Forbidden Fireworks
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- Опубликовано: 30 дек 2020
- In order to properly say good riddance to 2020, we figure there's no better way to send it off than with fireworks that the federal government says are illegal without a Federal Explosives License.
So we headed out to Renaissance Shooting Club and made legit "clone correct" classic verboten fireworks that everyone has heard about such as an M80, Cherry Bomb, and a Quarter Stick; plus a bonus round where we nuke a toilet with a Quarter Stick.
Nothing in this video should be construed with legal advice on how not to go to jail for illegal fireworks or explosives, nor practical advice on how not to meet a Darwinian fate when making fireworks. For more info on what you can and can't do with fireworks, checkout ATF's website, but remember that State & Local regulations also apply: www.atf.gov/explosives/fireworks
Our thanks to @Sportsman's Guide for making this video possible.
If you're interested in joining Renaissance Shooting Club, please check out their website here: www.renaissanceshootingclub.com/
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There used to be a time when you could walk into a General store and buy a case of whiskey, a case of TNT and a Thompson sub machine gun. Those were the days.
And then they stopped making general stores, so now you have to go to three different stores to get those things.
Yea! If you were rich! Because nobody else could.
Ah yes. I would much rather have dangerous freedom than safe slavery.
We all give up freedom when idiots roam the world.
@@Mark-uq9km Then roam idiot.
Ah yes, *Prohibited Pyrotechnics*
*Snap, bang, crackle- **_FUCK, I BLEW MY THUMB OFF!_*
Toilet? Do you work on motor homes?
Ah yes Discouraged Destructive Devices
If you didn't put much effort into finding out how much flash powder goes into a cherry bomb, how can you know it is a sufficient analog for future testing?
Illicit illuminators!
I remember the M80 being about the same size, but the cherry bombs we had back in the 60’s were smaller. They were about the size of a real cherry: about 3/4” diameter.
That's what I was thinking! Thanks for clarifying that!
Too much talking.
@@grigorirasputin5020 I was thinking that because I bought them as a kid and they SWERE smaller.
Yes, these 3/4" size cherry bombs were the size that I knew. Perfect size for a wrist rocket!
Anyone who grew up in the 60's knew that cherry bombs were actually cherry sized --- the M-80 was definitely larger
When I was a kid, that "quarter stick" was called "the blockbuster", there was a guy who would come around every year until inwas like 10 or 11, always had m80s, Blockbusters, seemingly unlimited BlackCats, and bottle rockets. All those years, not a single one of us got hurt using them, because we knew of we did the ass whooping we would get after would be worse... and then we would never get to play with fireworks again
Oddly, we never hear from the kids who did get killed. Just can't figure out why that might be.
@@scottwillis5434
Well, now you're going to hear. When I was in 7th grade, some kid in my gym class brought a home made device to school and lit it off during gym class while we were outside (doing what I don't recall). The device was an empty CO2 cartridge that he had filled with black powder or whatever and shoved a fuse in. We, (being stupid) all gathered around in a circle when he lit it and threw it on the ground. BOOM!
Fortunately, (for his parents, who would no doubt have been sued back to the stone age), he was the one that got hit with the shrapnel. Right in the stomach. Blood everywhere. It knocked him down, but he jumped up and started running back to the school holding his stomach, screaming all the way.
Actually, I don't think he died; I think he was expelled or something, because I don't recall seeing him after that.
Ah, good old school days back in the 60s.
10 grams of potassium perchlorate/aluminium flash powder makes a heck of a bang and is more stable than the potassium chlorate mix
You're damn right. Those really were the days. Nowadays, try doing stuff like that without the feds coming down on you HARD.
We called them blockbusters also in NYC.
My grandpa always told stories of dropping cherry bombs into toilets back in the day. Thank you for this
Oh shit dude cool seeing you here. And I’m pretty sure all of our grandpa’s had much cooler childhoods.
Yup! My dad liked to tell the story of when he flushed a lit cherry bomb down the toilet closest to the down pipe on the 3rd floor of a Navy Barracks during the Nam war. His best guess was it went off in between the first and second floor and emptied the contents of the sewage pipes back into the bathrooms on said floors and all over the occupants of the bathrooms. I guess the excrement covered Seamen boiling out of those bathrooms reminded him a lot of hornets after you stick a stick into their nest. I'd have paid good money to have seen that.
@@monauralsnail0669 Childhood maybe, but D-Day in Normandy...., well I'm here, so thanks grandpa for trudging though that mess. I totally get why he had no enthusiasm towards fireworks.
I still drop quarter sticks out of the beds of pickups...
@@furd1905 Ahh the memories. Of course you are doing this on private property :)
I remember, vividly, cherry bombs and M-80s and Black Cat firecrackers very well - in the 60s my grandfather brought me an entire grocery bag full of them while we were on vacation in a very small town in PA. I think I was maybe 9-10 years old and spent 3 full days constantly blowing up just about anything I could find. I thought I was in Heaven, and came out of it with all of my fingers (some were numb...). Yes, those were the days!
Dittos for the bag of firecrackers and uses. Everything you said. Ha.
By the time my firework lighting days came about all of these had just been outlawed, so I missed out on them. However my dad used to buy Blackcat firecrackers & bottle rockets every year, so I did get to have some fun, and came away with all my digits in place.
by the time i was 10 in the 90s we couldn't get the good stuff, only ever came across cherry bombs' a few times but we could still get black cat and mighty mites from the back door of china markets, so much fun and never any problems
@@clatonblade2211 Hadn't thought about Chinese markets, great Idea! Wonder if it would still be possible, I'd love to get some Black Cat crackers & rockets. Cherry Bombs would be cool too, but I think I could make my own fairly easily too.
@Ura PillowBiter who told you that? you legally can't make them over certain strength
In my younger days at the ripe old age of 10 years old my friends and I could walk to town about 4 miles round trip and purchase M80's, Cherry Bombs and just plan old Dixie Boy's, Black Cats firecrackers. We could buy anything the Fireworks Stand had during the 4th. of July time frame, usually a week before and a day or two after. Can you imagine a group of 10 year olds decending on a fireworks stand today, that's if you could find a real fireworks stand. The 4th. of July was one of my favorite times of the year, back in the day when kids could be kids.
