Did We Really Do That?

During out various "experiments" to develop something ground breaking and incredible in Matt's "workshop / Lab" (garden shed!) we discovered that those little "french banger" fireworks would give a quite significant explosive force, Especially if you contained the explosion or restricted it in some way.

Our experiments with these discovered that by plugging a 4 foot length of 40mm plastic waste pipe with mud at one end, dropping a lit banger in the open end and then quickly plugging the other end with mud too, the mud "bullet" would be fired quite some significant distance!
"Quality!" we both shouted!
You could see the look of genius on our faces, i'm sure, as we then realised that if the tube was of a much smaller diameter, the force would be much higher!

Next step: 15mm barrel!

We then got a length of 15mm copper plumbing pipe, and, instead of plugging one end with mud, we flattened it with a hammer, and folded it over to seal it. By experimenting, we found that you could omit the other plug, and the banger itself would become the projectile, or "bullet".
The distances you could achieve were really quite impressive!

One day, another friend of ours, A. (not the same A. as before!) came round to Matt's. He too was impressed by our experiment, and was eager to have a go. We took A. out to a remote field with our equipment to try it. He held the tube in his hand, and lit the banger, quickly dropping it into the tube as we told him to. BBBANG! it went, and fired the banger out. A. then let out a yell, and we realised he'd held the tube with the end (flattened) in the palm of his hand, Not as we'd told him! The recoil force of the blast has driven the sharp end into his palm! OUCH!

Not deterred by his injury, A. carried on "experimenting" with us for the rest of the day, but was very careful to hold the tube properly!

Tim

[Technorati tag(s): Did we really do that?, Crazy, Stupid]