Mortars and Rockets, Right to Ignite.

   / Mortars and Rockets, Right to Ignite. #11  
I have nothing against fireworks, except they don't let us buy the 'good ones' that we had when we were kids. You could blow the krap out of something with a real M80 or cherry bomb. And the cracker balls you could shoot with your slingshot which exploded on contact were neat, too. Then they sent me to Vietnam and I got to play with the bigger stuff..... :)
 
   / Mortars and Rockets, Right to Ignite. #13  
Puts me in the mind about the old story of guys using dynamite on the frozen lake. Of course it is a total BS story, but it is a little fun.

Two hunters from Michigan–(true story) This is from a radio program, a true report of an incident in Michigan: A guy buys a brand new Lincoln Navigator for $42,500 and has $560 monthly payments. He and a friend go duck hunting in winter, and of course all the lakes are frozen. These two guys go out on the lake with the guns, the dog, and of course the new vehicle. They drive out onto the lake ice and get ready. Now, they want to make some kind of a natural landing area for the ducks, something for the decoys to float on. In order to make a hole large enough to look like something a wandering duck would fly down and land on, it is going to take a little more effort than an ice hole drill. So, out of the back of the new Navigator comes a stick of dynamite with a short, 40-second fuse. Now these two Rocket Scientists do take into consideration that they want to place the stick of dynamite on the ice at a location far from where they are standing (and the new Navigator), because they don’t want to take the risk of slipping on the ice when they run from the burning fuse and possibly go up in smoke with the resulting blast. They light the 40-second fuse and throw the dynamite. Remember a couple of paragraphs back when I mentioned the vehicle, the guns and the dog? Let’s talk about the dog: A highly trained Black Lab used for RETRIEVING. Especially things thrown by the owner. You guessed it, the dog takes off at a high rate of doggy speed on the ice and captures the stick of dynamite with the burning 40-second fuse about the time it hits the ice. The two men yell, scream, wave their arms and wonder what to do now. The dog, cheered on, keeps coming. One of the guys grabs the shotgun and shoots the dog. The shotgun is loaded with # 8 buckshot, hardly big enough to stop a Black Lab. The dog stops for a moment, slightly confused, but continues on. Another shot and this time the dog, still standing, becomes really confused, and of course terrified, thinking these two geniuses have gone insane. The dog takes off to find cover, under the brand new Navigator. —-BOOM!—- Dog and Navigator are blown to bits and sink to the bottom of the lake in a very large hole, leaving the two idiots standing there with this “I can’t believe this happened” look on their faces. The insurance company says that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal use of explosives is not covered. He still had yet to make the first of those $560 a month payments! And you thought your day was not going well?
 
   / Mortars and Rockets, Right to Ignite. #14  
Checkout wfboom.com. I've bought from them in the past, best deals I've found to date. Buy by the case, not the buy one get one gimmick. We had ours shipped to the shop, by a trucking company the year I did it. Still the biggest, baddest display I've ever done.
 
   / Mortars and Rockets, Right to Ignite. #15  
We haven't been allowed firecrackers for many decades. So we just made our own, but it was time consuming.

My biggest accomplishment in this field, was using small X-mas bulbs to electrically ignite the charge. Never had the patience to roll canon fuse and it was much safer.

Some of the You Tube, Fireworks gone wrong, videos are priceless.
 
   / Mortars and Rockets, Right to Ignite. #16  
I have always enjoyed fireworks, and nothing makes me happier than heavy rain on the 3rd of July. What I don't enjoy about fireworks is paying for them! The big loud bright ones I can't help but see money disappearing into smoke in a couple of seconds flat, if I am the one paying for it I really don't enjoy them as much.
Must be that scotch portion of my ancestry :laughing:
 
   / Mortars and Rockets, Right to Ignite. #17  
The townsman of Cook, Mountain Iron, and the like belong to stiller places now.

Last Friday morning, the impetuousness of youth apparently hijacked the logic of knowing better. Reichel was in the backyard of a home on Oriole Avenue in Virginia. It was there that St. Louis County Sheriff's officials say Reichel placed a hard hat atop his head, which was crowned by a powerful mortar-style firework. Then he lit it.

Emergency responders arrived on the scene around mid-morning. Reichel was rushed to a local hospital for injuries suffered when the firework ignited. He was then medevaced to Essentia Health-St. Mary's Duluth hospital, where he later died.



The above is from a local newspaper from last November. Idea came from YouTube video. The newspaper was kind - he didn't die at the hospital - dead right there. Hard hat was no shield against the mortar blast that took most of his head. Medevac was at family request for organ transplant but unfortunately organs were too damaged by the trauma. Unfortunately the larger fireworks are still available for those who say, "hold my beer and watch this" and the family suffers.
 
 
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