Also include some what-the-hell-were-they-thinking experiences.

I'll start. Years ago at the lake, the guys were firing very large bottle rockets from a laws rocket launcher...at boats anchored off our point. Now the guy firing them at the time was suited up with The Hubs' fire helmet with shield but they did hit the side of a boat that nearly resulted in an armed standoff until the three guys in the johnboat were apprised of the amount of firepower our group on the ground possessed and wisely chose to motor away.

Next?

1968 or so, I was probably 8 or 9. Boulder Colorado. There used to be a firecracker called a smoking cap stick. It was about the size of a cigarette, maybe a little thinner. You would strike it like a match and throw it. It would smoke for 10 seconds or so then pop like a black cat but not quite as loud. My dad ,little brother and I were out in the backyard setting them off. My pain in the ass little brother strikes one and throws it at me when my back was turned. It hung in the waistline of my pants and started burning the hell out of me. I managed to dis lodge it from my pants before it went off so it went off in my hand. I can still remember them laughing their asses off about it and I'm still pissed. I had a scar at my beltline for a while... fingers survived.

I had a PITA brother too, only mine was older. He persuaded me to get into bottle rocket wars with him. Not the best idea as we managed to start a fire in the woods.

My uncle is Terrance in the wheelchair!

9th grade or there abouts a friend and I were returning from ranch duties. Turned a corner in town and saw a couple of female classmates about a half block down. I put a bottle rocket in a rolled up newspaper lit it and stuck it out the window. Hit one of the girls in the shoulder and got caught in her hair. She danced a jig and then it went off. No harm done to her but they were upset. Friend and I laughed for weeks. In hindsight, a stupid thing to do.

Sharpshooter said:

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9th grade or there abouts a friend and I were returning from ranch duties. Turned a corner in town and saw a couple of female classmates about a half block down. I put a bottle rocket in a rolled up newspaper lit it and stuck it out the window. Hit one of the girls in the shoulder and got caught in her hair. She danced a jig and then it went off. No harm done to her but they were upset. Friend and I laughed for weeks. In hindsight, a stupid thing to do.

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username checks out.

When I was a kid my dad and his idiot college friends took an old large metal coffee can and out an inch of gasoline in it. Then packed it full of bottle rockets and lit the gas on fire. They thought the wicks would somehow ignitr at different timed and it'd just be launching then automatically.

What happened was so.how several blew up at once and knocked the can over. Which then ignited the wood picnic table it was on and the whole thing went up in flames. Panicked adults running around trying to fi d a hose. Pandemonium!!!

Best 4th of my childhood.

I procured some "firecrackers" from an Indian reservation up in Montana back in 2002. The ol gal that sold them to me said they were good for blowing up a washing machine. She wasn't lying. They sounded like canons going off and left craters. I'm guessing they were actually 1/4 sticks... anyway, a skunk was walking through a pasuture near my parent's house. Mom had been bugging dad to take care of the skunk because it had been rooting up her flower beds. I take off through the pasture with one of these firecrackers. Thankfully, they had 12 fuses. Skunks have poor day sight. I landed the boom stick near the skunk. Boom! Skunk goes flying through air, lands, isn't dead and runs off. Mom's flower beds were never bothered again.

Eh

I watched a bottle rocket leave a coke bottle fly up then return, thread the needle back into the same coke bottle mouth and explode inside sending glass shards on several people.

Maybe the first time I was actually scared by the power of a little bit of black powder.

My mother, God rest her gentle soul, was an absolute magnet for bottle rockets and the little "whiz-bang" rockets. She could be sitting in the next county over, and one would part her hair every time she watched the kids/grandkids fireworks display.

Alright! Great topic!

We'd go to my uncle's house in Huntsville AL for a summer trip each year when I was still in grade school. He worked at Redstone Arsenal and was an explosives enthusiast, to put it mildly.

When I was 9 or 10, that trip coincided with the 4th of July. My brother and I started lighting black cats, bottle rockets, etc., in the backyard. The neighbor kids next door decided that was a good time to launch bottle rockets over our backyard.

