having done these when we were kids, we became fascinated with shooting things horizontally when we were teenagers. we built several "bazookas" with debatable effectiveness and safety. managed to not blow ourselves up at least.

its a fun hobby, and it never went anywhere, its always been around.

Haha, always wanted to mount some to the hood of my S10 back then

On some of our cheaper rockets....instead of packing a chute in the tube, we would place a couple M-80's with the fuses tied together.
They wouldn't explode until the rocket was almost back to the ground.

My buddy had a model rocketry handbook that gave rocket fuel formulas and we used the saltpeter and sugar mixture with the addition of powdered charcoal for extra power. Naturally being 12 years old we used a bunsen type burner to heat it to the melting point to so we could pour it into a mold. Unfortunately we never got to pour the mixture into our motor mold as it exploded in a brilliant pink flash. My grandmother heard it and came down into the basement and put the fire out! Oh man was I in trouble! That was the end of those experiments. All that stuff just disappeared. Then we just used the Estes motors.

Phhhht!

We used to make dried up clay balls, infuse them with gasoline insert a fuse and shoot ‘em out of a slingshot at the very last moment.

Then M-80’s got popular.

Still around! Some call it "rocket candy" and for the best reaction it's really fine KNO3 and sugar gently melted - only the sugar really melts but it does give the most intimate mixture and therefore performance. Cool kids I guess are using sorbitol instead of sugar for the fuel as it melts at a lower temp and the mixture is more fluid. I've never put them in a confined config with a nozzle but, especially with a little homemade charcoal, it's a hella good smoke generator.

(and, duh, do your melting outdoors and not over flames - you don't want Captain Obvious to slap you in the head)

We would get a group together and each carry a fistful of bottle rockets and a capped two foot or so pvc pipe as our personal "bazooka; divide up into teams and and have infantry battles in the woods next to the neighborhood. :D Thankfully no eyes were ever lost.

Did the rocket thing as well. At one time I had a model Saturn 5. Three stages with multiple D-stage engines if I remember correctly, :eek:

Yeah, that was a really dumb idea. We had made a little custom sheet copper vessel, got all fancy. However, lesson learned! My grandma likely saved the house from burning down. That was the end of those experiments. As I recall there was a little head slapping going on that night. ;-)