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Bottle Rocket Mine


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I can't take credit for this; I found it in a Skylighter newsletter. Basically it's just like the title says, How to light roughly 2 gross of small commercial bottle rockets at once.

 

First, you'll need a gallon metal paint can. I bought mine at Home Depot for about $4. Next you'll need some Black Powder, I used Goex FFFFG that I had, but any type will probably work. You need a small piece of fuse and of course a couple gross of bottle rockets.

http://img416.imageshack.us/img416/428/2gross01jl7.th.jpg

 

With a nail, punch a hole in the bottom of the can just larger enough to put the fuse into. Make sure the hole is low enough that it’ll touch a thin layer of BP on the bottom of the can. Next, simply do just that, sprinkle a thin layer of BP in the bottom of the paint can.

http://img426.imageshack.us/img426/5946/2gross02ez0.th.jpg

 

 

The bottle rockets will be too tall to sit in the can correctly so you’ll need to trim the end of the sticks off. I found some tin snips work fairly well for this. What you’re looking for is the rocket to sit in the can with the rim somewhere about the middle of the rocket body. In this way you can jam the can totally full and it’ll be a nice snug fit.

http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/3858/2gross03li6.th.jpg

 

 

Fill the can as full as you can with bottle rockets but not extremely tight, after all, we do want them to come out right?

http://img416.imageshack.us/img416/5978/2gross04su8.th.jpg

 

 

And that’s it. Take it out in the street and light the fuse. I’ve done this a couple times already and one disappointment is, this will not launch the rockets into the air all at once. Rather, it blows them all out like a giant star mine and it’ll make a huge half globe with rockets popping everywhere. I literally had them in neighbor’s yards for several houses over.

 

And here’s a video. Enjoy.

2 Gross of Bottle Rockets

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thats not a waste of bottle rockets at all, i have a few thousand of them, and all they do is go up and pop, at least this way, its interesting. nice tutorial :D
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Nice tutorial, well explained. It looked cool I think. I agree, that pop rockets are boring on there own and they are cheap, so good idea.
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I did this once with a gross of rockets. It was pretty interesting.... I didn't stand far enough away when filming and almost got pelted by many rockets.
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There's a guy on youtube that did something like this but used a fence door as the launch pad. I'll see if iI can find the video. It's called the redneck rocket launcher, and you'll know why when you watch it. It's only 8,500 or them ;0.

 

 

 

Edit: Enjoy

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Now THAT's pretty cool. I might have to try that next time I do a show. I live in Texas and those bottle rockets are illegal here and I have to go all the way to Mississippi to get them. I have family there so that's usually where I shoot most of my stuff anyway and it's not a big deal driving all that way. We usually buy them by the case for about $35 and there's 25 gross per case so each case is 3600 bottle rockets.

 

Thanks for the link aquaman.

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No problem. Saw it a while ago and when I saw this tutorial it reminded me of it.
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  • 4 months later...
I liked when they used firecracker fuse on those little rockets, you could just drop a whole bunch in a container and light one, the rest would get set off by the sparks. This is an awesome alternative!
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  • 3 years later...

I tried something like this on a larger scale last 4th of July. I made tables using pegboard as the table tops. I put 2 or 3 rockets in each hole, making sure the fuse stayed above the table. You light one rocket and get back. The sparks from the first rocket bounce across the top of the tables igniting the other rockets. I sent up over 6,000 Moon Travelers in less than 45 seconds!

 

I posted the video below:

 

 

6000 in 45

 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...
the only mod i made was only putting two BRs into a rice pudding can, there was no pressure in the can but it decided to take its side off
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Do you have a picture of the can? I cannot conceive of a metal can bursting from a small charge of BP on the bottom.
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  • 5 months later...

If you search on youtube for: "babypijl rek" (dutch for: Bottle Rocket Rack), you will find hundreds of dutch video's of huge bottle rocket projects.

We pay about 1 euro (+- $1,35) for 144 bottle rockets, so they are very cheap here.

There are videos from projects with 35,000, 40,000 and I once saw a video with 80,000 bottle rockets!

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They are cheap here (US) too. I love filling 4" mortars with them. A whole lot safer than the "rocket wars" we had as a child!
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A whole lot safer than the "rocket wars" we had as a child!

 

That would be my one dangerous thing I still do at my old age, bottle rocket wars! God help me, I love doing that still!

 

-dag

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God help me, I love doing that still!

 

Confession time... I do as well. At least now I'm smart enough to wear safety goggles. Be a whole lot crazier if I could find a safety monocle.

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Confession time... I do as well. At least now I'm smart enough to wear safety goggles. Be a whole lot crazier if I could find a safety monocle.

 

 

at least we know what happened to the other eye :whistle:

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  • 2 weeks later...
oh yeah, and these were silver fox bottle rockets by black cat. it was $2.50/gross :lol:
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oh yeah, and these were silver fox bottle rockets by black cat. it was $2.50/gross :lol:

 

Where'd the random shell explosion come from? :)

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It's mentioned right below the video. You'd think we would have developed a way to do these in a more controlled manner by now. Then again, that also takes 3/4 of the fun out of them. I like to think it's a miniature version of what those two churches in Greece are like.
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