PS - I was born in 1950. Just another old geezer.
When i was a teen, about 17, i knew someone into the fireworks black market. There were m-80's, bottle rockets, roman candles, spinners, etc. He was buying and selling like crazy. He put an m-80 into a pepsi can and made glitter! Also, he put an m-80 into a 5-gallon bucket of water and the bucket shot 10 feet in the air and we all got drenched! I grew outta the illegal fireworks scene a year or 2 later. I just watch the professional fireworks on TV. I live in a mostly mexican neighborhood of Las Vegas. I hear them setting off mortars, and they are insanely powerful! The biggest explosions i hear in my area. I feel bad for the poor animals who get so scared. It's the biggest reason why i don't do illegal fireworks!
3.5 grams of flash in an m80. Should be called 8balls.
Or it's smaller relative, the 'Teener'.
I see I have found my plugs, hit me up haha
How do you know that?
@@rhughes1795, misspent youth. I actually used to buy it from a guy named Randy Hughes in WV lol. Is that you Randy??
@@shanek6582 No, it's not me... ahem, uh, no.
In the 60's, when M80's and cherry bombs could be bought, a cherry bomb was the size of a Bing cherry--not the golf ball you made. A cherry bomb was about 1/2 to 1/3 the power of an M80. An M80 could blow a piece out of the edge of a country road (tarmac) a cherry bomb wouldn't.
Someone gave you some bad information. Try asking folks who are 65ish now, and remember the real thing.
Their "Charry bomb" is closer to what I would have called a "barrel bomb". The power also depends on the formulation of flash, if "spacer" is used (rice hulls, cork, cheerios, etc) to accelerate the blast, and if the device is "spiked" (wrapped to contain the pressure).
i was writing the story of my summer and fall of misspent youth and cherry bombs, silver salutes and m-80s. changed my mind and no not because of damages. no mailboxes were harmed, or people. anyway that is the order of power m-80s being the most explosive. i didnt know of quarter sticks and the other thing.
the horror story we were told was the guy sitting in the passenger seat with the box in his lap throwing them out the window, aaannnd one bounced back in to set off some in the box. nobody has any info on damage there. i would have been in the trunk before they went boom. in the 60s but found some for sale after the law once maybe 1969/70.
I noticed that too...the original cherry bomb was the size of a modern 'smoke bomb' or Bing cherry like you said. You could launch that big one from a golf ball launcher....Hmmmm....
guys check this pyro. looks like good stuff but not many viewers. ruclips.net/video/a21_3M5MH-g/видео.html
check back if you like him. must be tedious making those "cakes".
@@ralphwiggum2058 You guys prolly dint hav water baloon launchers back then. Next class: potato delivery systems
Back in the late 60s we use to get cherry bombs by the bags and a buddy's dad use to have coils of fuse cord with different burn rates and graduation day we snook out in the parking lot and stuffed tail and side pipes with them and a friends sister went around lighting them right before everyone left. It sounded like a war zone through town and has been wrote about a couple times since in our local paper. They called it the class that went out with a bang. For the most part even our parents got a thrill out of it. We got in more trouble moving a cornfield to main streat than we did playing with firework. We pulled a cornstalks by the roots from a local field and over night we stood them up down main just like a corn field it was at harvest time so no corn was lost but when our parents found out who did it boy were we in trouble
The best "experiment" I ever did was with 3 blockbusters wrapped tightly together with aluminum wire- so that they would all go off at the same time without having to light all 3 fuses; the concussion from one was all it took to set the others off in the same instant. Me and a friend went to a relatively secluded spot, where we found an old truck tire lying on its side. We had an old, thin- steel kiddy lunchbox that we put some old toy plastic models in, and some other junk, and I put the "bomb" I'd made inside, leaving the fuse sticking out. When it went off, the tire got blown about 20 ft in the air, and the lunch box was, of course, blown up, but what was interesting was that the wall of the box that was blown into the truck tire rim now had the shape of the tire rim, with the hole pattern showing as "bubbles" where the sheet metal was partly blown through the bolt holes on the tire rim. Kinda cool.
Back in 1997 I moved from the US to Europe. Had a total of 9 suitcases with me. Inside one of those were three M80's and two 1/4 sticks. Didn't even realize I had taken them.
They made through and I used all but one on the first New Years celebration I went to. The last M80 I dropped out of my window down next to some assholes who were trying to break into a car. They took off running. To this day I still begin to laugh when I remember their reaction.
Brilliant
You just have to go to Poland or the Czechs, there you can still buy strong fireworks as a consumer "small" fireworks like Color Salute or FP3 with 3g to 5g flashpowder or big ones like (italian) Cobra 6 or 7 or other ground salutes with 30g- 50g flashpowder and above 😅
@@Christian-lh7uxthat’s awesome
As a kid I was always disappointed that the fireworks were better back in the day. When I was older I came across someone with some of the back in the day fireworks. He gave me a firecracker. It was small and silver. I was like lame. I put it under a garden gnome. I was very surprised at what such a little fire cracker did to that gnome. The neighbor was so mad.
Cause now days they just make it look big but add like 1.5 grans of flash at the most
Make your own flash powder
And you can make some bombs fuck forbidden you can turn a tree into toothpicks
@@neverbrokeagain7701 noooo, not the treeesssssssss :)
Yeah. That was MY gnome. You still owe me 50$ for the gnome.
@@neverbrokeagain7701 firecrackers sold today cannot legally have more then 50mg of flash powder in them.
