Excals vs Black Widow?

[Dr.FillyBlunt]

I've been seeing a lot lately prior to the 4th especially about comparing differences between popular shells and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Several years prior to this I've bought a 24 pack/box/case of excals and loved them, this year I've heard things from several folks about how the widows (RGS brand) broke bigger and louder than the excals. One of the guys working the store I bought them showed me a comparison (they had a display setup comparing the shells and mortars side by side) of the actual size of the shells (the widows were bigger). Knowing that this meant jack shit I tried to question this without sounding like a rude condescending asshole, I asked him that surely either shell won't have any more than the 60 gram limit of powder and he said the excals actually had 5 grams less than the widows and that they tested them both side by side and confirmed the rumors.

Bought a box of widows for $84.99 (the place I bought them claims to be the only place in town that sells them) (I usually get the excals for like $60-$70) and that was pretty much my whole "stash" save for 2 packs of mambas I bought (those were nice firecrackers IMO, coming from shooting blackcats normally). Fast forward to night time and I get to shooting them off. To be honest I really didn't see a difference in breaking size or loudness compared to the excals and I can say I'll just be getting the excals from now on.

Now before someone says "But you have to shoot them off side by side, then you'll see..." well that's my point, if you have to go to that length to see a difference then maybe it truly isn't worth the fuss and in my case the extra $10-$20+/-.

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going off topic---

I tossed a mamba about 25 yards away from me and when it went off a piece of debris (probably an intact clay plug or something) hit the upper right side of my face and it hurt pretty bad, it felt like I was punched in the face. Now before someone says it, I'm responsible with my explosives, I'm not one of those guys who get drunk and race rockets down the street or light shells off my head, I did what I was supposed to do with this damn thing lol.

[bozie8823]

I shot a small retail pkg of Neon Widows (Black Widows only all glitter effects) in our lake shows intro this year. Liked them a lot. They definately hang with Excals as far as their break size. They've got a nice pop to them audibly as well. While I'll always love Excals, I steer clear of them when I'm putting together a display where the effect integrity has meaning & needs to be precise. I swear 45% of the time the effect is what the label said it was. I'll throw them (Excals) up all day long in my finales...but I look elsewhere for cans in my show designs. I'll def buy Black Widows again for this use.

[BluegrassPyro1]

I've shot some of the Black Widows and really couldn't tell a difference. The main store that sells them around me is called Marks Fireworks, so not sure if that's the same place you bought from. The only true way to test in my opinion would involve having to use a bunch of equipment like a slow motion camera and something that measures decibels. Only then could you really say that one breaks "bigger or Louder" than another by comparing the data. But even this could change from shell to shell or even package to package since fireworks are made by hand it's usually not going to be exactly the same from one to another. A less scientific test is this. Take a rack outside and have someone you trust load shells from different brands and let them shoot it off. Sit back and watch and then write down which shell you thought was what and then compare with them. Odds are you won't get them all right. Labels are just that, labels.

[Dion]

The can shell debate thing is a waste of time. Now for the mambas, What I do is always stand up my larger clay crackers so the clay plug doesn't fly sideways and cause a danger. That's a big problem with todays sweatshop labor efficiency improving clay cracker practice!! As a collector of vintage Crackers I have to say that to me the confetti flying through the air cant be replaced by just a loader report alone! By the way "LAY ON GROUND, LIGHT FUSE AND GET AWAY"! Lol!!:p

[JoeR]

HPfireworks had black widow and excals for the same price of 69.99. Both are great shells.

[Dr.FillyBlunt]

I shot a small retail pkg of Neon Widows (Black Widows only all glitter effects) in our lake shows intro this year. Liked them a lot. They definately hang with Excals as far as their break size. They've got a nice pop to them audibly as well. While I'll always love Excals, I steer clear of them when I'm putting together a display where the effect integrity has meaning & needs to be precise. I swear 45% of the time the effect is what the label said it was. I'll throw them (Excals) up all day long in my finales...but I look elsewhere for cans in my show designs. I'll def buy Black Widows again for this use.

Mislabeling being the only real difference I guess, makes sense.

@Bluegrass, true that about labels being just that lol (at least in the world of 1.4). Yes, I bought them from Mark's in owensboro, now they're probably Mark's mattress outlet again haha. They had the little display against the wall with a TV showing some shells, and about a hundred or so boxes of excals and widows stacked up against the wall? I don't have an SPL meter handy I could use for the sound but I do have a camera that can record in 60fps in 720p (vs 24-30fps in 1080p) and slowing down at that frame rate seems to be pretty smooth actually as I've once tried, not exactly a high speed camera but it's a start lol.

@Dion Getting enough distance wasn't the problem in this case, but standing them up on their side actually sounds like a pretty good idea to prevent this from happening, damned if I didn't think of it.