Thread: Sardis Explosion?

Maybe it was a jet plane breaking the sound barrier.

Originally Posted by mississippi

i heard it too. tuesday evening around 6:30 pm or so. i was up around piney pt. it rocked the world for sure. ive used kinepak before and it was not a concussion like what i heard tuesday. maybe i didnt use as much as whatever they were doing.

well, at least I know I'm not crazy. wasn't drinking either! funny thing is earlier that day 3 or 4 army copters flew maybe 50 yards high over the lake and over my head at whyatt's boat ramp when i was taking out. those things are a site to see and make some noise as well.

Several years ago I bought a 10 lb box of tannerite. If I recall correctly the package contained ten 1-pound charges. Three of us were at the farm that day and we were excited because this was the first time we had ever used it. We were sighting in rifles ahead of deer season and finishing the session off with tannerite seemed appropriate. I mixed up a canister and set it out 100 yards downrange. I eased the trigger back on my 7mm mag, the shot rang out, and there was a puff of gray smoke downrange. Despite the smoke, there was no audible response. We were really let down that all a 1 lb charge did was put off a little bit of smoke.

I wasn't going to sit around all day screwing around with tiny smoke bombs, so I mixed ALL of the remaining charges into a 1 gallon milk jug, and set the excess canisters on top of the jug. I figured that if one canister only put off that little smoke with no bang, then maybe we could get a pop out of the larger charge I had concocted.

I told a buddy that it was his turn to shoot. We set the jug out about 120 yards away on a red-clay hillside next to the pond. I had my hearing protection, but i kept my hands on the headphones so I could snatch them off real quick after the gunshot to see if I could hear any sound the tannerite put off.

The last normal thing I remember was him sending the shot. His .30-06 barked, there was a moment of nothing, and then the world shattered. The first thing I remember was the visual. That tannerite charge exploded with enough force that I could SEE the shockwave expanding from the point of detonation. It was like a wave blasted out, then sucked back in, then heaved so much of red clay into the air that a gigantic red cloud began floating skyward. It was beyond thunderous. I've been around Howitzers firing...this was louder.

I could feel the shockwave when it passed over us. My first thought was that this must be what it sounds like when a meteor hits the earth. It was so loud that the neighbor on the next farm called the sherifs office because she thought we must have all died in an explosion of some sort. This was down near Water Valley and I'm certain they heard that explosion all the way to Oxford.

As it turns out...the first charge we shot was a dud. I didn't mix it thoroughly enough so it never exploded. The gray "smoke" I saw wasn't smoke...it was just the powdered tannerite getting pushed out of the canister by my bullet. This set the stage of the ridiculous amount of tannerite i used in the second charge. It didn't seem ridiculous at the time because of our feedback from the first small charge.

Tannerite is a very powerful explosive...it is shocking how much power you can get from it. Our neighbor who called the police was a long way away with lots of trees in between her and the explosion. An explosion carrying over the lake with nothing to block it could impress people a loooonnng ways away I'd imagine.

Originally Posted by 27458

3 or 4 army copters flew maybe 50 yards high over the lake and over my head at whyatt's boat ramp when i was taking out. those things are a site to see and make some noise as well.

I have a buddy who flies help's for the Army. He told me one night that he had been flying over Sardis earlier that week and saw a bunch of boats fishing down near hurricane landing. He was asking what kind of fishing they were doing. I said I didn't know...could be anything. He said he was watching them in the weapons cameras and could tell even from a distance that they weren't catching bass. Crazy.

Originally Posted by fishinhunter

Several years ago I bought a 10 lb box of tannerite. If I recall correctly the package contained ten 1-pound charges. Three of us were at the farm that day and we were excited because this was the first time we had ever used it. We were sighting in rifles ahead of deer season and finishing the session off with tannerite seemed appropriate. I mixed up a canister and set it out 100 yards downrange. I eased the trigger back on my 7mm mag, the shot rang out, and there was a puff of gray smoke downrange. Despite the smoke, there was no audible response. We were really let down that all a 1 lb charge did was put off a little bit of smoke.

I wasn't going to sit around all day screwing around with tiny smoke bombs, so I mixed ALL of the remaining charges into a 1 gallon milk jug, and set the excess canisters on top of the jug. I figured that if one canister only put off that little smoke with no bang, then maybe we could get a pop out of the larger charge I had concocted.

I told a buddy that it was his turn to shoot. We set the jug out about 120 yards away on a red-clay hillside next to the pond. I had my hearing protection, but i kept my hands on the headphones so I could snatch them off real quick after the gunshot to see if I could hear any sound the tannerite put off.

The last normal thing I remember was him sending the shot. His .30-06 barked, there was a moment of nothing, and then the world shattered. The first thing I remember was the visual. That tannerite charge exploded with enough force that I could SEE the shockwave expanding from the point of detonation. It was like a wave blasted out, then sucked back in, then heaved so much of red clay into the air that a gigantic red cloud began floating skyward. It was beyond thunderous. I've been around Howitzers firing...this was louder.

I could feel the shockwave when it passed over us. My first thought was that this must be what it sounds like when a meteor hits the earth. It was so loud that the neighbor on the next farm called the sherifs office because she thought we must have all died in an explosion of some sort. This was down near Water Valley and I'm certain they heard that explosion all the way to Oxford.

As it turns out...the first charge we shot was a dud. I didn't mix it thoroughly enough so it never exploded. The gray "smoke" I saw wasn't smoke...it was just the powdered tannerite getting pushed out of the canister by my bullet. This set the stage of the ridiculous amount of tannerite i used in the second charge. It didn't seem ridiculous at the time because of our feedback from the first small charge.

Tannerite is a very powerful explosive...it is shocking how much power you can get from it. Our neighbor who called the police was a long way away with lots of trees in between her and the explosion. An explosion carrying over the lake with nothing to block it could impress people a loooonnng ways away I'd imagine.

Kind of scary. Is it hard to buy? Lot of crazy folks out there! Sounds like that's probably what it was just from the sound and the smoke I saw after and the gunfire before.

Originally Posted by 27458

Kind of scary. Is it hard to buy?

Not hard at all. You can buy it online with a credit card. Tannerite is unique in that it takes an impact of 2,000 feet-per-second to set it off. You can hit it with a hammer, burn it, throw it, etc and it won't go off. There's even lots of different calibers that won't set it off. But when you hit it with 2,000 fps...stand back Jack.

I'll just stick to my cap gun for fun.

27lbs of tannerite vs hogs - YouTube

Hopefully this link will play. Shows the power of this stuff.