I played with them as a kid, but we all knew their power and ran like hell. I never handled them carelessly even though I had them as a kid in the 50s. Am M80 I put in a mud puddle blew a pound of mud on my back from 30,feet away as i ran. Some of my cousins I think flushed one of those things down a school toilet in iowa and my dad said he and his brothers had to pay for repairs. Black cats were no big deal, I always lit them in my hand and threw them. Never had an accident which was lucky. A ladyfinger once opened my hand like a bolt of lightning and made the hand numb for hours - a ladyfinger!
Powerful Fireworks, and even those now sold by Wally World are NO joke I used to make the fireworks for my towns July 4th Celebration. I'm talking Concussive, Multi-staged Rockets, Colored Bursts, Mortar Shells, etc.. I was fully trained by the US Army in the making, use, and detonation of these and other types of explosives. I had a Building that I used to make these consisting of Concrete inner walls surrounded by 1/2" Diamond Plate Welded Steel outer walls and roof, plus internal static grounding system to Earth. Back in 2020 I was making my Std. 20" Mortar Shells and unbeknownst to me a very dangerous thunder storm had come up with frequent cloud to ground lightening. My Building took a direct hit of lightening and when I came to 10 days later, I found I had lost both legs below the knees and had 2nd degree burns over 60% of the rest of my body. I have not physically touched a Firework since that time but I do still consult with the towns show, though I am WAY away at the firing of them as my wheelchair only moves but so fast.. LOL
In the late 50s and into the 60's I use to have a great time with M80s and cherry bombs. Note, I still have all my body parts, I would still play with them if they were available.
You can learn how to make your own Cherry Bombs and M80's ect..... There are websites that have full instructional information. It is my understanding that making them is a federal offense unless you have a permit from the BATF. You may want to look into it. It still is interesting online educational information though just for fun. I am now a 71 year old man. I had lots of fun with M80's and Cherry Bombs when I was a teenager. I still like those things today at my age but I do not do it anymore because I am preoccupied with other priorities. They are loads of fun though !!
Cherry bombs & a wrist rocket. Those are some fond teenage memories LOL.
Huh when I was a kid like early 90’s my uncle gave me 20-25 M80’S I was 10 or so he was a real legend! I blew up everything I could find!!
@@robertmckinley2886 I'm sure that would put you on a watch list right, haha
I do not know. Just speculating.
The "Mutated Herpes Pumpkin" should be the standard analog in all explosives tests.
Sounds like the name of a garage band.
Almost as good as the meat target.
@@brucetucker4847 You are a man of taste, I see. Another "Paul" fan!
I prefer to use a glass bottle in my hand
We dispelled the M80 = 1/4 stick one day when we "acquired" a piece of a stick of dynamite and a detonator from a construction site (sewerage installation). The piece we got was probably about a 1/4 of a dynamite stick. We set it off behind the North Jr High School and man did that roar. The flash was huge, we could feel it in the ground and it left about 2 inch deep x 5 inch diameter crater. I would rate an m80 at about a 1/4 of a 1/4.
I’m 28 and my buddies dad was a police officer. Snooping around the basement one day we found a box of about 50 confiscated golf ball sized cherry bombs. Naturally we snagged a couple and you could tell they were homemade. There had to be 25g of flash powder in there because the holes were blowing in the ground were insane. Super fun.
You stole from police? You are tough
@@Yahooligan72 no, more like they were just a couple curious kids and its his dads FRIEND lol
Yeah, we had a jackass flush one down a commode way back when I was in junior high school in 1970. Unfortunately, the latrine or lavatory was on the floor above the cafeteria and the old iron down pipe came down the wall next to one of the lunch tables. I was in the lunch line about to get served when that thing went off. I can't remember if it blew a piece out of that iron pipe or if it blew out the cap for the clean out. But either way, the kids sitting at that table got sprayed, the table and food got covered with sewage water, they hustled all of us kids out of the cafeteria and I never got my lunch that day. They did get the pipe fixed and the cafeteria cleaned up by the next day and had the cafeteria open. But no one ever sat at that table again. As for the culprits that pulled that stunt, I do not know if they caught them. If they did, they never mentioned their name. But the rumors and gossip were ripe with the usual suspects.
I grew up playing with M-80's and cherry bombs in the Midwest from the mid 60's to the mid-70's, and your example of the cherry bomb was considerably larger than any I had ever seen. My recollection is that the the true cherry bombs were either equal to or slightly smaller than the M-80. Roughly equal in size to those modern day little smoke bombs they sell as safe and sane fireworks.
I commented this then saw yours so....
Ok so ima a pyro and the technical classification is. Cherry bomb= 1g flash. Specifically only a cherry bomb of sawdust is packed around it. M80s= 2 1/2 - 3 g flash. M100=7 g flash quarter stick= 15 g flash and half stick= 25 g flash. These are specific to fire crackers. Not actual dynamite. Stay safe y’all
That description matches exactly to what my Father had. The outside color printing read "Cherry Bomb!", maybe 7/8" diameter. The fuses were short, too short IMHO. A two-man sequence was used. Thrower held cherry with fuse between two fingers, arm back. Lighter ignites fuse and yells "LIT" at sign of first spark from fuse. Thrown immediately, high and away would get an airburst for full noise effect. At night the strobe was almost as impressive as the report.
@@docj6850 Thanks for the data Doc J. 👍 Doc was my father's nickname from WW2 Europe. Had to comment after seeing your screen name....synchronicity.
You Are right M-80's are pretty much the same as a cherry bombs .
This is my recollection also - cherry bombs were smaller and less powerful than M80's. The Silver Salutes were comparable to or slightly more powerful than M80's. (mid to late '60s). Both were waterproof and worked well submerged after lighting the fuse.
I remember back in the 70s you could buy these M-80s and Cherry bombs. right off the shelf. I'm still here
My brothers and I would sneak em across the US /Canada border in our grandparents motorhome and parents trailer as kids in the 70s by the bag load. It was a good time to be a kid but if my parents ever found out I wouldn't be here.
