Bird Egg Crackers

[RalphieJ]

A while back Dave posted a short video about bird egg crackers. They are made with two plastic cups (one red, the other lime-green) snapped together with a very good flash mix inside, and pierced to accommodate the wimpiest visco fuse you've ever seen. (Google the Alibaba site and you'll find about 10 different companies that make them) I was fortunate enough to be gifted a bag of 50, and their report is a good as Kent or Garden State cherry bombs (I did a comparison test). The problem is, and Dave pointed this out in his video, the plastic cups becomes shrapnel. I rolled one 20 ft away and had a piece go whizzing past my ear, landing 10 feet behind me. Close call. I may shorten the fuses and pack 8 or so into 3" shells. I figure at a 50-60 foot apogee we'll be out of harm's way.

[displayfireworks1]

Here is the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R317QmzSAY
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I just made this video now that you got me thinking about those firecrackers. Anyway care to speculate what the composition of the powder is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF1_m5xHIoM

[Westpapyro]

Those are neat, wow. I've never seen anything like that?

[NWPA]

Watching that composition burn on the paper, it sure burned slow. Like the old Burger King commercial, of "Where's the beef. In this case where's the snap that you see with good flash. Potassium Nitrate maybe.

[PGH_Pyro]

i'm not a pyro chemist/expert by any means but yeah I believe they are what you find in Europe which is 'nitraat' flash .
not as intense as flash-flash .
and i've seen those bird eggs pop off a few times and that hemisphere is a soft plastic ... almost rubbery, in some cases. not much of a 'shrapnel' risk in my experience.

[RalphieJ]

i'm not a pyro chemist/expert by any means but yeah I believe they are what you find in Europe which is 'nitraat' flash .
not as intense as flash-flash .
and i've seen those bird eggs pop off a few times and that hemisphere is a soft plastic ... almost rubbery, in some cases. not much of a 'shrapnel' risk in my experience.

Just tested a couple, the green portion tends to stay in one piece, but the red half is a harder plastic that tends to break apart with sharp edges. I wouldn't want to get hit in the face with either one. And like I said, the report is on par with a cherry bomb. (Now I'm down to three.)

[RalphieJ]

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/ostrich-bird-eggs-cracker_60189905302.html?spm=a2700.7724857.29.53.4 dcv55

[ilovecrackle]

Just tested a couple, the green portion tends to stay in one piece, but the red half is a harder plastic that tends to break apart with sharp edges. I wouldn't want to get hit in the face with either one. And like I said, the report is on par with a cherry bomb. (Now I'm down to three.)

Yeah, I know what you mean. I came across these a couple years ago and picked up a bunch.
I always made sure i threw them a pretty good distance due to the fact they were made out of plastic so i anticipated shrapnel of some kind. They are fun to light but they sure leave a mess of those plastic halves all over if you light a bunch of them.
They do make a mess of spent cakes when you drop one in the tube. :p

[PGH_Pyro]

i'm that guy that goes around picking up plastic hemispheres and spent bits from fireworks in order to recycle it all
i also recycle spent cakes and anything cardboard/heavy paper . yes i make sure no inserts are left in there .
i dismantle the stuff, first .

:o

[PGH_Pyro]

interesting in that the top 3 markets for these as per that Ali Baba listing are :

Top 3 Markets:

South Asia 30.63%
Eastern Europe 15.31%
Central America 8.58%

[N3OQO]

I prefer paper crackers. I run the mower over the confetti and it actually makes a very good mulch for the lawn.

[displayfireworks1]

These are not soft plastic as stated in one of the previous post.

[RalphieJ]

These are not soft plastic as stated in one of the previous post.

Did you happen to notice the remarks section on the ad?: "Safe for children" Good Lord!

[displayfireworks1]

If you think about it who else but children would be attracted to those colors and shapes.
I think the advantage here is speed in production. You can load these quick and snap them together. I am still trying to see if anyone knows what the powder is made of. Where is the theChemist45 when I need him. Hope he didn't die again. LOL He would have an opinion on these. I bet these would be real loud if they were full of powder.

[thechemist45]

They have Barium Nitrate flash But there loud! But don't stand near them as everyone said theyou throw plastic!

[NWPA]

I knew a knowledgeable answer would come from thechemist45 if he saw the post. They are cool.

[thechemist45]

It's over a gram Dave

[displayfireworks1]

Interesting how it burns when not confined. What is the formula on these? Is the fuel magnesium?

[thechemist45]

The reason it burns slow outside unconfined is because. Like that Blue aluminum flash powder it has spherical shaped aluminum under my microscope as well ass some flake. And as a oxidizer they used Barium nitrate. And the sparkling pieces in the mix are just larger mesh size pieces of the spherical bright aluminum that is mixed with the reguler flake. And it's not no high grade stuff The point is to make money use cheap aluminum and assemble them quick! So there you have it.

[thechemist45]

Thanks for the nice comment!

[Bgreen]

the chemist 45 man I miss your videos. Ik this is a old comment but I was wondering why they would use barium nitrate an not the normal perc?

[countryboy7978]

I doubt they use anything other than potassium perchlorate or potassium nitrate in their flash. I don't see any reason why they would use any other oxidizer unless they were going for an effect. To get any sort of color from a barium salt you would need some sort of a chlorine donor (chlorate or PVC or Parlon powders) otherwise the flash will still be white. The reason the stuff is so slow is because its terribly cheap materials being used in these things. They use cheap bright aluminum, and supplement with a lot of sulfur typically. This is true for most firecrackers imported from China. With confinement they will explode fine, but some of these just puff because the flash is too slow to produce a report from just the minimal confinement of the shell being snapped together.

I am not a fan of those bird eggs or soccer balls. Not only are the fuses extremely unreliable, the shrapnel that they throw is completely unacceptable for something meant to function at a relatively close distance to the user and spectators. While I don't want to encourage illegal activity, a good M-80 type salute with paper plugs is much safer even with a flash load of 3 to 4 times one of these eggs. As long as a firecracker doesn't explode in your hand/face, the only other major danger is flying debris. Clay plugs, plastic caps, and plastic housings are just an accident waiting to happen, particularly to the eyes. Wear sunglasses, eyeglasses, or safety glasses around these things.