Is it just me or......

[RalphieJ]

I'm just a hand-fired back-yard shooter, no fancy Cobra system or rows of racks. Is it just me or has anyone else come to the conclusion that a lot of the 200 gram cakes approach or are equal to some of the far more expensive 500 gram cakes? I mean, I'd rather purchase, for the same money, three or four quality 200 gram cakes than one 500 gram. Some of the 500's are downright disappointing. As an example, compare Keystone's 200g Red, White, and Blue ($20) to their 500g "Ultimate" Red White, and Blue for $100. I can get a lot more ooh's ahh's with five 200g cakes.

[fatcat]

RalphieJ I have often wondered if as a cake becomes more popular, the manufacturer seems to "Tone it down" so to speak to increase their profit. Brothers "Blonde Joke" used to be a must have for our 4th but now I seem to find other cakes that far more crowd pleasing and have eliminated it from our show. I personally prefer 350 or 500 gram cakes. I still think you get a better bang for your buck. Of course I must admit that a lot depends on the brand. I think Red Rhino and Wild Dragon are better than some of the other brands. Just my 2 cents

[chriskrc]

I've noticed some 200g cakes have a little more bang and compare pretty equally to some 500g cakes. Not sure what the deal is but RalphieJ you are correct in your assessment.

[Bazerk]

Up until last year I had never used any 200g cakes because I felt they were inferior and were a waste of time. However, I did use 5 mins worth of 200g cakes to open my 4th this year and I have to tell you....I was thoroughly impressed. They will now become a decent portion of any show that I do going forward. In saying that, there is a noticeable difference between 200g and 500g cakes. Size of breaks and height are the two biggest ones. Also, 500g cakes, when bought by the case, should average around $25 each which is well worth it. Check this video out. The first 5 mins of the show are all 200g cakes and you can see clearly when it goes from 200g up to the 500g cakes.
https://youtu.be/UyU1D60HTZ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyU1D60HTZ0&feature=youtu.be

[RalphieJ]

Wow, quite the show. A little drama at 20:26 over to the right, eh?

[Bazerk]

Wow, quite the show. A little drama at 20:26 over to the right, eh?

LOL! Drama, yes. I didn't realize that happened until I was cleaning up that night. The down pressure of those salutes going off broke through the bottom of the milk crate and made it act like a spring board. Was crazy to see in the video. I later found where a couple of salutes went off on the ground as there was a little crater and no grass left in those spots. Ive learned though and my resolve is to put plywood in the bottom of the crate next time. However, I was taken back by the 200g cakes and was very pleased with them. I did launch like 4 at a time though because of my underestimation of their performance. Next year I will do 2 at a time and build up from there.

[chriskrc]

That was a great show Bazerk and for 200g cakes that was a great segment for them. They have come to always be a part of my shows as well. Especially when lighting 2 or 3 at a time to put a different height level of effects.

[cptnding]

I'm just a hand-fired back-yard shooter, no fancy Cobra system or rows of racks. Is it just me or has anyone else come to the conclusion that a lot of the 200 gram cakes approach or are equal to some of the far more expensive 500 gram cakes? I mean, I'd rather purchase, for the same money, three or four quality 200 gram cakes than one 500 gram. Some of the 500's are downright disappointing. As an example, compare Keystone's 200g Red, White, and Blue ($20) to their 500g "Ultimate" Red White, and Blue for $100. I can get a lot more ooh's ahh's with five 200g cakes.

Yep. I absolutely love 200 gram cakes. I still use 500's but mostly angled cakes. For the money, I agree that the 200's can be a better value. More pyro in the sky for the $$$. I don't really care for the 9 shot 500 gram cakes. Canister shells are better and half the price per shot.

[vegassalute]

I agree with you completely. I tend to do a lot of internet (Youtube) stalking and research before buying a case of 500g's. There are some 200's that blow them away.

[PGH_Pyro]

i personally, am done/over with the small "200gr" cakes ... i'd rather have a few good "500gr" cakes over a bunch of small-bore ones.

[Bazerk]

i personally, am done/over with the small "200gr" cakes ... i'd rather have a few good "500gr" cakes over a bunch of small-bore ones.
I will always have more 500g compared to 200g, by a lot. However, they do have a place whether its for low level effects or as a way or working your way up to the 500g and 1.3 stuff in your show.

[ilovecrackle]

I love 200 grams. For me, when it comes to cost VS performance, I'll take a case of 200s over a case of 500s any day. Around 70% of my purchases are 200s.
I do a lot of research on product and cherry pick the best from multiple wholesalers and some of the 200s and 350s out there can rival some of the small to medium 500s out there.

