by zephir » Tue Mar 20, 2012 9:28 am
I'd say my closest call was when I stuck a "firecracker" in a pile of watermelons and didn't back up far enough... me and a few gun nut friends like to go out to the desert to shoot and do-not-so-smart things... it's like no target shooting trip you'd ever go on, I usually bring beer. one of my friends might bring a joint or two. we'd go on BLM land to shoot... then we'd get into shooting junk people leave out there- anything from TVs to cars, even half a mobile home! then towards the evening the drinking starts and we start shooting propane tanks and have a huge bonfire...
well anyway this one particular trip I nearly died and survived due to sheer luck, had we not been lying on the dirt behind a berm I would be hit in the head with quarter of watermelon probably doing 250 mph...
we bought three 30 lb watermelons from the local food4less and a cheap 5 gallon bucket from home depot, we filled the bottom of the bucket with a mix of sand and water, put the "firecracker" in the heaviest watermelon, into the bucket and put the other two on top, set the whole assembly on a steel folding chair that we found, I lit the fuse and we retreated 75 yards, to where the car was parked.
I said the blast might be huge, we kinda lay down just in case anything flew over
The yield was tremendous, probably close to 50 lbs of tannerite (a legal exploding target compound)! Not that i'd set off 50 lbs before... just guessing from examples from youtube.
the BOOM sounded like a jet breaking the sound barrier. a powerful blast of energy smacked us in the chest as we observed the explosion. the earth just jumped, dust rose of the ground, the bucket exploded- the chair disappeared into a cloud of dust.
and then suddenly a huge chunk of melon whizzed right over my head- barely clearing my hair- smashed into my car's hood with so much force it put a notable impression in the hood.
It felt like a cannon ball had whizzed over my head.
that was my OMG I ALMOST DIED moment.
we inspected the test area, the chair was smashed flat into the dirt like it had been crushed in a hydraulic press. it was flat as a pancake. a very shallow crater about 10 feet wide was noted, no pieces of bucket was found. pieces of watermelon were found more than 200 yards away.
Our original plan was to buy some garage sale junk and blow those up, but that never really panned out. I'm thankful it didn't I'd imagine getting hit in the head with half a TV to be alot more painful than it is to be hit by a quarter of a watermelon.