Billy Bob always has the best fireworks
Ahh, the good old days. I grew up as a kid during the 50s, had fun playing with that stuff
Your lucky dude
LOL, your picture kind a looks like angry grandma
@@aaronjay4896
I guess I was born with this face
Thanks
@@larrykluckoutdoors8227 thanks for being a good sport👍
@@aaronjay4896
No sense getting pissed off over that
As soon as he said the wood was lodged in his torso, I started counting his fingers
I remember when I was very young probably 6 or 7 years old my uncle sat with us on a picnic table in upstate New York, and we had black cat fireworks with the original powder charge. He'd take a baby food jar lid and place it on top of the firecracker and lit the fuse with a punk, and told us do not put your face over it. When that jar lid. What 50 feet up in the air and came straight down we caught it in the air. That was the coolest thing in my lifetime at that point. Then he gave us the punk and then we took turns launching that jar lid into the sky. That was part of The Wonder years for me. And watching his son launch a cherry bomb with a slingshot over their pond
Until some time in the 80s, the major supplier of M-80s, cherry bombs and larger explosives was an operation being run out of a barn in Benton, TN, about 10 miles from me. I was friendly with the family.
They made their flash out of dark aluminum and potassium chlorate (NOT perchlorate!). One day a guy was mixing a 5 gallon bucket of flash using a steel paint stirrer and a 120 volt electric drill. There were several buckets which had already been mixed. Suddenly most everything on the farm disappeared.
The barn and everyone in it simply disappeared. No organic material was ever recovered. It rendered a 2 story brick farm house to rubble. The explosion was heard in Cleveland, TN, 30 miles away. I'm a nuclear engineer and was in PA working on the recovery of Three Mile Island nuclear plant after the incident so I didn't get to hear the explosion.
Since then the supply of good fireworks has pretty much dried up. Something more powerful than the quarter stick is the pneumatic bomb. This consists of a drinking water bottle with a metal valve stem through the top and the top wired to the bottle like a Champaign bottle. This is connected to an air compressor capable of at least 500 psi.
the bottle swells up to an almost perfect sphere and then around 475 psi, it lets go. If one reaches the limit of the compressor, I shoot the bottle with a pellet rifle.
At the request of the party host, I set one of these off at his 4th of July party. It takes several minutes for my little compressor to reach almost 500 psi. I was getting some ribbing from some of the men. Then it exploded. Some of the combat vets dove for cover. The women were screaming and some of the guys who had been ribbing me just stood there with their mouths open. Great party.
My long lost childhood smiles upon this video with forgotten delight.
You felt that too huh😔
This was my entire childhood in the ‘60s. Blowing up stuff with fireworks. The silver salute was also popular.
I’m not a100% sure but from what I remember the salutes were more powerful than the m80 or at least it seemed like it .
Another remembrance of my childhood, and what we saw: firecrackers, lady fingers (small firecrackers), ash-cans (silver salutes), cherry bombs and m-80's. All illegal where I grew up.
I live next to a Indian res. They sell cherry bombs motors and m80’s😂
@@gang1798 Any fireworks store sells them, and they're still not the same as what's shown in this video. They're limited to 50mg. There is no trademark on the name "M-80"
I remember being a kid in the 70's and everyone blowing off Silver Salutes on the 4th --- things were more fun back then
I know I'm super late getting to this video, but wanted yall to know I was thoroughly entertained, great information and breakdowns, so you just got an instant subscriber can't wait to go through the treasure trove of your other videos awesome job
When I was a kid the M80s were great for blowing up yellow jacket nests and ground hornet nests
Went to HS in the early 70s with a guy who put an M80 in a pipe. It was apparently quite an explosion. It also took off his forearm. Last time I saw him, he was the guy who brushed your wheels before you entered the carwash. He was managing quite well with the artificial arm.
Rectum hell, it will kill ya'
NICE! I remember back in the 60s-80s, we used to buy the M-80s and the 1/4 stick were called pineapples in our area-Providence, R.I. We all bought our illegal fireworks, (ALL fireworks were illegal back then!) from the Italians, usually out of the trunks of their cars, behind a bar, or from a local guy named Spike, who opened a stand in his backyard every July, and he had EVERYTHING! He would get busted many times during the month, but the fines back then were so small, as soon as he paid the fine, he would open up again! I remember one time, the cops were walking into the yard as me and my father were leaving with our shopping bags full of fireworks! Great memories!
From my experience, in CT, the "Pineapples" were allegedly half sticks. They were def bigger than blockbusters/quarter sticks (we used those terms interchangeably). "Ash cans" was a lesser used term, a little before my time, but I believe those were 1/4 sticks as well. They all came in a paper sack, from "a guy". They used to have "aerial bombs" as well, basically a plain cardboard tube (mortar) that shot either an M-80 or BB into the air. Cherry bombs were mostly a unicorn my area, but I *think when they were around, they came from Mexico. I recall trying to make cherry bombs out of those round colored (compressed sawdust?) smoke bombs using M-80 powder, with very limited success.
Pineapples huh, yea you guys in and around Rode Island have weird names for everything, well, because people from that area just always seemed weird to me as it were. Born and bred in central Florida all my life, the home of common sense. But with guns in every pocket.😊
@@robertlangley258 There’s weird people and weird names for things in every state, just as there’s “common sense.” Florida definitely doesn’t hold the trophy for most common sense! And as for a “gun in every pocket,” yes, Florida does have a better view on guns than most states, (almost makes me want to move there!) but the problem with RI and most cities in the north, are the ignorant, brainwashed people and the puppet politicians who do whatever they have to to get votes! Down south, and in rural areas where hunting is normal and BIG BUSINESS, the people and the politicians they vote for are who keep the guns where the Constitution guarantees, in the hands of the people! But don’t be naive’, there are MANY guns in the pockets of people in RI! (Legal and illegal!)
We called the 1/2 sticks Pineapples here in Long Island too. Blockbuster M-80’s were also terms we used
@@777thetruth2 Florida doesn't even allow open carry unless you're hunting or fishing. Pretty shit. West Virginia allows open carry anytime and no permit concealed.
man that indiana comments is right on the money. we got naders, corn, and stories of my grandparents blowing up mailboxes and toilets with cheret bombs. m80s and silver salutes.
