police showed up. Dropped it down the pipe lite the fuse and waited, there was a little thump and that was it. Figuring that it was a dud we decided to get the barrel out and get home before we got in to too much trouble.

As we were pulling the spike out of the ground I looked over and saw a orange glowing cylinder on the ground. I yelled get the F@ck out of here, and we all high tailed it out. Damn thing went off like the first.

The big difference between then and now was that back then we had experience with stuff like that, nowadays not so much.

Not saying that we were the sharpest tool in the shed back then, but we weren't distracted by Facebook and our pants were hitched up high enough we could run.

Back in our adventurous youth, my brother made an interesting discovery.

Take a 4-gallon oil drum with the top cut out, as used by all the best workshops as a rubbish bin.

Invert this drum on a flat piece of lawn.

Stick the end of the oxy torch under the open end and turn on an oxygen-rich gas mix for about ten seconds.

Withdraw the torch and light it, then play the flame over the lower side of the inverted, gas-filled drum.

Shortly thereafter, the drum will leap about fifty feet into the air, accompanied by a VERY satisfying BANG,

It will then fall to earth with a CLANG, hopefully not onto the giggling idiots who just launched it.

In a suburban back yard, the din is impressive and the need for level ground imperative if you don't want to land the drum over the fence into the neighbour's washing, or on your own roof, cars, mum's flower-beds, etc...

The price of welding gas these days makes such fun and games a bit less attractive.

Just down from our house there was a very small park it had 1 small tree like no more than 50sq meters in area where our street met another one so this was the area designated for catherine wheels and rockets.
As usual we had a cardboard box full of the rockets and catherine wheels but I always kept a string of tomthumbs in my pocket which you could hold one on the very tip of you fingers and let it off with no injury showing how brave you were.

Anyway we were having a fat time tuppeny rockets going off catherine wheels spinning and the good old roman candle hissing and fizzing away with my occasional scaring of my sister with a tomthumb going off beside her.
Well we got rid of all our ground stuff including a few chases from my sister, the big moment had arrived the launching of the 2 shilling rocket as I brought it from pocket money I had the honour of lighting the touch paper.

Well my sister stuck her nose into the mix saying I was not pushing it into the ground enough and it would fall over I snapped back it was in deep enough.
So she went to mum and got her onside so I had no option but to push the stick it in very deeply, so I lit the touch paper and retired.
B*gger me the moment the touch paper got to the motor section a great gout of smoke and flames shot out with a very staunch hissing sound.
Now I for one just stood transfixed that it was alight and going well only problem was it was not moving anywhere into the sky but firmly planted on terra firma.
We all came to the same conclusion I think Mum, Dad, sis & me new once the motor had stopped it was only a fraction of time before the starburst head went off.
As fast as we could ran to a safe distance poor dad his legs were never the same after WWII could only hobble like a crab on tequila.

Well it was an impressive explosion a most satisfactory star burst at ground level only thing is there was a car yard on that corner as well.
All evidence was removed and nothing ever mentioned about the event especially when the car yard owner came into dads shop (On the same street 100 meters away) complaining about irresponsible kids & fire works.........

Well , OK , here goes :
My best friend from my school days had announced he was going to put on a fish fry . Invited a ton of folks from farms around his . Problem was , he was not catching fish from his own lake at near the rate needed for the fry .
I had just come back from a camping trip and had an empty propane lantern bottle , one of the old style tall , skinny screw-on types . I also had a fresh pound of a shotgun powder given to me that I had no use for .
Well , I hacksawed the top threads off , poured in the powder , still had a ton of room , so topped it off with 4F priming powder ( I'd never prime that many flintlocks in my life ) , stuck in a spark plug , sealed it with a tube of clear silicone , rigged a pair of electrical wires to it with a piece of bailing wire to hang it from , and went to his lake that night .
He had a little skiff and a wire fence was strung out across the middle of the lake . We rowed out and hung the cylinder from the fence , about 6 feet under , upside down . Rowed back to shore and touched the wire ends to his truck battery . Heard a muffled UMMPH an a shake in the ground . A pillar looking a lot like a hot water heater with out a skin ( and about a 40 gallon size ) rose out of the water , held for a second , then collapsed back down . Was not at all what I expected to see . He collected a skiff - o - fish in a few minutes .
Problem solved .
I guess it's true - no problem can't be solved with the proper application of some high explosives.
Chris

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

I think Mum, Dad, sis & me

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A family memory you'll always have.

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Originally Posted by emmagee1917

Well , OK , here goes

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Yep....... That's how it starts, and Here hold my beer !

Feel like I was there, Thx for sharing Guys

Charlie

one more . maybe 30 years ago i and my helper where installing a new a/c system at a skating rink. We were welding the copper lines outside ,next to the condensing unit, which was located next to a large brick wall. We just got back from lunch. We both had large drinks in paper cups. I drank all my coke and only had ice left in the cup. It had a plastic lid and plastic straw in the cup.So with that I said to my helper watch this. I then took the welding rig and shot oxygen and acetylene thru the straw into the ice. I then lite the straw. It burned for about 5 sec and then blew up. The sound came off the brick wall,back at us next to the unit, for at least 20 min my helper kept saying i cannt hear anything iam deaf!! Luckily his hearing returned that day . To this day i have both eyes and all ten fingers. thank you lord