I have a friend who is a Beavis-and-Butthead level pyro. He loves blowing things up, and he feels that little things like forewarning may spoil the surprise. He has many claims to fame, but this is among the most notorious:

In the mid-90s, at the place we've been camping for 30+ years, he poured an entire can of Red Dot Smokeless gunpowder down an anthill, then lit it. This was cool for all of about three seconds when it hissed and sputtered like a little volcano. It was far less cool when the gunpowder-packed anthill suddenly went off like Mt. St. Helens. Dirt and REALLY fucking pissed off biting ants blasted high in the air before raining down on the heads of the unwitting spectators, and promptly taking their revenge.

There's nothing quite like being showered with burned, angry biting ants to round out a weekend. Jeff thought this was funny as Hell, because he'd scampered out of range when he realized things were going to go very wrong -- things ALWAYS went very wrong -- and had taken shelter upwind. Later, as in 4:00am the next morning, he set off a stick of dynamite in a creek for an encore, also without warning. And after the booming echoes settled down, the only sound for miles around was this maniacal, hysterical laughter echoing in the impenetrable dark.

To this day, if he starts laughing, I RUN.

My condolences on your loss(es), Ant.

This is one of the things that I miss living on the Gunpowder river.

Reminds me of my life on the Gunpowder river many moons ago. I used to feed about 50 mallard ducks a day. They chilled in the shade of the trees until I came home and fed them a loaf of bread.

I dunno if it's gunpowder that they put in firecracker fuses, but once it's ignited, gunpowder doesn't need an external source of oxygen around to burn. I think it frees more oxygen than it uses or something like that, but I'm too lazy to google it.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I feel like this is a really cool technology that they haven't figured out what it's for yet. Kind of like Chinese gunpowder for fireworks.

It's funny to me that it's about the same size, or larger, than the tiny cannon.
Sadly, the tiny cannon video-
http://videosift.com/video/Miniature-tiny-cannon-using-real-gunpowder
-is dead/private.

Nice *engineering

Oh man I'd so be into gunpowder-powered nerf guns!

It just seems to me that this is myopic, short term thinking (by the military, not you) that actually hurts their operational effectiveness by
1)being wasteful when a simple box to catch empties could be designed to be failsafe, light, and maybe even function as 'armor' when full and flotation when empty. Also (and far more important to the military), every dollar saved by 'recycling' the brass is a dollar that could be spent on more and/or better equipment for soldiers.
and 2)creating hostility towards your forces in those that may have been neutral or even on your side, before their child was burned over 90% of their body by the shells falling out of the chopper, or their straw home burned down, or their fields/rice patties/hog pens are now full of burnt 'propellant' (not always gunpowder, and often more contaminating than gunpowder) and hot brass, ruining or contaminating them permanently when it could be prevented so easily. They have put big money into trying to create a less toxic 'bullet' out of carbon/other exotics, knowing it's an issue world wide. (I don't know how far that's gone yet.) I can't understand why they would ignore the other part of the bullet?

I see your point about 'informing' the public, but that could be done just as easily and maybe better with a go-pro (or a few) and commentary, no?
True enough, it may not have been the only escape chopper or trip, but make no mistake there was a HUGE shortage of escape methods, not everyone got a ride out, and there's no reason to short change the victims or require more dangerous trips in and out just so one reporter can see first hand instead of on video....not that I see.

S'gonna be cool to live long enough to have been one of the last generations to have experienced the thrill and abandon of gasoline horsepower, legal bonfires, gunpowder projectiles.....farting without being ticketed by the local constabulary...Har.

"Workers use vacuum bags to extract cocaine, gunpowder, cocoa and sugar from the pile."

Yeah, all I saw was a keg of gunpowder. Good times, but I'd have been standing under cover at the distance they were filming.

I got a better one: Roll-type-caps, they still sell those, right?...for cap guns?

Take a roll or two-at-a-time, place on concrete ends-out, bash with mallet or the end/tip of a baseball bat. *NOTE: If using a baseball bat, hold the bat with one hand firmly by placing the knob of the bat in the center of your strongest hand and from about a foot above the caps, bring the bat's barrel-end down directly on the cap rolls.

One rolls' as loud as a .38 caliber round, two, a .45......Wear ear protection.

This dart-cap is lame and impractical, and destroys perfectly good darts, AND, there is no thrill from the smell of gunpowder, simply a lingering sulfur stink complete with lame "pop!"

man, this video reeks of testosterone, gunpowder and awesomeness. priceless

In reply to this comment by alien_concept:
And once more for Guy Fawkes and the desperate wish that someone can come along and replicate his gunpowder plot in the modern age! *promote


i wuv joo!

And once more for Guy Fawkes and the desperate wish that someone can come along and replicate his gunpowder plot in the modern age! *promote