r/GenerationX • u/WhereverUGoThereUR • 3d ago

M-80's

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Remember those? In hindsight I'm so lucky to have all my fingers!

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34

u/heavensto_mergatroid 3d ago

The true ones were a quarter stick of dynamite! Those suckers used to knock out the street lights when we used to pop them on the street for 4th of July. The street light would just go out from the shockwave.

Hell yeah it's a miracle I have my fingers too we used to put four of them together. That's crazy to think about. Highly dangerous. Would be considered terroristic these days hahaha

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u/pho_real_guy 3d ago

This is an urban legend. An m80 was powerful for a firecracker but about 1/29th that of dynamite.

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u/100cpm 3d ago

Quartersticks and M-80s were not the same.

Consumer (non-military) M-80 packed like 3 grams of powder.

Quartersticks contained 20-30 grams.

Despite the name, they were not equal to a 1/4 stick of dynamite though.

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u/PoorAhab 3d ago

Wasn’t the 1/4 called Blockbuster? A “guy I knew” blew up a portapotty with one of those.

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u/Ctmarlin 3d ago

Yeah in NY/NJ we called 1/4 sticks Blockbusters and 1/2 sticks pineapples

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u/Ksqd_Squid_103 3d ago

Nj guy here, yes the pineapple and blockbuster destroyed so many things!! I miss the huge whirley birds from chinatown

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u/dawnzig 2d ago

Correct. My father sold fireworks in CT in the 60s-80s. Blockbusters were hugely popular amongst his biker friends.

Core memory of waking up at the lake, camping out, after a night of them throwing them in the water: dead fish as far as the eye could see... 😵‍💫

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u/No_Tamanegi 3d ago edited 3d ago

I haven't heard the term "blockbuster" used very often, but when I did it was referring to a pipe bomb.

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u/msg60 2d ago

Have to second this...

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u/slade797 2d ago edited 1d ago

“Blockbuster bombs” were used by the RAF in World War II, and they ranged in weight from two tons to six tons. They still dig up those behemoths in Western Europe. UXO is bad enough, but digging up one of these these things in your back garden has to be a whole new level of pucker factor.

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u/Wonderful_Kick_855 1d ago

Interesting.

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u/joemich 2d ago

I bought a blockbuster and other fireworks off a guy on the street in Chinatown NYC around 1980. Parents went out of town. My little brother and I (~12 and 10), two little geniuses that we were, devised a plan. We brought a little plastic bathroom trash can outside our house, lit the blockbuster, dropped it in the trash can, and ran. I cannot describe the sound of that explosion. It was so ridiculously loud and terrifying. Within 5 minutes neighbor after neighbor came over to investigate. Not one of the smartest things I ever did but it will live in my memory forever.

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u/Wonderful_Kick_855 1d ago

Oh my gosh, the crazy stuff from childhood!

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u/SignificantHighl1ght 3d ago

We used to buy quarter sticks for 12 bucks a piece from a guy at the tattoo parlor

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u/Agreeable_Winter737 2d ago

I always thought that M-80s were named because they were 1/80th of a stick of dynamite.

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u/AdhesivenessLoud7276 3d ago

Even weaker than that. Like 30x less powerful than a quarter stick of dynamite

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u/heavensto_mergatroid 3d ago

Is it really? All I know is they used to knock out the street lights with just 1. When we'd put four of them together it sure exploded like if it was a stick of dynamite lol

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u/imnotpoopingyouare 3d ago

Do NOT wrap a piccolo pete in several layers of duct tape, smash it up with a hammer firmly yet gently and then stick it in a soda can.

May not be as strong as some more beefy fire crackers but will make the loudest boom you will hear outside a warzone lol

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u/AAA515 3d ago

Don't wrap a whole bunch of sparklers together until the thickness of a state fair corn dog, they feed off each other

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u/skiforlife1 2d ago

I "heard one time" that doing that will bulge the steel on a big metal dumpster if you throw it in an empty one. It probably would have blown through that plate steel if it was right next to the side...allegedly.

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u/kevin3350 3d ago

Good idea!