[Westpapyro]

I have always seemed to follow some dam unwritten rule that my show must get bigger and badder every year!
Just kidding I use a little bit of everything in my shows.

[malk315]

Hey Bazerk I just watched your July 6, 2016 video after checking the forum being New Years just happened and man that was one heck of a show!
I share the same thoughts with 200g cakes -- I always use them for opener with some nice volly shots to get the crowd going. Then get into 350g and 500g cakes plus mortar racks of DR-11 tubes. You show in person must have been incredible. Nice Job!

[Bazerk]

Hey Bazerk I just watched your July 6, 2016 video after checking the forum being New Years just happened and man that was one heck of a show!
I share the same thoughts with 200g cakes -- I always use them for opener with some nice volly shots to get the crowd going. Then get into 350g and 500g cakes plus mortar racks of DR-11 tubes. You show in person must have been incredible. Nice Job!

As the shooter I critique my shows and there was a few issues but nobody knew but me. Thank you for the kind words.

[Rick_In_Tampa]

RalphieJ - I used to think that 200g cakes were a waste of time. The majority have a wimpy little pop, and very weak breaks. However, last year I bought one case of 24 cakes just to try and incorporate some into the show to see how they looked. Unfortunately, I didn't fuse them like I should have and they went off one at a time. Big disappointment.

Then I saw Bazerk's video and I knew it was me, not the cakes. Additionally, I've found (what I think are) some 200g cakes that rival many 500g cakes. So this month I'll be buying 4 cases of 200g cakes that I plan on using to open my show. 94 cakes in all. I have a 100' roll of 3-6 sec per ft visco that I plan on using to wire them all together (on two separate boards) and hopefully, they put up a steady stream of eye candy for the audience. I'm also incorporating some red strobes and slices to kick things up a notch. We'll see.

So that's a long winded way of saying yes! I think there are some great 200g cakes out there, and Bazerk's video proves that if you know what you're doing, you can really wow your audience with them.

As for the "bang for your buck" factor... My 94 200g cakes are going to cost me $209.26 this year. My 124 500g cakes are going to cost me $1924.94! Roughly 10 times the 200g cake price. I imagine I could put on a pretty nice show with 940 200g cakes!!

[morrison2951]

I've used six 200 bangers with a case of Brothers 500g Whacky Tobacky as a great finale- nice layered 200g effects below the hard hitting 500g NOAB's. Looks great and less sky puke that way as well.

[Rocketshooter]

I use lots of them for my 4th show. Show opens with good 200g cakes going off from several stations. One thing with the smaller cakes is you can place them closer to your audience. The other use is mixing them with 500g cakes for layering.

[Lil_Sparkler]

There are definitely some good 200 gram cakes out there, and the performance of several of them layered together can outdo a lighter hitting 500 gram cake. That's why I like some of the heavy hitter 500g cakes (NOAB's, 16 shot hitters etc.) You can have some of the smaller effects of the 200g in front with some heavy hitting 500g in the back and you'll have a good show.

[pyroboom]

Wow, quite the show. A little drama at 20:26 over to the right, eh?

So those were tubes coming out of an MCR?

[DavidthePyro]

RalphieJ - I used to think that 200g cakes were a waste of time. The majority have a wimpy little pop, and very weak breaks. However, last year I bought one case of 24 cakes just to try and incorporate some into the show to see how they looked. Unfortunately, I didn't fuse them like I should have and they went off one at a time. Big disappointment.

Then I saw Bazerk's video and I knew it was me, not the cakes. Additionally, I've found (what I think are) some 200g cakes that rival many 500g cakes. So this month I'll be buying 4 cases of 200g cakes that I plan on using to open my show. 94 cakes in all. I have a 100' roll of 3-6 sec per ft visco that I plan on using to wire them all together (on two separate boards) and hopefully, they put up a steady stream of eye candy for the audience. I'm also incorporating some red strobes and slices to kick things up a notch. We'll see.

So that's a long winded way of saying yes! I think there are some great 200g cakes out there, and Bazerk's video proves that if you know what you're doing, you can really wow your audience with them.

As for the "bang for your buck" factor... My 94 200g cakes are going to cost me $209.26 this year. My 124 500g cakes are going to cost me $1924.94! Roughly 10 times the 200g cake price. I imagine I could put on a pretty nice show with 940 200g cakes!!


