The most trouble I got into shooting fireworks

**Dfd** · July-01-10, 09:30 AM

I was 10 and the big kids "let" me shoot their bottle rockets from the draw bridge in St. Augustine FL. They saw the bridge operator coming over to yell at us.

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Retroit · July-01-10, 11:05 AM

Well it wasn't me, but someone in my neighborhood was shooting off fireworks. One of them landing in my next-door neighbor's gutter and proceeded to ignite the leaves and then the roof. I happened to be outside when a young boy who lived next-door [[on the other side) shouted "Look, a fire!" I rushed to hook up the garden hose to douse the fire and told the boy to ring the doorbell of the house on fire. The occupants rushed out and turned their hose on to the fire. The owner called the fire department just to be sure the fire was out. They said the fire was seconds away from getting into the attic space, at which point it would have spread rapidly.

A good reminder to clean out the gutters, keep the garden hose hooked up, be vigilant, and report inconsiderate assholes who shoot off fireworks over other peoples' houses to the police.

**Gannon** · July-01-10, 11:42 AM

When my cousin's husband was eleven or twelve, he blew three of his fingers off with some explosive. That is trouble enough for me...

**gibran** · July-01-10, 11:44 AM

throwing an m 80 into a sewer....or blowing up my gi joe...he stepped on a land mine....yes I know...but I have reformed since then/

**Sstashmoo** · July-01-10, 12:07 PM

We used to get a M-80's when I was a kid, the one's that looked like a small stick of dynamite, with the fuse coming out the middle of the cylinder. Those things were powerful. We used to light those and throw them into an intersection at night, there would be a ball of fire three feet in diameter, and probably heard for miles. We're lucky we didn't blow our legs off packing them around in our pockets. We never got caught, but I know they had to be looking for us. Those things were big time illegal.

**Ray1936** · July-01-10, 12:50 PM

We'd light an M-80 and place a tin can over it. That sucker blew the can 500 miles into the sky. Well, maybe it was a little less, but when you're ten years old or so, it sure seemed like 500 miles........

**Jimaz** · July-01-10, 03:33 PM

I never got into trouble but maybe I should have. We made some extremely large firecrackers. The largest was 1 inch in diameter and one foot long. It left a three-foot diameter crater, one foot deep!

No property damage was done and we were always safety conscious.

**Downriviera** · July-01-10, 11:19 PM

My friends and I had heard that a cherry bomb would explode underwater. Ala Mythbusters, we tested this theory in the wrong place, the bathroom at our junior high school. Some narc ratted us out and we all got some time off. I think my parents had to pay to replace the toilet.

LodgeDodger · July-02-10, 01:17 AM

Warning: Nudity

http://www.spike.com/video/bottle-rocket/2690117

**Sstashmoo** · July-02-10, 08:19 AM

Quote: "We made some extremely large firecrackers. The largest was 1 inch in diameter and one foot long."

Sheesh.. We tried making rockets, and had minimal success, as we lessened the body thickness for lighter weight and better flight, they became dangerous. One blew out the side and burnt me pretty bad. That was the end of our rocket making. But the zip gun research continued

**mikefmich** · July-02-10, 08:32 AM

Stuff we made as kids in chemistry class, would get us arrested by ATF agents today.

Cold fire, mini pipe bombs, glycerin and some kinda crystals....not speaking of the M-80 & cherry bomb stunts with carp, ducks, & seagulls.

Back then we were just pesky kids...late 50's to mid 60's. Hooray for the east side.

However when my neighbor and I damn near lost fingers from some M-80's, dad had a few "officers" read us the riot act. Lemme think.....Jerry H from the mounted bureau, Officer Wolf from Conners, and I'm not sure where Officer Eldridge was from...Conners too I think.

**Jimaz** · July-02-10, 01:14 PM

Originally Posted by mikefmich

... in chemistry class, ... some kinda crystals.

Most likely nitrogen triiodide. It's a staple of chemlab pranksters.

**Bong-Man** · July-02-10, 01:22 PM

When I was 9 or 10, I was watching a baseball game at a local school. I was on my bike, leaning against the backstop. Behind me in an adjacent field, a guy was blowing off cherry bombs in a maxwell house coffee can. When I heard a big bang, I immediately turned and felt something hit my forehead. Turned out to be a piece of the can that hit me, and man did the blood start flowing. I screamed bloody murder of course, and about 30 parents that were watching the game jumped up and chased and tackled the teenager who was blowing the cans. Got 7 stitches out of that one. My parents were at Macomb Mall, and they were paged to report to the hospital for a son with serious head injuries. My Dad still tells the tale of heading down Masonic at about 80 mph. My first hospital episode, and I'll never forget it ! Still have the jagged scar too.

**Jimaz** · July-02-10, 02:11 PM

Because of this thread I finally cleaned the last of my rain gutters. Thanks, Retroit!

**CountrySquire** · July-02-10, 03:50 PM

...throwing lit bottle rockets out the window of my buddy's Chevette while he drove us west on 2 lane 9 mile. The kids in the car behind us whom we did not know were back there got so pissed they passed us and blocked the road and threatened us with sticks and bats.