My uncle came out the back patio door with a giant box and two 1" steel pipes that were about 3' long each. Much to our delight, that box contained enough bottle rockets, black cat bricks, roman candles and M80s to start a small war!

He stuck both pipes into the ground at about 30 from vertical, pointing over the neighbors fence. He then suggested that, by twining several bottle rocket fuses together, you'd have enough thrust to support a payload of - say, a black cat or two.

That was all we needed! For the next couple of hours, we were in pyromaniac kid heaven, launching salvo after salvo high over the neighbors yard. Those kids eventually left the field to my brother and I, but we honestly didn't notice or care.

Damn good times, and no injuries or fires!

In the mid 90s I was on vacay with friends staying at a bed and breakfast in Albuquerque off of Rio Grande Blvd. It was the 4th so our hosts invited their guests to sit on the gravel drive and watch their adult kids put on a fireworks show for us.

Problem was their adult kids were drunker than Cooter Brown, had all of their fireworks unpackaged and sitting in a cardboard box. Yep, they dropped a lit punk and firecracker into that box, which then tipped over aiming straight for the guests who were sitting in lawn chairs about 15 feet away with the house immediately to our backs.

Scrambling in the dark across that pea gravel driveway resulted in some road rash on a few guests, myself included. Our stay was thereafter comped by the very embarrassed owners.

we used 1/2 inch sections of pvc pipe for bottle rocket wars. Then it progressed to roman candle wars. Good times

In High School one July 4th we took a 12" metal pipe, capped one end and drilled a small hole in the pipe side at the other end. Then, painstakingly emptied hundreds upon hundreds of fire crackers of their powder until we were able to fill the pipe with packed powder then capped the other end. Put a two ft piece of dynamite fuse in the drilled hole (I think the fuse burned at a foot per minute, or 30 sec, or something like that). And, yes, you could order fuse in the mail. Took the contraption to a rural road, lit it, and ran like hell. Heck of a loud bang. Went back next day and found a two ft hole blown through asphalt. Surprised I am still alive after the things we did. Again, being a kid was so fun.

Cherry bomb in a porta potty... You can use your imagination....

We used to play paintball at my Grandmas house and use mortars (without the tube) as hand grenades to flush folks from behind cover. Was a ton of fun and have no idea looking back how we all survived. Did that for a few years until we caught an acre or so by the river on fire

Something VERY similar to this happened on my in laws property.



My (now) brother in law had never done fireworks. We were doing mortars and instead of putting the shell in the tube and lighting it, he decided he wanted to light THEN drop it in the tube.

Well the tube fell over immediately. We all ran. Shell exploded on the ground. Those bursts are like 40-60 feet wide. Our giant-box-o-fireworks was 3-4 times further away than in the video above, but it was hit by a spark nonetheless. Box was FULL of mortars, bottle rockets and roman candles. Too several minutes to stop.

doubledog said:

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Cherry bomb in a porta potty... You can use your imagination....

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LOL. I can only imagine the smell. Hope you were upwind of that one.

As fun as the fireworks were when we were kids, the stuff you can buy today are phenomenal, especially the mortars.

Again, a 4th of Jule lake story from about fifteen years or so ago. All of our neighbors and their guests went in on buying fireworks for our point on the lake.Several thousand dollars later The Hubs pulls up with his passengers and the bed of his truck piled with boxes and boxes of fireworks, strapped down and equal to the height of the cab. (Just the loading and packing of them was impressive.)

Rest of the afternoon was spent unpacking them and placing them into different groupings in different metal wheel barrels for easy transport down to the lake front. Had 2 eight foot tables set up on the shore at the point. Had a 2X4 also 8 feet with mortar tubes screwed into the 2X4 for each. Six of the mortar tubes per table.

Between our neighors and their adult guests we had twelve adults on the mortar line. "Mortar Up!" "Light 'em and drop!" Quite the display. And they were firing until nearly 2 in the morning until our elderly neighbor, the Grand Dame of the point at the time, screamed at them to stop and go to bed.

