I some fun with carbide!
Zonie said:Although it wasn't black powder or match heads I had my fun with some dry swimming pool chlorine.
Seems this stuff is not only a strong oxidizer but it supports combustion (producing poisonous gasses in the process).
A friend and I, being young and foolish found a broken quart size thermos jug.
In a vacant field we placed this, open end up and filled it with about 3/4 of a pound of the granules.
Dropping a lit match down the hole we expected to see it catch fire and roar to life like a solid bottle rocket. (We had done this several times using a old clothesline T pole.
Rather than roar to life it seemed that nothing was happening so I went forward and looked down the hole.
I could see the surface of the chemical bubbling but that was all until....
My friend (?) came forward and dropped a handful of the powder down the hole.
Suddenly, there was a mighty explosion. It blew me backwards over 10 feet and I landed on my back.
My friend was likewise blown about the same distance in the opposite direction.
After regaining our senses we realized we were both uninjured (except for a few scrapes from landing on the hard Arizona dirt which by the way is so hard you have to use a pick to dig into it) so we started looking around.
With all of our looking, we never found a trace of the thermos bottle top or sides but the bottom was imbedded over 1/2 inch straight down into the hard dirt.