I used to make them as a kid by either cutting open the legal ones and combining all the powder into one tube or just getting someone to buy the extra fine black powder for reloading ammunition. Also (stupidly) made some with acetone peroxide. That was supersonic and you could see a shock wave. Very easy to make but once it dries it’s very sensitive to any friction or shock. Dangerous stuff. I’d never make it again. Luckily I never got hurt as I knew how dangerous it was.
Yeah it's called "mother of Satan" for a very good reason. I'd never mess with it.
Hmmmmm, maybe you should do a video, lol but probably not a idea.
I was in Thailand back in the early 70’s and bought firecrackers that would split the seams on 55 gal barrels. The base commander said that the locals were using the explosives from unexploded ordinance. Great fun if you could run fast enough!
Would y'all be willing to do a meth lab explosion?
They explode due to neglect of flammable and dangerous chemicals. I feel like it'd be hard to simulate that.
Not due to material limitations but because its so circumstantial.
No. That shit would be a environmental hazard for them.
Hell yeah Breaking Bad style
@@manowa3395 It'd be hard to simulate neglect? Doubtful.
In high school and college, I had a great source for cherry bombs and M-80s. One night, a friend and I drove around town in his red VW bug throwing them in quiet neighborhoods, then maybe there were some mail boxes that sailed across the street, and finally, we thought it would be fun to throw an M-80 in the little parking lot by the lake, where the teenagers were necking. I rolled down the window and lit the fuse, just as a police care pulled into the other end of the lot. Luckily I was thinking quicker in those days. I pulled the burning fuse out of the M-80, tossed the red part out the window with no fuse, and tossed the sparkling fuse at my buddy. He had an anxious moment.
You brought back memories of my childhood. In the late 50's and early 60's dad got a fireworks permit every 4th. This was acquired from the fire chief. We then could purchase M-80's and smaller firecrackers. I was 12 years old walking all over the neighborhood with pockets full of M-80's, etc.. We threw them by hand, weighted them with a rock so they'd go off underwater, and we devised a way of shooting them into the air (too complex to explain here).
I will now add "darwinian consequences " to my vocabulary
I remember going to Tijuana with my dad, and we bought a big bag of m-80s for like $20. They all worked great except for one that had a defective fuze, I don't think it was properly sealed into the body of the M80. As soon as my dad lit it the fuze thrust down into the firework and my dad frantically chucked it out of his hand, exploding in midair about 2 feet in front of him. If it wasn't for his cat like reflexes he would have lost some fingers, if not his hand. We didn't light anymore by hand after that lol
I had a mortar shell or few that were scary. The first one almost hit me in my head as the fuse burned faster than ever, or something, and as I was trying to clear the area my head swept over the tube and I felt burning on my cheek. Other shells exploded 5 to 10 feet above the tube and don't forget we also hadn't learned to nail the mortars down yet.
May have been fuses were contaminated by the flash powder, I think that happens with the timed fuze inside the mortars sometimes or it can also get contaminated between the chambers when they were put together and just blow up sometimes.
What’s Mexican for “Do Not Hold In Hand”?
Worst oops I had was a mortar shell with a faulty lift charge. It went up about 20 feet, came back down, and went off at ground level. Those are MUCH more impressive closeup!
@@firstmkb Saw one of those at a fireworks show. It was a small, locally arranged thing as part of may day celebrations. I think it was about a 4 inch mortar bomb (which were legal even for ordinary consumers without any kind of license back then if sold in a complete, cardboard tube package; loose were never legal unless you bought them under a license since they didn't trust random people from figuring out the right kind of PVC tube, fuse etc to use; we banned the tiniest fire crackers before we banned 4 inch mortar bombs for consumers). One of the stars bounced of my arm; didn't do much damage at all but it was kind of scary and it could have been *way* worse if I was hit in the eye or something.
@@soylentgreenb damn, that is way too close! FYI, never use PVC pipe for fireworks, because if the shell explodes or the pipe fails from the lift charge, it shatters into shrapnel.
HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) just ruptures or tears when it fails, so far safer.
According to my dad, my grandfather used to sell dynamite at school that he stole from what I believe was a logging company. Same guy also set off a grenade on the side of the road for July 4th. Explosives used to be a lot easier to come by I guess.
The deaf guy with missing fingers sells the best fireworks! Haha
Fulminate of Mercury... Immediately made me think of the old school movie "Mr. Roberts."
I still remember back when I was a freshman in high school around 1990 when a kid dropped a cherry bomb in one of the toilets at school. All we heard was one hell of a bang, smoke, the fire alarms went off, the fire department showed up and we stood outside in the cold for 2 hours. The principal came over the loudspeaker and said every kid was going to stand outdoors until the end of the day until the guilty party owned up to it. It took the kid a little while longer before he went in and confessed.
What happened to the kid?
I spent many hours as a kid making explosive devices of many kinds. Thankfully, I still have my eyesight, my hearing and all of my fingers. Thanks for sharing, it takes me way back.
I remember when I was a kid buying a gross of M80’s (177) the real ones. Greatest time of my childhood life. We blew everything up. It was awesome! I’m surprised I still have my hands and fingers. I bought two M5000’s also.. totally unreal!!
I grew up in the 60s with cherry bombs and M-80s every holiday that required them and I never saw a cherry bomb that big in my life. The ones we always had were comparable to M-80s in overall size/volumn and "boom factor". Both would send a heavy 1960s Western Flyer wagon about 20 feet in the air when you threw either one under a wagon turned upside down.
We made some decent ones out of sparklers. Also made some Hell-on-Earth incendiary devices with sparklers and assorted odds, ends, and gasoline or diesel fuel. That was the good old days.
BTW, the ridiculous length on the fuses on those fireworks made me laugh out loud. I understand why you did it, though.