The next year, the house across the lake accepted the non verbal challenge and I swear fired off about ten thousand in fireworks over two nights.

4th of July fireworks fight. I was in 6th or 7th grade so circa 1986 or 87.

We divided up in to team of about five boys each. The rules were we about faced, and marched 20 paces then could turn around, light, and open fire. Being the youthful deekhead I was, at about 10 paces I secretly as possible lit a roman candle and at 20 paces turned and a moment later the first fireball was launched.

I hit a kid on the other team right in the chest. He was wearing a light fabric western style button up shirt. He had packed about a dozen bottle rockets in the shirt pocket. The fireball caught his shirt on fire which made him panic and run and the wind fanned the fire and then the bottle rockets started going off. In his shirt pocket.

When the smoke cleared he had some burns but nothing too bad. His shirt was reduced to one sleeve and the collar. Half the kids dropped their arsenal and ran. I was laughing so hard I couldn't get air in my lungs (I hated that kid). Some teenager pulled a garden hose out and sprayed him down then rest of us for fun. I got chewed out pretty bad the next day when someone told my mom about it.

The end.

I was ten. I wasn't supposed to be playing with fireworks. Nonetheless, I was out there with some neighborhood kids doing just that. We were all simultaneously trying to light a Black Cat from a single punk. I didn't realize that mine had lit and it went off in my hand. Injured, I ran home but was afraid to tell anyone. My Grandmother and Great Aunt (American now, but born in the old country) sensed something was wrong. I didn't fess up. But I knew I was busted when they started talking to each other in Hungarian.

Son in law had a skyrocket/roman candle array set up, but one launcher went sideways, careening into the other (lit) items and chaos ensued. It was January 1 and rainy, but I don't like home pyrotechnics to this day and I spent years around tanks, SP artillery and helicopters.

When I was about 9, my older brother and his friends set off a bunch of fireworks

about a half block away at their clubhouse in the woods. Then took off.

My sister 7 and I went to the clubhouse to see what they had done. I saw an unexploded fire cracker

and for some reason elected to pick it up. I pounded it with my toy shovel to make sure it was safe.

After I got to my house carrying the firecracker, it went off! My sceams were so loud a lady from

a block away came runnimg to see what was the matter. I wasn"t hurt but scared to death.

No fun at all!

Not my experience, but this was pretty BSC

Edit: better link here
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fireworksgonewrong/comments/oiri9v/the_full_5_minute_video_of_the_uhaul_firework/

Summer of 1988, two friends and I manned the American Fireworks stand out on Boonville. We had a blast, but one night we invited a bunch of friends over for bottle rocket and roman candle wars. We made one critical error...we left the big door to the stand wide open. SOmeone shot a rocket (a big one, not a bottle rocket) that went right through the door into the stand and blew up. You talk about 20 college aged guys screaming like 7 year old girls, holy cow. The stand did not blow up, but we were sufficiently scared such that we closed the door, had a beer, and then went back to it.

As a teenager in high school, you could buy a "gross" of small bottle rockets (144 rockets) for a very small amount of money. We would have bottle rocket fights, sometimes in our cars as we drove along the "drag" in our small town. Bottle rockets going off inside a car are extremely loud.

When using bottle rockets in fights, you would develop a skill in lighting the rocket while holding it in your throwing hand. You would have to coordinate the timing of your throw so that the rocket ignition occurred almost immediately after you released it from your hand.

Spring of 87. 4th floor of Walton B Ramp. We had taken down our loft because finals were coming up.

Our drunken selves decided to holler out the hallway window at people walking back from Northgate. We then had the great idea to launch bottle rockets out of a PVC pipe like a bazooka at said people on the ground.

In my inebriated state I didn't notice that the ass end of the open PVC pipe was pointed directly at the smoke detector on the ceiling of the hallway.

I received a speech from the RA that went something like "you know 87IE, I was warned about you at the beginning of the year. You almost made it without screwing up". He confiscated the rest of our fireworks but gave them back when we were moving out.

