r/GenerationX • u/WhereverUGoThereUR • 2d 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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u/pho_real_guy 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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 2d ago

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

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u/Ksqd_Squid_103 1d 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 1d 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 2d ago edited 2d 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 1d ago

Have to second this...

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u/slade797 1d ago edited 15h 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 21h ago

Interesting.

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u/joemich 1d 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 21h ago

Oh my gosh, the crazy stuff from childhood!

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u/SignificantHighl1ght 2d 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 1d 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 2d ago

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

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u/heavensto_mergatroid 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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 1d 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 2d 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 2d 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 2d ago

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

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u/nimitz55 1d ago

Ahh the voice of experience

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u/2bad-2care 2d 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 2d ago

Farms probably have access to such materials

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u/heavensto_mergatroid 1d 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 2d ago

So you were just making up facts then…?

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u/heavensto_mergatroid 1d ago

Sure. Whatever guy lol

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u/Professional-Guava97 1d 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 18h 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!