Hey mister! I thought you may find these links interesting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-80_(explosive)
This one is about Cherry Bombs: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_bomb
L/R
Damn you guys had some crazy fun back then, thanks gramps
I adore listening to stories like this, makes me belly laugh
I was a kid when cherry bombs and M80s were common. However when I became a teenager they were unobtainable. 😞
One of the kids my dad went to school with broke into the locker the police keep evidence in, which was outside in a yard; he stole a bunch of fireworks and blew his hand off, and therefore has been highly biased regarding fireworks as far as in my life.
@@paddington1670 I knew an old woman when I was a kid that blinded herself with a blasting cap. She ruined her left thumb and forefinger.
She scared the crap out me about explosives.
Yeah, a little common Sense, which obviously isn't so common these days, is all that is needed.
Too many ppl forgot to let go of bomb when lit!!
I always thought they were the same thing, until i got older and wiser and learned they are different!
You make rural Indiana sound like heaven.
Norman Mailer once said that ‘Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening’. Very true words, I enjoy fireworks, they’re a hoot!
In 89 I was trained by the US Army to do demolitions, part of that training was using dynamite, TNT, and C4. Along with different detonators and det cord. Then constructing munitions for engineering purposes, like Bangalore torpedos using c-channel posts and cutting down trees using det cord. After all that and a refresher several years later was the extent of my experience with explosives.
Cherry bomb vs. “mutated herpes pumpkin” 😂
😂😂
Got me 😂
It cured the herpes!
@@afterhours39 who woulda thought that 5grams of flash powder would be the cure for the herp. 😂
looks like he just spread a lot of herpes
This is what they call "walking the line". Safety first folks...BOOM
Back about 1960, my brothers got a small crate of fireworks, including m-80s, cherry bombs , roman candles,
and so much more, for 20 dollars!
We had a sand box that we'd blow up toy soldiers,and clay blocks.
Great memories, and no one lost any fingers!
Those we're Some of the best days of our lives.
The following year, this range probably had pumpkins growing all over the place.
The pumpkins seem to be hollowed out, and probably any remaining seed embrios died with the explosion blast
I recall back in middle school of a classmate of mine that used to make bombs out of wooden match heads. His luck of doing such a dangerous activity ran out when a compressed container of match heads prematurely ignited when he was packing in additional match heads into the container. The explosion severed two fingers, and he was an emotional mess for the rest of the years I knew him. Lost track of him after high school.
yeah right
I build several pipe bombs with match heads back in grade school. Never had an accident like that however. Trick is not to use strike-anywhere matches.
@@huskypup3489 That was the mistake that classmate did with his bomb, he used 'strike anywhere' matches; where just a slight amount of too much pressure to compressed the material caused it detonate.
@@jacobpoucherget lost snowflake.
@@jacobpoucherI had a copy of the anarchist cookbook as a kid. That recipe was definitely in there. One of my buddies made homemade napalm one time.
Thank you for recording and posting this educational video.
When I was much younger, M80s were okay, but my favorite explosive was the cherry bomb! Oh for the "good old days"!!!
Knew a guy in Canada who sold homemade hand grenades.
Guy was wicked intelligent and hated the government.
Seems like a proper bloake
This video takes me back. I remember buying all those when I was a kid from the old ladies in Chinatown. They sold them on blankets on the sidewalk. Giuliani cracked down on that so we later bought them from a guy selling from the trunk of a car in Little Italy. The heavy stuff is nonexistent today.
Ahh...The good ol'days! When you were free to blow a finger or two of your hand! Seriously, growing up in the 60's, my brother and I and our friends set of thousands of "illegal" fireworks and never suffered a single mishap...
Bought fireworks in the Philippines for New Years. One was called "Bawong" which was about the size of a golf ball. The report was so powerful, you could feel it!
Intro story reminded me of the time back in the '80's down in Mexico, my brother and I were playing around with some M-80"s on the beach. They had one inch fuses and were coated with match head material so they were "self striking" (no need for a lighter ). We were tossing them in an old tire that was laying in the sand, anyway I lit one and tossed it into the tire as I was turning away it detonated throwing a chunk of hull into my leg, turns out I had lit the fuse by self striking it about halfway down - only leaving about a half inch of fuse to burn. Lesson learned ! Thankfully no real harm was done, no stitches needed bit it did draw blood.
Interesting story: My Dad grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River, in Missouri, in the 30s. When I was a kid he told me how he and his brother got their hands on a reel of movie film. In those days these were kept in metal cans because the film was made of nitrocellulose and was highly flammable. He explained that they cut this up into little pieces, and stuffed these into a steel pipe. I won't cover the rest in detail, suffice it to say it involved a Model A coil and a lot of wire. They buried this in the river's levee and got far away. He said that when it went off the explosion was so big that a barge sent a rescue boat to investigate what had blown the hole in the levee. It apparently showered him and his brother with dirt and rock and sent both of them home to change their pants. To prove his point he showed me an old newspaper clipping from the town paper about the mysterious explosion. It's a good thing his mother never found out about it, or both boys would have been casualties. See what you can come up with when your pimply face isn't sitting in the basement playing video games.
Yes old film stock can be very explosive. The Indians used to reload old .303 cases using it as a propellant. It was only a few hundred feet per second slower than service ammo.
and if someone did the same today, what are the odds of being caught, and what would they be charged with?
Top notch answer!
yo sorry i cant blow shit up now a days, i wouldnt be sitting looking at a screen all day if i could...
@@SeaSwordForce it was his own generation that banned them lmao
I remember those cherry bombs, m80's that went to m60's. And the elusive "ash cans" grey with green writing "do not hold in hand". Similar to the M80 but the blockbusters were the best if you can get them. It seemed during the late sixties-early 70's only 1 or 2 guys seemed to locate them. I always kept a pair for bear deterrents. I wish they were still available. To bad, they were a lot of fun. Cheers!
Silver Salutes, was wondering why they weren't included in the line up.
I'm in late 50 years
old and I had a great time with the m-80's and cherry bombs. This was early 80's to mid 80's I was a kid lol. IF SOMEONE IS OUT THERE PLEASE LOOK ME UP !! SERIOUSLY!
