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View Full Version : Upside down Mini Artillery Shell



displayfireworks1
08-06-2013, 11:37 AM
In this video we see a consumer lighting a mini artillery shell that has been placed in the mortar upside down. There is some kind of psychology thing going on with this in peoples brains, I wish I knew what it was. We can assume they are inexperienced and when they look at the shell they are reasoning it should go in the mortar backwards. I have seen these videos where the fuse will not make it out of the top of the mortar and they will elevate the shell by pulling up on the fuse with one hand and lighting it with the other hand and drop it back to the bottom of the mortar after the fuse is burning. At first I thought this was more common with the canister shells but it may be occurring with traditional artillery shells also.
Most of the current instructions included in the box are poorly written and could be improved. When I see these videos on YouTube loading these shells wrong, I keep in mind what someone once told me about a section of the newspaper called "Letters to the Editor". When you read a letter from a reader in that section of the paper you can safely assume the opinion expressed is felt by hundreds or thousands of people , it just this one person took time to write a letter. The same here for every video we see of a consumer loading and firing a artillery shell backwards, we can assume there are hundreds more doing it also, only the hundreds did not make the effort to video and post the result.
I know the American Fireworks Standards Laboratories is trying to correct this by requiring mortar tubes to be able to withstand a shell failure in the mortar, we see this most recently with the new world class mortars that have the protective sleeve. Not once have I seen a canister shell CATO in the mortar that was not loaded backwards. Thus in addition to the stronger mortars there is still something else that needs done to prevent the novice user from loading these backwards.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZzhVJv776M
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2-1.5.5 The launch tube must be able to withstand at least 2 times the intended number of uses without burnout, blowout, separation from the base, or other malfunction.
2-1.5.6 The launcher tube including its base, packed in a reloadable shell kit must be capable of withstanding the explosion of any individual shell in the kit, without fragmenting, when the shell is inserted in the tube upside down and ignited.

PyroManiacs
08-06-2013, 01:55 PM
Dude didnt look a day over 17.