28 replies to this topic

[king lerock]

hey do any of you remeber the tiny paper bangers you could get as a kid, they were about the size of a pea and where filled with a cource powder, sif you do remember them do you know how to make them or there proper name so i could by some on-line

[Creepin_pyro]

They would be 'snap pops' I think...

http://www.pintonove...php?imageid=157

http://www.pyrounive...howtheywork.htm

Good luck trying to find them online, I did a quick search and couldn't find any.

EDIT: forgot to mention you probably shouldn't attempt to make them

Edited by Creepin_pyro, 13 March 2009 - 12:13 AM.

[MDH]

Those are now banned in the UK and other countries. They are still widely available in the united states. They contained varying amounts of silver fulminate which is an extremely sensitive high explosive. There are other ways you can make throwable bangers but again it requires a lot of risk taking.

Edited by MDH, 13 March 2009 - 11:24 AM.

[knackers]

hey do any of you remeber the tiny paper bangers you could get as a kid, they were about the size of a pea and where filled with a cource powder, sif you do remember them do you know how to make them or there proper name so i could by some on-line

they're still widely available here in Au, in the $2 shop, but have changed from little paper cylinders to twisted up tissue paper,

they used to be called...throw downs or snappers
they sell them here.. http://www.rawspace....duct.cfm?id=147 Australia

they also sell them here http://www.epartyunl...m/snappers.html, but its in the us,

Edited by phill 63, 13 March 2009 - 12:08 PM.

[cooperman435]

MDH are you sure there banned in the UK as I still see them all over the place here?

[pyromaniac303]

Those tiny paper throwdowns are still available, the clay 'torpedo' types are banned though, which were much more powerful and could probably do some damage if set off in the hand.

[Creepin_pyro]

Whatever the law says, both types are available in the UK, the 'snap pops' much more readily than torpedos though...

[RFD]

Yup, in my area they were called "POPPITS",and much fun and probably irritation they were,most shops on the sea front sold them during the holiday season,my school chemistry teacher told me the crystals inside the little paper wraps were iodine crystals soaked in bleach and called ammonia iodide,he must have seen the brain cells go into overdrive and quickly pointed out that all the time the mixture was damp it was stable but soon as it was dry leave well alone,as the teacher was a mad professor type i never got round to trying it out to see if he was bulls####ing me

[Arthur Brown]

Snaps, throwdowns, or torpedoes, are I think classed as childrens fireworks in the UK. They seem to occur more in toyshops and newsagents than in firework shops.

Basically a paper twist with a little gravel and a very tiny amount of a very sensitive primary explosive. If the grains of gravel bang together then the compound will fire. Definitely NOT for attempts at manufacture.

[Vic]

Damn annoying things. My son went thro a stage of using all his pocket money buying them, that was after going through the stage of hitting cap rolls with a lump hammer, the throw downs still make me jump.

And me supposed to be a cool pyro dad and all

[knackers]

Yup, in my area they were called "POPPITS",and much fun and probably irritation they were,most shops on the sea front sold them during the holiday season,my school chemistry teacher told me the crystals inside the little paper wraps were iodine crystals soaked in bleach and called ammonia iodide,he must have seen the brain cells go into overdrive and quickly pointed out that all the time the mixture was damp it was stable but soon as it was dry leave well alone,as the teacher was a mad professor type i never got round to trying it out to see if he was bulls####ing me

He was bull*****ing you, if that was ammonium iodide it would have gone off as soon it was dried and dispatched from the manufacturer to the shop you bought it from, which i'll add, it's not commercialy manufacured because of it sensitivity.
" iirc the correct name is Ammonium triiodide,
legend has it, "" if you put some under a small piece of meat and placed a cake screen cover over it until it dried then removed the screen, as soon as a fly lands on it it would go off "

they actually contain silver fulminate as already said by MDH

[cooperman435]

Actually if u look higher up this thread you will see its actually Silver fulminate not iodine tri-iodide which would leave a cloud of vapour after use

Edited by cooperman435, 13 March 2009 - 11:20 PM.

[Asteroid]

Yeah, they are very often sold in markets and the like. I wouldn't bother trying to make your own though, I wonder how they do it commercially?

The other compound everyone is thinking of is nitrogen triiodide. Although it is prepared with ammonia and iodine, the final product itself doesn't actually have ammonia inside

[Arthur Brown]

The method of manufacture is alluded to in several texts, however ALL of them infer that the process is too dangerous to detail, even when they have detailed other primary explosives.

Count your fingers and keep it that way! Please don't mess with these. When properly made and packed they are a retail commodity, badly made and they will kill or just blow bits of you off.

[portfire]

I remember them as 'Devil Bangers', the twisted paper type and came in a box of about 20 IIRC. Not seen them since I was a kid though.