As a former ordnanceman for the Navy, I am pleased to see that you folks reinforce the idea that explosive devises are unpredictable and dangerous, which is exactly why the military uses them.
IYOYAS.
🤣🤣👍🏻
But fun and entertaining as well!
Read y9ur biOw
We had actual M80's in the late 70's up to the mid 80's. Spent a good portion of my childhood blowing up stuff. Those things rocked. Sadly now, if you find "M80's" at your local fireworks stand, they are nothing more than a Blackcat inside of a lookalike tube.
Looking back, the coolest thing about M80’s & Cherry Bombs was that they could be tossed into water and explode. Supposedly they could be flushed down the toilet and wreck your plumbing…..
The 1/4 stick we called an M-1000. Would blow the walls out of a porta-john. We used to use them for hammerhead bombs on top of a Flight Systems 'F' size 1st stage model rocket engine. Made up with a stick like a giant bottle rocket. 25 lbs of thrust and 2500 foot ceiling. BOOM! in the sky. Couple shot glasses of FFFFG black powder in PVC was a good payload too. 35 years ago. Time flies.
I've seen a 16 quart insulated cooler get shattered by an "M-80". Also have heard of a fellow who ended up needing his big toe surgically attached to replace his lost thumb.
Bought them in the 1960’s. As others noted cherry bombs weren’t as strong as M80s. A cherry bomb could still blow an old steel coffee can with one end removed, 15 ft in the air. While people surely got hurt using them, a main factor in their prohibition was the destruction of school plumbing. The fuses were conveniently waterproof. A lot of fish were killed in streams too.
"....a main factor in their prohibition was the destruction of school plumbing". So I guess ours wasn't the only high school with cherry bombs and M-80s getting lit and flushed?
@@fredflintstone3956 Great minds think alike!
I loved the cherry bombs better than m80s there fuse was waterproof to would go off under water
@@slabbusterrtr7690 The M80s by us had waterproof fuses. They were fun to tape to rocks and throw in the lake.
@@slabbusterrtr7690 the M80's we set off in the early 70's had waterproof fuses. I've seen many of them thrown into the water and 2 - 3 seconds later blow up and water going everywhere.
Still have all my fingers and toes and had a great time with M80s, silver salutes, cherry bombs, black cats an the tiny ones. That was the 60s and 70s before the fun ended.
I grew up in California in the 50s and these fireworks were not available as far as I recall, BUT I had a friend who went back to Illinois one summer and came back with a gross (12 dozen) each of cherry bombs and M80s. We blew up everything we could find for months, many times drawing the attention of the local authorities. We would use a cigarette as a long fuse delay and set them in various places. I think my favorite object was an inverted coffee can which would shoot up 50-100 feet into the sky. Interstingly, the cherry bombs we got were smaller and less powerful than the M80s. There must have been different grades of cherry bombs as they were definitely smaller than the ones you show. Good job on the toilet!
Nice to read about the Cigarette delay fuse. i used them also with the more heavy fireworks.
I remember Camel being much slower than Marlboro. cold weather without wind could increase ignition time up to 8 minutes with a Camel.
Once I was in college in the late 80s and early 90s, Tijuana was a 2 hour drive from L.A. and had all kinds of fireworks available. I never did try to smuggle in the full-size homemade-looking sticks of 'dynamite' but on a few occasions did get brave enough to bring in bags of the homemade M-somethings (also very homemade-looking). On a side note, one can shoot a coffee can 50+ or so feet into the air using just one firecracker.
@@culcuneo.o theres a place but not a whole other country an everything named tijuana? Huh... sounds like a name for a type of like combo of some sort of weed and tropical vacation resort island place lmap no joke
@@bsanchez3563 Huh--what were you on when you wrote that drivel? Oh, I get it now, I think--yeah--L.A. is also a whole country, too.
@@culcune lmao nah but it sure feels like it I heard lol fwiw either way though that is pretty cool sounding imho
Protecting dumb people from doing dumb things is how we got to where we are today as a country.
Idiocracy overpopulation of stupid people
Well said...keep voting for democrats and RINOs if you hate America
The dumb ones don’t make it 😔🤷♂️
Yep stupid people is why we now have self driving cars!!
DARWIN !
All these devices and even more were commonly available when I was growing up in Texas during the late 50’s / early 60’s. Dropped my brothers steel red wagon over two cherry bombs and it blew it straight into the air for about 10 feet… sides were bulged out also. You could get blocks of 10,000 firecrackers, real sky rockets, Roman candles… the fireworks stand was maybe a mile from my house, easy bike ride.
Its all about nanny world these days
Great stuff, the late Keith Moon used to run up huge hotel repair bills by blowing up the toilet pans with cherry bombs.
I love how this came into my recommended in late June.
I remember the M80 and the cherry bomb as a young fella in the 1950's. They were quite powerful, because after summer was over and school began, there was always a kid missing a finger or two from July 4th, starting class in September...
In my college days, probably in the late sophomoric 1960's, there was a period of time called the "Flour Bomb Time". The "Bombs" were usually directed against an asshole (locally designated, but commonly known). The AH's dorm/frat room normally had a tall floor lamp. Perps carefully scored a light bulb to remove the glass, preserving the tungsten filament. Screwed back into the lamp, a 2lb bag of flour was slitted midline and a cherry bomb or M-80 was embedded in the flour and the lot wrapped with duct tape with the fuse sticking out. This was usually balanced on the top of the lamp with the fuse lying against the tungsten filament. The lamp was usually controlled by the entrance light switch in the room.