**Jimaz** · July-02-10, 04:38 PM

I found something labeled "M-800" [[sic). It's about 1½" long and ⅝" in diameter. It's yellow and says "Consumer Fireworks 1.4G." I've never seen one before. What should I expect if I light it?

According to Wikipedia, consumer M-80s contain up to 50 mg of flash powder. "Real" M-80s contain 3,000 mg. So the "1.4G" on the label means this is about half of a real one?

**Glowblue** · July-02-10, 05:21 PM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

I found something labeled "M-800" [[sic). It's about 1½" long and ⅝" in diameter. It's yellow and says "Consumer Fireworks 1.4G." I've never seen one before. What should I expect if I light it?

According to Wikipedia, consumer M-80s contain up to 50 mg of flash powder. "Real" M-80s contain 3,000 mg. So the "1.4G" on the label means this is about half of a real one?

1.4G is the HAZMAT shipping class for consumer grade fireworks, indicating a minor explosion hazard. It is illegal to sell fireworks containing more than 50mg of pyrotechnic material [[with some exceptions) to anybody without an ATF high explosive license.

**Jimaz** · July-03-10, 01:27 PM

Originally Posted by Glowblue

1.4G is the HAZMAT shipping class for consumer grade fireworks, indicating a minor explosion hazard....

Right you are. Thanks. I wouldn't have known that.

**oladub** · July-03-10, 04:47 PM

In the early 60's, a City band used to perform nighttime concerts in Balduck Park during the summer. The band was seated on an elevated wood stage and hundreds of concert goers would watch from lined up park benches. I lived as couple of blocks away. A few of us went to the concert with smoke bombs. Frankie S. went around in the dark behind the stage to get underneath the stage. The rest of us witnessed a large amount of black smoke emerge in the tuba section. The music stopped until the smoke cleared and they figured out the stage wasn't on fire. A couple of us were stopped by the police on the stairs going up the hill a bit later. The police asked us if we knew anything about the smokebombs. We didn't volunteer any information.

**lpg** · July-04-10, 01:53 PM

Had a his paddle to my rear end discussion with the principle of my junior high school for shooting bottle rockets at the open windows after school.
Cherry bombs and M-80's were the staple of our fun in the early-mid 60's. Sewers, creeks were our favorite places. Used to make black powder from chemicals bought from Cunningham-Kinsel drug store by my house. Still have all my fingers, both my eyes and the hearing is still pretty good.

**Flanders** · July-04-10, 02:25 PM

Homemade bombs, my friends and I made them by using gunpowder taken from my parent's upstairs room renter who hunted in the fall, by stealing some of his shotgun shells, then after cutting off the plastic/paper shot casing and digging out the corks covering the gunpowder. We wrapped the gunpowder tightly inside sheets of aluminum foil, and poked a hole inside and added firecracker wicks tied together. Made quite a loud boom, and left a small crater in the alley nearby. We never got caught or hurt though.

**Bigb23** · July-08-10, 03:22 PM

After a trip back to Detroit, I was driving home to Long Beach, Cal. Whole passing through Missouri, I picked up a case of M-80's. During New Years Eve 1979, I was driving down the cliff side road down to a beach, while lighting and throwing them through a half open window !
One bounced back in and landed on the drivers side floor between my legs. I had just enough time to slam the car into park and cover my ears. It went off, but did'nt damage any of my equiptment.

**Corn.Bot** · July-08-10, 08:03 PM

This was not trouble I personally got into because I was a watch-and-learn kind of sibling. My brother's girlfriend threw a cherry bomb into the brick fireplace in the basement of our home in the municipality formerly known as East Detroit. There were logs burning at the time... the girlfriend thought it would be funny to hear a firecracker "pop" in the house.

Except it was a freaking cherry bomb, and knocked the fireplace off its foundation. My dad was beyond furious and my brother was lucky to see the next day's light.

**yaktown** · July-10-10, 07:45 PM

I have several stories:

1. One summer, friends and I were lighting bottle rockets in the driveway. At the time, my parents had a window air conditioner in the living room. My dad would put up a big piece of styrofoam to cover the window gap. Well one rocket went errant and ended up flying into the styrofoam and exploding. Quite obviously it shattered the foam as well as the blinds inside.

2. My dad and I were shooting off rockets in the backyard one year. Unfortunately, it was a dry year and several rockets landed in the neighbors yard igniting the dry grass. Thankfully the neighbors were not home as we ran over to extinguish the small fire. Dad and I packed up our stuff and went inside for the night!

3. I went to the elementary school playground with 2 friends and a mess of explosives. We had a lot of fun and were preparing to leave when one of us noticed a fire at the edge of the playground. We hauled ass over there and proceeded to stamp out the fire. We were hoping NOT to read in the newspaper [[pre-internet days) about the playground burning down!

I can't believe some of the stuff we did with explosives as teenagers. We used to have bottle rocket wars using cardboard tubes as launchers. Eventually we upgraded to PVC tubes. It's amazing none of us were injured!