12g co2 cartridge packed full of disassembled shotgun shells, was to young to buy powder (knowing what I do now I would have made my own) and the primers were/are fun to shoot with a pellet gun (until they fly back at ya).
The mistake was dumbass pyro me using a mortar fuse, that I cut short so I could still launch the mortar, as the wick... The moment I lit the fuse and pulled back behind my ear to throw it I knew I fucked up... So fortunate I didn't lose my sight or hearing. One buddy there said a chunk of skin landed on him. I remember the shock wearing off and the pain setting in around 7 minutes from the ER, getting to the ER and them telling me to have a seat until I told them "I blew my fucking fingers off" and unwrapping the towel, the first shot of morphine, the surgeon hitting the bone with the needle, more morphine, that freezing cold table and that chalk like slurry before I went under. I was in surgery for hours, remember my dad telling me I was pissed about all the unburnt powder they picked out. I have one finger print on the top of my middle finger(folded the skin back over top after cutting off some of the bone) . I've never been fingerprinted for a crime; will be entertaining if I ever am...
The worst pain of all it was waking up to the nurse saying this might sting a little as she pulled the cath out....
Good times.
Oh wow.. that's some serious stuff and you did get lucky. Got my own story.. big learning experience, luckily it wasn't me.
I was a geek as a child.. instead of playing baseball or sports, I was building RC planes and launching rockets. My friend (neighbor) was curious as to the substance inside the Estes rocket engines so we disassembled a few.. poured the contents on to the ground and lit it with a match..
Magical rocket fuel isn't so magical when it's not contained.. we even had a hard time getting it lit with the breeze and all, so my friend decided to take apart another engine, but this time, we poured the contents into a vitamin pill bottle.. I believe it was Theragram "one a day" or something.
So we have the contents of a D size engine in there and two C engines.. Throws in a match, nothing.. By the fourth or fifth match, we were getting a bit frustrated.. so my friend decided he wanted to watch to see exactly what was happening.. why wasn't the match igniting the powder.. I'm like "dude, that's not a good idea, don't put your face over that thing"... my advice went ignored. So my friend sticks he eye about 12 inches over the top of the bottle and dumps in a match and WOOOOOOOFFFF.. A rocket type flame came out of there, completely engulfed his entire head like a big blow torch...
It burned off almost all his hair, burned off 80% of his left ear, and melted the skin off one side of his face. He was in the hospital for 6 weeks, then home in bed for another 3 months.. He didn't leave the house again for almost 3 years.. Strangely, when I finally saw him three years later (His parents blamed me for the incident), he didn't look all that bad.. didn't have the typical wrinkled skin you'd expect. His ear was shaped kind of funny, and he didn't look like himself anymore, but he wasn't gross or severely disfigured like a monster or anything.
When I make HMTD or PETN, I make it in 3 and 5 gram amounts.. When I get to the end steps, the parts where I'm dealing with a substance that can go boom, I'm wearing a pair of Kevlar butcher's gloves inside a pair of welding gloves. I have safety glasses on, a welding helmet with a clear glass, and my body is shielded by double stacked sand bags. And I won't do any of it if the relative humidity is below 70%.. I have never had an accident and the only reason I even make the stuff is because it's the only thing that I can make that will detonate Tannerite without rifle.
Black powder is fine, but it takes about a week to get it right.. days of grinding, drying, grinding, drying.. ugg.. it's a hassle.. and if you don't grind it properly, it doesn't do much of anything useful. You end up with a low velocity pop, or a fizzle.. no real bang.
I'm sorry about your fingers.. that's an expensive lesson to learn as a child. My worst injury was slicing my thumb straight down the middle when an Exacto knife slipped.. 11 stitches, and now I have very little sensitivity on the pad.. have to use my other thumb if I want to feel something like a smalll bump.
www.corbettreport.com