Somehow, this was set up by the perps in the victim's room before dinner in the "mess hall". Everyone dined at the same time and attendance was required if you wanted to eat. People ate, visited and returned to their rooms. Those lingering after dinner with conversation, etc, often heard a pretty loud boom (not bang). Interestingly, when flour is propelled into a dust form, it is extremely explosive (as in fire ball). While the pyrotechnics were rather crude and inefficient, they DID manage to make the room totally WHITE. I only know this from forensic investigations, but admired the ingenuity of the perps. When the same pyrotechnical devices were launched from a catapault/trebucher , the spectacle of the fireball was excruciatingly marvelous!
interrogated
We used what we called a Babbo Bomb A powered cleaning agent in a cylinder cardboard container. An M80 inside tossed in to the jerk’s room (usually an upperclassman).
There have been numerous "dust explosions" in industries that produce powdered material over the centuries. Some of these were catastrophic, resulting in numerous deaths. Flour and sawdust are only a small selections of the many aerosol powders that seem perfectly safe, until they are airborne and ignited.
@@eucliduschaumeau8813 Sugar is one. The CSB has really good videos on stuff like this if you haven't seen em
Dude?!
Jesus it really was a different time huh
After seeing that toilet blow up at the end I now know where the crack in my windshield came from.
I truly HATE that some bureaucrat can dictate what I am not able to handle safely.
Probably no one cares if you blow your own head off, like that guy in France a week ago, but you also can harm other people with that stuff.
So yeah, good thing they regulate this.
Just dont get caught you can do whatever you want
"Nope, Too dangerous" - Easy Pete
Nanny state knows what is best for you since we are too immature and stupid to know for our selves !
Do you even posess a permit to say that???
"Federal consumer product safety commission, total party poopers"
California : Hold my party poop.
I don't even live in CA, I'm just here for flight training... I already wanna have a uprising and take over the state.
i am born and raised in CA and that shit don’t stop us.
For $2 bucks I used to hit up the lakeside general store and leave with a paper luchbag full of fireworks , M-80's too.
Fireworks in america: boring explosion. Firworks in the rest of the world: Beautiful, colorful skies.
Great videp guys! Im a pyrotechnician myself, and i really enjoy seeing demonstrations like this with actual safety information backing it to educate people about things like this! I have quite a bit of knowledge with pyrotechnics and if you ever have any questions, please feel free to ask me :) i love sharing and explaining about fireworks! Again, great job! There are two other types of interesting salutes that are made by licenced hobbyists/pyrotechnicians that are VERY cool if you ever decide to look into them. One is called a Lampare and the other is called a Dark Salute. The dark salute is very loud and is usually used as an ariel effect. When it goes off in the sky, its just a loud thunderous boom and has NO bright flash, sparks or anything from it (thats where the term dark salute comes from). I wont mention on here what is used to make it for clear reasons, but its a very neat effect.
Ever heard of silver salutes?
@@dr.jamesolack8504 oh hell yeah lol. Forgot to put that. A silver salute is achieved by adding a specific mesh (particle size) of sponge titanium to flash powder.
Love it! I thought I was the only weirdo kid who made these back in the day. I used to use the powder from a roll of a 100 into a well made and packed paper tube that used to shake the cabinets in the house! Which is what cut my career as amateur firework maker to an end.
In Europe, there are some countries were you still can buy firecrackers with up to 200g of perchlorate flashpowder. Very fun stuff but expensive.
Cherry Bomb + Toilet = fun childhood!
My brother (10 1/2 years older than me) could get cherry bombs in his youth. He told stories of his (mis)adventures therewith. M80s were available in my youth. My friends and I seldom did dumb things with the, but everyone, it seemed, knew someone who had. I remember TV news stories calling for them to be banned.
Now, let's just think about a simpler time when guns weren't locked up but usually weren't messed with, and parents thought handing kids explosives and powerful airguns was a good way to get them out of their hair for a bit. :) I miss those days. ;)
Lmao! Bring back the days when we would let God sort them out.
Agreed!
I second that
Dems be like "Nah we'll just go communist and let the weak ones thrive"
except the weak will find out when they get what they want, the country goes full Marxism.. they are the first to die. The weak don't make proper work quotas, considering under socialism they are property, and have only the right to do what they are told or die.. most will die.
@@noneyadamnbusiness6891 In properly communist countries, the weak and lazy were called "social parasites" and universally despised.
In the 80's my uncle got his hands on what was called a block buster. That thing was nasty.. loved it. By my estimation it was equal to a half stick as it blew a large chunk of concrete out of the curbside of his driveway
And people say Chinese didn’t use gunpowder as weapons just fireworks
Right?
Fun fact: A type 20 license is "shall issue" provided that you have nothing to disqualify you, and a proper storage magazine.
Some observations from my misspent youth, circa late 60's-early 70's. The M80 looked spot-on to what I remember from back then, right down to the correct shade of red. We'd light them and throw them. Dumb? Maybe. Still got all my fingers. The cherry bombs we bought back then were smaller, around 3/4 inch diameter. They came in different colors. I recall red, yellow, green and blue. They weren't smooth, but had a rough grainy texture. Cherry bombs were slightly less powerful than M80's, but they would still explode if you threw them in the lake. So, while I never witnessed it, cherry bombs were credited with blowing up toilets (normally at school.). I think the "quarter stick" offered was similar to what we called Blockbusters back in the day. They were reputed to have the explosive force of, yes, a quarter stick of dynamite. The street wisdom at the time was, if you got caught with one, the cops would cuff you and throw you in back of the cruiser, no questions asked. Boy, the times we had.
I live in the Netherlands, and bang fireworks are prohibited here. However, heavy bang fireworks are still sold in eastern and southern Europe. and there are plenty of people who will buy this there. the heaviest firecrackers (and therefore illegal in the Netherlands) contain approximately 100 grams of flashpowder. the popular cobra 6 has about 30 grams of flash powder, the same as a grenade. and they are quite easy to obtain here illegally
when I was 11 years old my great grandfather had a cigar box full of them, he would give some every now and then and I blew up everything I could find. those were fond memories
Had a pair of Cherry Bombs on my '69 Road runner.
On my 69 Torino. GLASS PACKS RULE
On my 69 Firebird 400!
That had to have sounded great! I just had turbo thrushes on mine.
Had 'em on my 67 GTO!
On my 66 impala 😎