I'm thinking of going with an even split of 200 and 500 on my finale, with a few exceptional 500g cakes pushing the balance to 500g, I've been really impressed and am trying to keep the budget down, so I'm thinking I'm going to go with a few cases and fuse together. I'm a hand light kind of guy still, but last year I used a lot of 500g cakes as filler, probably more than were in my finale. Hopefully this year I'll get a decent balance. I've been really impressed at even some 16 shot 200g cakes. The only question I have to answer is whether I'm going to use 200g cakes fused together as filler equally to that of the 500g cakes. I prefer to do a build up in intensity, but I'd also like to experiment with timing some cans and Roman candles with 200g cakes

[upNdown]

I'm still a rookie, but what I think I've learned over the past few years is that although you can certainly make some generalizations concerning cheaper, lower gram, smaller bore cakes vs maxed out 500g cakes, the debate is a waste of time. There's no such thing as a 200g cake, right? It's not a legal standard, so it's all just marketing.
I mean, sometimes we know a 500 gram cake when we see one. (Sorry for using retail prices, but I haven't moved up to wholesale yet.) Whether it's a hard hitting NOAB or a 150 shot zipper with a giant footprint, we know a 500 gram cake when we see one, and you're probably paying $60-80 or more for it. But there's a shitton of cakes sold as 500 gram, that retail for like $25 - $40 apiece, and they're nothing like the big boys.
And sure, I guess we know what you mean when you say 200 gram cake. I'm thinking of bump bear - retails for like $8, has 16 shots, not too high, not too loud, but fun - I can relate. But to me, there's plenty of stuff in the middle. What about the cakes that retail for $16, and take up a bigger footprint because they have bigger tubes? Of course they're nothing like a NOAB, but they break higher and harder than the sterotypical 200 gram cake, so they're different, to me. Or something like Current Events, which retails for like $30, but is a significantly more powerful show than bump bear? People like to call that a 350 gram cake, but again, 350 grams isn't a legal standard, so its really just a marketing fallacy.
I get the debate - generally are we better off with lots of smaller cheaper cakes or fewer big, hard, expensive ones? I get it. But I think the question and the answers oversimplify the market horribly. And, maybe more importantly, I'M MUCH MORE INTERESTED IN WHAT ARE THE CAKES IN BETWEEN "200" AND "500" THAT YOU LIKE, AND WHY? Price? Effect? Break size or height? Talk to me, Goose? Lets get specific!
Please, smack me down if I'm wrong - like I said I've only been doing this for a few years - I've only fired a few hundred cakes and fewer than 1,000 shells - maybe I'm talking out of my butt. But I think the conversation would be a lot more productive if we spoke of specifics. And if we're making generalizations, they should be a whole lot narrower than 200g vs 500g.

tl;dr - Although I'm still struggling with the NOAB vs canister shells debate, what I do know is that the majority of the cakes on the market don't interest me, because I can somewhat reproduce their effects with shells for a LOT cheaper. Id rather spend my money on cakes that have interesting effects, and those cakes can be 200g or 350g or 500g, but I try not to get wrapped up in the grams.

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Where to begin....

In the past 2 years I've shot 110 cases of various products in my shows. The vast majority of it 500G cakes. The most expensive cake I've purchased is $29. That's a very expensive cake as far as I'm concerned. That's the difference between buying retail at $80 that you're quoting, and what I can get wholesale.

As for being specific, I agree. We need to be specific. What that means is we need to talk about effects in the genre/class they are in. Cakes are either 200G, 350G, or 500G. Call it marketing or call it legal classification, doesn't matter. They are what they are. Legally, in the consumer world a cake cannot exceed 500 grams. Whether or not it actually has 500 grams is irrelevant. It is what it is. That's what the law says.

That's where the specificity ends though. Everything else in your post speaks to the subjective reality of the hobby. What goes "higher" or hits "harder" or is more "powerful" are all subjective things that only YOU can determine for yourself. When you put on a show you need to watch hours and hours of videos and decide how you want to spend your money. Everyone in here has an opinion of what they like and I'd be willing to bet my house that not everyone in here agrees with everyone else on any of it! So my advice to you is to not waste your time trying to figure out what everyone else likes. Watch the videos. Do the research. Find out what YOU like. Find out what you think is going to make your show better every year.

[FruitLeups]

One thing that I don't think ever really bubbles up in the minds of a lot of people is that the 200 and 500 gram numbers are not absolute. The fine print says "up to 200" or "up to 500". I might have considerably LESS than the limit. Some of the 500g cakes I've seen are obviously running 350g or, in a couple of cases I can think of, considerably less than even that. If it has 201 grams, however, it has to be labeled as a 500g cake.

Fortunately, MOST of the weaker 500g class of cakes are cheaper than their fully loaded counterparts. And the fact that they're also usually visibly smaller than the NOABs and big 2" finales helps you to figure out what you might really be getting.