Bazooka conversion for fireworks artillery rounds

[Video Link] These folks did an attractive bazooka conversion for fireworks artillery rounds using PVC and parts made on a 3D printer. You can download the 3D models at Thingiverse.

• [jbldb]

  It looks cool as hell! There are better things to build the mortar tube out of than PVC, however (http://www.pyroguide.com/index.php?title=Mortar)

• [SlyBevel]

  As a card-carrying Pyrotechnics Guild International-trained pyro, it is my sworn duty to barge in here without reading the previous comments and earnestly explain the dangers of using PVC with fireworks.

  Please don’t use PVC with fireworks. It makes the real pyros cringe, and it really, honestly might kill you. Really. Honestly. Dead.

  Because when you explode things inside of it, it shatters. Seriously, don’t do it. PVC shards will fuck you up.

  By all means, go ahead and have all the fun you like with fireworks, and when you need to make a gun, use HDPE. It’s far safer and widely available.

  Thank you, and good night.

• [johnnyaction]

  I think that’s an AT4 shoulder fired single use rocket launcher. My memory is fuzzy but I think those fired a 84mm ish rocket. I’ve fired a couple live rounds of those and there pretty intense.

  That tube is open on both ends. If it were to explode I think standing behind this launcher would be a very bad idea, not to mention being the person who’s firing it.

• [Mark Crummett]

  I admit I’m torn. One the one hand that looks pretty dangerous. But on the other, boy, does that look like fun!

• [purple-stater]

  Yeah, it looks like fun, but I’ve seen those types of shells prematurely go off just a couple feet off the ground.

  These kids are idiots.

• [doggo]

  BZZZZZZZZZZT! While I applaud the nod to safety, I have to call foul. The loader (the guy lighting the mortar round) on the bazooka team should also be wearing safety gear. At least eye protection, considering he’s peering into the barrel of the bazooka while lighting.

  Otherwise, great fun.

• [kenahoo]

  I don’t think I’ll be trying this one out. A similar device produced bad results near my kids this holiday:

  http://www.sott.net/articles/show/231162-US-North-Dakota-Fireworks-Accident-Decapitates-Fargo-Man

• [Childe Roland]

  I saw a picture of a guy’s leg who took a direct hit from one of these shells on the 4th of July. It was split / blown open. Someone shot one into a crowd of people at a park.

  Also saw that another group of teenagers was firing off mortars at police cars, to the point where the cops couldn’t get out of their cars and had to call for backup.

  Not sure if they were using the mortar that you buy or if they had configured a bazooka version like this. Given the good aiming, maybe the latter.

• [emmdeeaych]

  in my day we just cut the end off a whiffle ball bat. Great for roman candles and bottle rockets.

  But anyone who fires a fireworks mortar round towards something without thinking of what it will do is a straight up sociopath.

• [KBert]

  DO NOT get the idea from this that it’s safe to shoot any kind of shell from PVC!

  If a shell breaks in PVC, the stuff becomes VERY sharp shards of shrapnel…
  and (I’m repeatedly informed) is nearly invisible to common imaging (X-rays)*
  *citation needed

  This apparatus, with its outer wall of fiberglass and separating air-space is probably OK;
  but for the powerful temptation to inappropriately target, and on reflection I’m hard pressed to think of much but how easy it would be to set fires where you least expect.
  Mortar tubes are only to be made from HDPE, fiberglass, paper or steel.
  Check NFPA-1123 ‘Code for Fireworks Display’ for the specifics.

  • [bcsizemo]

    Well since they are using standard plumbing gear, you could switch over to black iron pipe and probably be pretty safe. It’d some serious heft to it, but better safe than sorry.

    Why not take this a step further and add a propane injector and ignition system and turn it into a “potato” launcher that fires mortar rounds. Oh what fun that would be.

    • [KBert]

      ‘probably’ be ‘pretty’ safe?

      Would this cut it for you if you were skydiving?
      Or on the freeway? Would you board a jet run by a company that assures you your experience will ‘probably’ be ‘pretty’ safe?

      To all, there’s a LOT of energy in “real” fireworks!

  • [Anonymous]

    I agree this is dangerous. PVC is fun to play with but the first time a shell explodes in the tube, you will be picking bits of PVC pipe and fiberglass mortar launcher out of your ear.

    Don’t forget the hearing protection either. The lift charge of the shell is going off right next to your ear.

    I’ve had HDPE tubes blow up while hand lighting display fireworks and while they peel instead of fragment, there can still be fast moving debris whizzing in all directions. Safety first!

• [Anonymous]

  It needs an electric fuse liter activated by the trigger.

• [Anonymous]

  Even if the tube could contain a misfire that explodes inside, there’s also the possibility of a “muzzle break”. The stars will be coming back toward your face and body a lot faster than the shell was leaving.

• [Hadlock]

  Yeah, that looks like an AT-4, not a bazooka. Bazookas look like a metal potato gun. I’m pretty sure AT-4 cases are one time use only, which is why a bunch of kids have one now.

• [oasisob1]

  TB:DW.

• [swishercutter]

  An old friend of mine about 10 years ago was shooting mortars from the launcher while holding it…someone loaded the round backwards and it shot him in the chest pointblank. He was on a upper deck at a house party, by the time I got upstairs people were laying him on the bed…he was clearly in shock, his shirt had a hole burnt in it and he was still smoking…after spending the night in the hospital (great way to spend the 4th of July) he was diagnosed with burns and a bruised liver. That stopped my misuse of fireworks.

  It’s all fun and games til someone gets seriously hurt.

  Side note: Same night someone threw one of those into a crowd of about 25 people that were standing in the driveway.