Fun with explosives

July 12, 2006 9:39 PM

What do you do with a steel plate, two anvils, and black powder? Anvil shooting!
posted by Steven C. Den Beste (21 comments total)

Kids, don't try this at home!
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:39 PM on July 12, 2006

Holy crap!
posted by loquacious at 9:52 PM on July 12, 2006

Sadly I have only one anvil and smokeless powder.
posted by Tenuki at 10:02 PM on July 12, 2006

Obligatory video. Forward to 4:40 if you want to cut to the chase.
posted by chef_boyardee at 10:04 PM on July 12, 2006

I have white powder.

But I'm not wasting it on this shit.
posted by RakDaddy at 10:15 PM on July 12, 2006

In the grand old contest of steel and gunpowder, Germany's short-lived WWII railroad gun Dora probably wins. It threw a 10,584 lb. high explosive shell and a 16,540 lb. concrete-piercing projectile.
posted by cenoxo at 10:20 PM on July 12, 2006

An ex roommate of mine referred to it as anvil-tossing.
posted by small_ruminant at 10:53 PM on July 12, 2006

let me be the first to say...
...from ACME!
posted by wendell at 11:29 PM on July 12, 2006

beep, beep
posted by caddis at 12:25 AM on July 13, 2006 [1 favorite]

This reminds me of the web pages for "Punkin Chunkin" that came out in like 1996, the first time I realized people were doing shit I'd never imagined, and making web pages about it.
posted by delmoi at 12:48 AM on July 13, 2006

Luckily, I brought my tiny umbrella.
posted by milquetoast at 1:22 AM on July 13, 2006

Blacksmiths are way cool. They know what traditions are important. ;)
posted by dabitch at 1:35 AM on July 13, 2006

Some clearer and more scary pictures from further down the site.

also a town that has a water tower that looks like a huge ass.
posted by johnny novak at 1:58 AM on July 13, 2006

Kids, don't try this at home!

Try it at somebody else's house!
posted by eriko at 4:42 AM on July 13, 2006

Unfotunately, this caption (on the page in johnny's link) is misleading:
A few anvils, vices and tools at Madison.
There are no apparent vices displayed in the photo.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:49 AM on July 13, 2006

Kirth Gerson writes "There are no apparent vices displayed in the photo."

The entire lower left corner of the trailer is covered by leg vices and there appear to be 3 more on the right.
posted by Mitheral at 7:59 AM on July 13, 2006

So, you're going with that British spelling, are you?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:16 AM on July 13, 2006

Ah, a clever homonym joke. Well any man displaying a dozen vices surely suffers from the vices of gluttony and pride and probably lust as well..
posted by Mitheral at 9:04 AM on July 13, 2006

"Citizens of Anvilania, I stand before you, because if I was behind you, you couldn't see me."

Yakko Warner
posted by icontemplate at 12:03 PM on July 13, 2006

Legs are one of my vices. Apparently.
posted by Floydd at 2:13 PM on July 13, 2006

Dad did this with Grandpa when Dad was a teenager in the 1930s.

He didn't elaborate much telling us about it, because he just knew we five boys would take his anvil, his sledge or his maul, and some black powder and try this, but he did chuckle quietly as he recollected, "The trick with doing it is that there's definitely such a thing as using too much powder." Then he decided to change the subject.

I wish I could've gotten more out of him about it -- I bet there was a heck of an anecdote that we missed.
posted by pax digita at 11:56 AM on July 14, 2006