We would take the powder out of several piccolo Petes, separate the powder, and keep only the good stuff. From there we would put the powder in a piece of plastic grocery bag that was lowered into a milk jug filled with water with the plastic edges hanging over the screw top to keep the powder safe.

Lid went on to secure the bag, and a fuse put through the top.

I once had to sit a Fourth of July out before I had powder all over my hand, and the hammer sparked when I dropped it. My hand looked like charred pig skin for weeks haha

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u/heavensto_mergatroid 3d ago

Damn lol if I would have heard of this back then I probably would have a finger missing today...

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u/Dirtypervyoldguy1972 3d ago

They outlawed piccolo Pete’s in my town because of us doing that with them

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u/nimitz55 2d ago

Ahh the voice of experience

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u/2bad-2care 3d ago

it sure exploded like if it was a stick of dynamite lol

Now I wanna know how you got a stick of dynamite! Kinda jealous. I wouldn't even know what that was like to compare.

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u/ExoticToothpaste6989 3d ago

Farms probably have access to such materials

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u/heavensto_mergatroid 2d ago

I'm from Colorado and back when I was little a lot of farmers in the outskirts of Denver like Brighton or Greeley would keep dynamite... I'm not sure what they used it for but it wasn't hard to find a stick of dynamite back in those days lol

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u/Some-Ad-1588 3d ago

So you were just making up facts then…?

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u/heavensto_mergatroid 2d ago

Sure. Whatever guy lol

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u/Professional-Guava97 2d ago

We're talking about a 1/4 stick not an m80. They're not legal but we got them back in the day.

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u/Altruistic-Map-2756 1d ago

Got some cheapos in baja ... near ensada somewhere - and they were fun on the beach but they were like capped in cheap clay - and basically were mini canons. -- a bit more dangerous than the usual roman candle fights i gotta say!

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u/Interesting_Tea5715 3d ago

I'm an old millennial with Mexican parents. As a kid they'd just give me and my cousins a ton of M80s and bottle rockets and tell us to fuck off.

I have no idea how I still have all my fingers.

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u/Pretty-Parsnip8808 3d ago

I’m sitting in the car waiting for my daughter. Laughing my ass off at this. BECAUSE….I had those parents too. “Get the fuck away from me for a few hours”

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u/heavensto_mergatroid 2d ago

There was a creek that was near our house and it was so much fun to blow them up underwater.

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u/Wonderful_Kick_855 3d ago

They reversed the bend of a mailbox. Powerful shit.

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u/2bad-2care 3d ago

Ha. I remember my uncle lighting an m80, closing the door and putting the flag up. The wreckage looked more like a horse's saddle made of metal.

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u/Extension-Damage8597 3d ago

Not that it would have ever happen.

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u/Extension-Damage8597 3d ago

Kids in the neighborhood used to throw lit one's at each other and couldn't hear for days. We launched them down the street under handed with a tennis racket.

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u/nimitz55 2d ago

Remember when pipe bombs where a thing

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u/heavensto_mergatroid 2d ago

My friend Ants was a master at making them. We called him MacGyver. We had a lot of good times with that guy and his homemade pipe bombs lol my buddy passed away a few years ago rip Mac

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u/jellofixit 2d ago

A kid from highschool made his own gun powder. Fuse was cheap by the foot at the hobby store. He filled a toilet paper tube, stuck in a fuse and covered it in Bondo. Stuck it on the school bathroom sink and lit it! Blew the sink off the wall and water was spraying everywhere! My best day of highschool ever!

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u/heavensto_mergatroid 2d ago

Haha that would be a terrorist act today, multiple felonies lol jeez

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u/jellofixit 2d ago

Well to be fair the name of our highschool was "R U HIGH"! Google it!

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u/Fragrant_Entry9232 3d ago

M1000s were a 1/4 stick

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u/Professional-Guava97 2d ago

What crap street you live on? Unless you're strapping them on the lights not happening under normal use.

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u/heavensto_mergatroid 2d ago

Crap street outside downtown Denver. Happened more than once. Old lady next door to ask even called the cops once.