No J-board, nothing..

Sharpshooter said:

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In High School one July 4th we took a 12" metal pipe, capped one end and drilled a small hole in the pipe side at the other end. Then, painstakingly emptied hundreds upon hundreds of fire crackers of their powder until we were able to fill the pipe with packed powder then capped the other end. Put a two ft piece of dynamite fuse in the drilled hole (I think the fuse burned at a foot per minute, or 30 sec, or something like that). And, yes, you could order fuse in the mail. Took the contraption to a rural road, lit it, and ran like hell. Heck of a loud bang. Went back next day and found a two ft hole blown through asphalt. Surprised I am still alive after the things we did. Again, being a kid was so fun.

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One of my best high school friends used to fill a large plastic pill bottle with gunpowder and wrap it numerous times with athletic tape. He set several of these off on the paved road to the Brownwood Boy Scout Camp, which created some large pot holes.

smucket said:

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Summer of 1988, two friends and I manned the American Fireworks stand out on Boonville. We had a blast, but one night we invited a bunch of friends over for bottle rocket and roman candle wars. We made one critical error...we left the big door to the stand wide open. SOmeone shot a rocket (a big one, not a bottle rocket) that went right through the door into the stand and blew up. You talk about 20 college aged guys screaming like 7 year old girls, holy cow. The stand did not blow up, but we were sufficiently scared such that we closed the door, had a beer, and then went back to it.

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I remember going to buy fireworks with my brother when he was A&M at a small roadside stand near my grandfather's lakehouse. It was jam packed with fireworks hanging everywhere and stacked on shelves. As we approached we saw a young guy siting in the stand, with black fingers, smoking a cigarrette. My brothr put me behind him and asked the guy, "Say, how fast can you run?"

Quote:

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When using bottle rockets in fights, you would develop a skill in lighting the rocket while holding it in your throwing hand. You would have to coordinate the timing of your throw so that the rocket ignition occurred almost immediately after you released it from your hand.

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My Dad, a/k/a The Big Kid, taught me that. Mom was not amused.

A long, long time ago... in a location far, far away.. I had not yet learned to harness the evil energies that my Y-chromosome was able to produce and was driving around shooting bottle rockets out of my car window at random objects. It was all fun and games until the lit fuse of the next bottle rocket fell off and landed in my lap in the specific vicinity of where the zipper would be if I weren't wearing cotton gym shorts. Feeling the burn made it quite busy for a second or two and nearly resulted in my wrecking the car, but the fuse found it's way to the car seat where it burned a hole in the cloth upholstery. Dad noted the hole and of course didn't believe me when I denied any knowledge of it's history.

Suuure.

Sharpshooter said:

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In High School one July 4th we took a 12" metal pipe, capped one end and drilled a small hole in the pipe side at the other end. Then, painstakingly emptied hundreds upon hundreds of fire crackers of their powder until we were able to fill the pipe with packed powder then capped the other end. Put a two ft piece of dynamite fuse in the drilled hole (I think the fuse burned at a foot per minute, or 30 sec, or something like that). And, yes, you could order fuse in the mail. Took the contraption to a rural road, lit it, and ran like hell. Heck of a loud bang. Went back next day and found a two ft hole blown through asphalt. Surprised I am still alive after the things we did. Again, being a kid was so fun.

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My friend did something similar with straight up gunpowder and some underwater fuse that his older brother acquired somehow. Drilled a hole just big enough to accommodate the fuse, capped one end of a pipe nipple, filled with gunpowder, capped the other end. Basic pipe bomb 101. I wasn't present, but they buried it to be "safe" and it apparently blew a crater about 4' across and a foot deep. Crazy part of all this was that the gunpowder was bought at a Furr's grocery store which was the same store where I bought my first pistol.

aggiehawg said:

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Suuure.

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Busted! lol

I'm pretty sure that that's exactly what Dad really thought happened. I'm honestly not sure which story would have drawn the more severe consequences TBH