ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

Mortars are a lot better than rockets here because the spent rockets tend to poke holes in the neighbor's screen cages.

The mortars do spray around lots of small bits of paper but they are pretty harmless.

The advantage of doing all of this on a board and fuse timing it is you light it and get away.

The old days stuff was...
Bottle rockets
Sparklers
Firecrackers
Cherry Bombs
Ash Cans
M-80s
Roman Candles

All of which were and still are 'illegal' in NJ

We get everything here that is ATF defined consumer grade but the cherry bomb/ash can/M-80 stuff (federal law after some politically connected girl got killed near DC.
That limit is 50mg of explosive material. (a regular firecracker)
OTOH you can have 130mg in a aerial shell.

In CA, even little ladyfinger firecrackers are banned.
Only Safe & Sane fireworks are allowed.

By contrast, you can buy pounds of black powder with nothing more than a signature and a driver's license.
Go figure

If you have an acetylene rig and some balloons you can rock the neighborhood. Get that cutting torch set up for a good burn and use it to fill the balloons. You can use pretty small ones (cantaloup sized). The trick is lighting them.

The sound is deafening.

If you get up in the large beach ball range, you can break windows.

Back in the day (60s) 'selling' on the local corners, it was basically a game of cat & mouse with the patrol cops.

Worst case was a 'ride' to the precinct station for 'processing'; best case was your 'stash' was taken & you were chased away.

$$$ was worth the risk back then.