July 4th

[phantom]

I remember a drunken bbq ( make that at a bbq with lots of drunk people ) throwing uncooked sausages with a lit double happy in them. Talk about a mess. At high school a mate and I made up a batch of explosive made of 50/50 sugar and weedkiller, put in used scewtop film cannisters and blew small saplings out of the ground. Its a wonder I've still got my arms and legs. Oh and who remembers bolt bombs. Todays kids are just wooses thank God

[Wolf]

Cracker gun made of a .303 shell case on a wooden handle. Drop a double happy in, light it then load the ball bearing (your timing had to be pretty spot on) Great things. I put a number of holes in a corrogated iron fence that way and the house owner was "NOT" amused. In fact if he'd been able to catch me the stick he was waving could have hurt. Childhood, eh?

Reminds me of a cracker gun I saw made from a length of metal pipe with one end squeezed flat. Dunno if the bugger ever tried putting stones in it or whether it was just used to make a loud bang and a spurt of flame.

If its all the same to you loonies, I prefer to stick to legally accessible firearms made by reputable and reliable weaponsmiths ("Colt" need not apply) - as much as I enjoy loud bangs and holes appearing in things, I prefer to prolong my enjoyment by surviving the experience in one piece.

[Wolf]

Oh and who remembers bolt bombs.

Yep. Guilty. Also remember a couple of lectures from my father about them. One was about a classmate who detonated a bolt bomb and was half strangled by one of the teachers who had fought in WWI in the trenches and was suffering from shell-shock. The other was about a classmate who threw one in the classroom, the thread stripped and a flying bolt passed through his still-outstretched hand and lodged in the wall.

[Lou Girardin]

It's bloody sad how kids live now in our cotton wool world.
All the signs about holding lit fireworks were never a patch on having a double happy go off in your fingers.

[Ixion]

Guncotton is easy to make, and the materials not TOO hard to get hold of. Quite safe so long as you wash it well. Really well. Bit unstable otherwise. You need to make a high explosive to detonate it. Nitrogen tri-iodide will work and is trivial to make.

[Motu]

Cracker gun made of a .303 shell case on a wooden handle. Drop a double happy in, light it then load the ball bearing (your timing had to be pretty spot on) Great things. I put a number of holes in a corrogated iron fence that way and the house owner was "NOT" amused. In fact if he'd been able to catch me the stick he was waving could have hurt. Childhood, eh?

I put mine through the sheets hanging on the line - big black powder burns on them....oh yeah,you gotta aim too huh?

Pipe bombs...my little brother in law would come home and we'd hear it go off down at the golf course....it doesn't bear thinking about if someone lost their ball in the wrong place.I also know someone who took the door off one of the gun enplacements on Tamaki Drive with a pipe bomb.

On Guy Fawkes night I would fill balloons with oxy/acet and put them all in the back of my Morris Oxford,then drive off to the party - too much oxy and they would go off with an ear ringing flash and blow the bon fire apart.

[Wolf]

Carbide bombs! Put some water in the bottom of a plastic bottle, pour in a quantity of calcium carbide, screw the lid on quick and if you've done it "right" apparently the heat and pressure will ignite the acetylene/air mix - never had it happen like that.

Put a home made fuse into the cap of a Sunlight dish-washing liquid bottle, poured water and carbide into the bottle, screwed the lid on and lit the fuse. It died without passing flame into the mix so I poked the fuse down into the bottle, lit a match and held it over the hole.

There was a 2-foot jet of flame out of the neck of the boittle, the lid went into orbit and flicked the match out of my hand - causing a welt on my fingertip that took days to go away.

I ran - sprinted inside, collapsed on the kitchen floor and bloody-near wet myself laughing.

Mum came rushing into the kitchen yelling "what's happened?" and it was five minutes before I was capable of telling her - I just lay in a ball on the floor clutching my aching ribs with tears pouring down my face, howling with laughter.

And that, ladies and germs, is why I ran inside - I knew I was going to crack up big-time and I knew if mum had heard that bang then looked out the window to see me rolling on the lawn clutching my stomach, I'd've had an ambulance crew turning up.