Firecrackers! Which of these oldies were most potent?

[Snowdog]

My grandfather always had a story of two of his adventures as a kid. One of his favorite childhood activities was to blow up anthills and cow pies with "real" firecrackers. Some of those I remember him talking about were the standby Cherry Bombs, M-80s and Silver Salutes. Here's a question for the consensus:

In order of potency, which were more powerful?
Also, if you happen to know, perhaps you could assign each a number indicating their power (1-10, 1 being your typical Black Cat firecrackers that come in the strips, 10 being the oft fabled quarter stick of Dynamite).

*Cherry Bombs
*M-80s
*Silver Salutes

Also, if you happen to know what the heck a "torpedo" is, I'd love to know! It seems they might have been related to cherry bombs, but my search is coming up with conflicting info.


BTW, I'm completely aware all of these evil, devil-made slayers of all things good are illegal in all our freedom-loving states; I'm simply curious.

Thanks in advance.

[Art Eatman]

Back 50+ years ago, there were the little tiny "Lady Fingers" that you could almost hold in your hand.  Very low power.

Then came the standard size, of which the "Black Zebra" brand was most popular.

Up from that were the larger, red-cylinder "Baby Giant", which apparently is the M-70 or some such modern designation.

The King of Kings was the "T-Bomb", which had the fuse sticking out from the side of the red cylinder.  These were quite potent and have been outlawed, SFAIK.  They were fairly serious little explosive critters.  Definitely ruin a hand if you goofed.

"Cherry Torpedo" was the name of a small, round dealie that you could throw and it would explode when it hit something solid.  Maybe 3/4" or 1" in diameter.  Somewhere around a standard firecracker for Bang.

There are fireworks retail sales stores in Tennessee and Florida, year around.  Other states limit sales to a couple of weeks before the Fourth of July and before Christmas/New Year's.

Art

[Antibubba]

M-80's are the strongest.  Don't know about the other two.

[Matthew Carberry]

Well, the hypothetical M-80 I've heard of said on the side, as best I can recall from the brief glimpse I caught as it was maintained in the hands of the proper authorities of the USMC.

Detonation Simulator
XPL                M-80
         4-70

You might be able to track down it's explosive content from that nomenclature.

But, ya know, that was a loooong time ago...

Hypothetically...

 

[AJ Dual]

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-23-30/ch5.htm#fig5-7

[Mannlicher]

M-80 is the most powerful.  A Cherry Bomb was about half the power.  In the US, any firecracker or explosive device with more than 50 milligrams of explosive is not legal.  Both the Cherry Bomb and M-80 have more than 50 milligrams.  The explosive in these is 'flash powder', not a true explosive though.  The old myth of a M-80 being equal to a 1/4 stick of dynamite is just that, a myth.  There is no comparison at all. 

[Lee]

Jeez, this brings back memories.  Remember "Dixie Boys".  Talk about you're non-politically correct items.
One day, my oldest brother and his friend were throwing cherry bombs in our front yard.  Apparently it didn't occur to them that my dog would fetch them.  Bastards nearly killed my dog.  I actually ran inside to get a gun to shoot my brother's friend (I was about ten at the time).  They left real quick that day. 

[gunsmith]

The Block Buster was twice the size of the M-80 and it was silver in color
in my old NY days.

Did you know a M80 would blow a hole in a plate glass window if it was taped on?
A safer way to throw one is to drop a lit one in a paper gag and throw it from the top of the bag so as to keep a few inches away from the bang.

You can hold a firecracker in an open hand with little damage....

NY in the summers in the 60's & 70's were anarchy

[Antibubba]

The best was tossing them into sewers.  If you were lucky you could ignite some sewer gas (methane).    The goal was to get those manholes to levitate.   

[bedlamite]

M-80's were part of summer when I was a kid, I remember manhole covers flying, and empty steel garbage cans were not safe either. Once, a friend of mine got hold of a couple m-120's, similar to m-80's but bigger in both size and boom 

[charby]

The torpedo that I know about are used by railroads to signal trains. They place this explosive device on the track and the train runs over it, sound about as loud as shotgun blast. It is an audiable signal for the engineer to stop the train.

I have never played with them but I have heard of people using them as reactive targets.

-C

[mountainclmbr]

Torpedoes were an impact sensitive expolsive and coarse sand placed in the center of a piece tissue paper and then the free ends of the tissue were put together and twisted into sort of a tail. You could throw these and they would explode when they hit something hard.

[slzy]

my first experience with a "crew served weapon" was a wrist rocket slingshot and m-80s.

[crt360]

The dorm I lived in as a freshman was about 30 stories tall and had stairs that had a small gap between them all the way down.  Students would occasionally drop M-80s (or something similar) down said gap.  The detonation in the stairwell would shake the building.  The first time I heard it, I was watching a movie with a girl from next door and I swear we both jumped about a foot in the air (from a reclined position).  I was always nervous about taking the stairs for few days after one would go off.

Do they still make the things that take off like an insane helicopter, fly all over the place and then explode?  I think they might have been called Bumblebees.  Some friends and I were out at the cabin and we found a sack full of them that must have been 20-30 years old.  They were a lot of fun, except that they started a fire wherever they landed and exploded.  We had to keep the water hose handy, especially for the ones that went up on the roof.

[Cosmoline]

M-80's are the stuff of legend.  The local nogoodnicks where I grew up in Oak Grove would make IED's with them along river trails.  Those were the days! 

[Art Eatman]

I wouldn't know myownself, of course, but I've heard that if you stick the end of the fuse of an M-80 into the side of a lit Camel cigarette, you can work out the timing for an IED.  Up to around seven minutes, I was told...

, Art

[charby]

for the curious people out there

http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/13/48/