Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Firecracker guns

So fess up-who played around with these? Dad used to make them for us. A piece of lead pipe, threaded on one end, about 8-12" long. Mount it in a crude wooden pistol stock. The back end of the pipe was threaded, and he'd cut a slot in one side. Put a firecracker in that end with the fuse sticking out through the slot, screw a plug in behind it. Mount an empty shotgun shell on the other end, point it at something, like a garbage can, and light the fuse. With good firecrackers, if you could actually hit it, you'd cave in the whole side of a metal garbage can. We used to drag 'em out when we'd see a red squirrel in the back yard and lay seige to them up in the trees. I shot a branch right out from under one one time, and my brother actually hit one in the belly with one. Blew it in two. Man, those were fun to screw around with. Reminds me of the tennis ball and pumpkin cannons.

Never those...wish I had known about them. Used to play with big Propane / Acetylene Cannons though.

Threaded steel pipe, pipe cap with hole drilled through. Put in firecracker, screw cap on, stuff a piece of newspaper down the muzzle, add hand full of pea gravel, another piece of newspaper on top, fire away. Had to watch for paper catching on fire.

A 2"er, those red paper ones with the green waterproof fuses, make a hell of a cannon.

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I made mortars. Pipes that fit marbles, golf balls and ball bearings were angled into the ground and used to shoot out into the lake for distance. Sometimes we'd skip them across new ice just for the sound effects.

Those old Kentucky rifle play guns that used to shoot cork round balls used to make decent shotguns when loaded with a couple of fire crackers and a wad of BB's in a bit of rolled up paper towel...

When I was a kid and got caught by the Law doing something like this it would have been "You Boys be careful with that alright?" "and whatever you do don't shoot old lady Elma's Cat that she called us twice last week to pull out of a Tree...(Wink)". lol

An old friend of mine did that with an m80, his father took him to the hospital to get his hand sewn back together. Sometimes we pay for dumb things we did.

My brother and I got in some trouble shooting crabapples out of bike handlebars at passing cars with firecrackers.

I prefer not to think about some other experiments in my youth that make me shiver now.

I met a guy one time who made "Firecrackers" for the tip of his Arrows.

That's pretty good. lol

One of the joys of juvenile delinquency: Estes ballistic missiles.

he's lucky to have a hand to sew back together!

REAL M80's were awesome.

One od my favorite toys as a kid!!! I blew up my old Davy Crockett model like that with a overcharge of powder from the old Black Cat firecrackers. Good Times!

Firecracker guns sound like they would have been fun. Me and a bud took apart a 22 pellet rifle and rechambered it with pa's drill to hold 22lr, wasn't very accurate but it was fun.

Aw now that just sounds downright fun!

We used to make those tennis ball cannons. Cut both ends out of a bunch of tin cans, and get out the duct tape. Tape em all together, and then tape one to the end with the bottom still in it. Drill a hole in the bottom can. Put lighter fluid,or a squirt of hair spray in the tube, stick a light to the hole in the bottom can, and get a big POOF! When we got really high tech, we'd mount an electric fire starter to the bottom can at the flash hole so we could use the trigger to ignite it. You could shoot an apple pretty darned far out of these Rube Goldberg contraptions.

BTDT. They'll shoot a marble a hell of a distance. Bottle rockets in a coke bottle fly like heck too. Also made arrow tips that detonated primers which detonated powder and blew the living crap out of everything they hit, but the cost of arrows soon put a stop to that exercise. Don't even remember how we did it now...

If you soaked the tennis ball with lighter fluid first you could shoot flaming balls.

We used to take empty CO2 capsules, like for Crosman air guns. Cut the heads off matches, maybe 3 packs. Stick each head into the capsule. Use one match as a fuse. Slide it into a cardboard or metal "barrel". Aim, light, and shoot! Goes for nearly 70 yards if aimed correctly.