Important Safety Lesson - safe distance shooting "Tannerite"

In other words, how NOT to win a Darwin Award.

Sad foolish lesson that he should have known better at his age.

43 feet was obviously too close!
That large quantity of dumb doesn't leave much room for sympathy. That guy is young enough that he will have many years and many opportunities to answer the inevitable "so, how did you lose your leg?"

"Stupid is as stupid does" comes to mind.

A fool and his leg are soon parted

1)Shooting at a mower (or any metal machinery) loaded with "Tannerite" [strike]too close[/strike].

There, fixed it.

I'll bet he doesn't do that again. I've only shot a few of the very small exploding targets. Place one on a 1/2" plywood stand. It blew a big hole in the plywood. that stuff is nothing to fool around with.

I have shot Tannerite in a plastic jar set underneath a 55 gal soft plastic barrel with plenty of space for the drum to come down.

Tannerite can be fun for those who follow safety recommendations.

That is also why Tannerite is banned from the local club range, even the upper "wilderness" range. Some people think safety recommendations are for others not them.

ADDED: I remember a show with foodie Anthony Bourdain at a BBQ at Ted Nugent's place; they shot Tannerite in plastic jars hanging from trees far out of range of plastic jar shrapnel.

UPDT: I want to emphasize: I shot a plastic jar of Tannerite underneath a plastic drum to launch it into the air in the middle an an empty field. That is not at all like packing a metal container and setting it off. I'm the eleven year old kid who made small smoke bombs to use my toy tanks and dinosuars to restage scenes from "Godzilla Raids Again"; I was raised to have more sense than putting cherry bombs in mail boxes.

Almost: Darwinism in Action

If the flying shrapnel had been only a couple of feet higher.....

DDDT! (Don't Do Dumb Things!)

Kingcreek said:

That guy is young enough that he will have many years and many opportunities to answer the inevitable "so, how did you lose your leg?"

Click to expand...

I was blessed (I think) that, early on, I learned a sense of my own mortality.

I have long thought that the lack of that critical understanding is the fundamental cause of many youngsters inadvertently hurting/maiming/killing themselves and/or others.

That said ... watching this vid made me remember many of the stooooooopid things that I did as a pup ... and got away with.

O'course, I never packed a metal container full of explosives and them shot at it with a rifle from <15yds away.

I wonder if "Hold my beer and watch this" was involved?

I have used Tannerite to blow beaver dams if the situation allows. It's hard to find a dam on my property that you can see from over 30 yards as they are in the winding creek bottoms. Back in the old days we had something much safer called "dynamite".

FPS Russian just about killed himself doing the same thing to a truck full of the stuff.

You'd think people would learn... You'd be wrong.

Back in the day, in AF Civil Engineering, we used a variant of some of the ingredients included in Tannerite to blow big holes in runways to practice rapid runway repair and for expedient airstrip denial exercises. Gave me a healthy respect for stuff that goes boom along with watching my father using sure enough real dynamite to blow tree stumps out of the ground in a field. Read up on the Texas City disaster and you will get some idea about how this is dangerous stuff which needs to be treated with care and respect for its potential deadliness even in small doses.

My young nephew (11 at the time) nearly got hurt himself with his grandfather when they put a knockoff of Tannerite in a the hollow of a tree and shot it at too short a distance last year. I found out about it later and advised his dad to get rid of the rest of the case before someone got hurt or at least put the fear into his son about the stuff.

FYI https://www.atf.gov/explosives/binary-explosives

At least his stupidity didn't get ANYONE ELSE hurt. All too often, the foolish person gets innocent people injured by their careless actions.

Also, how about don't blow things up that contain large sharp blades? Even not considering all the other potential shrapnel, there's already a very deadly projectile in there.

As an aside from the obvious stupidity, I have to say that that video is about the most thoughtful and even-keeled reporting related to firearms that I have ever seen. Not a single reference to 'assault weapons' or proposed new regulations to protect us from our own incompetence. Bravo.

There was an episode of Doomsday Preppers where they set up a large amount of Tannerite in a place to deny access to people.

They wanted to do a test to see how well it worked out, they at least got back to a safe distance and shot the Tannerite. What they did was bury it to hide it from anyone coming up the road and placed a steel pole across the road so that the vehicle would have to stop.

They parked the vehicle with just the front over Tannerite, shot it and the vehicle basically disappeared. A couple seconds later the engine hit the ground! Definitely something to use to deny the wrong people access to a place you don't want them.

On the other hand it also shows the wrong people why we shouldn't have access to it. Shooting it in small amounts or the way it was intended is the best if you're going to post it all over the internet. If you're going to blow up a lawnmower, 55 gal drum or car, it's best to keep it to yourself. Advertising it to the world leads to idiots like this guy blowing his leg off.

Then other idiots saying we don't need to have it because someone might kill themselves or a child. And we all know it's all about the children when they start in about safety.

My son is a wildland firefighter. He and his crew regularly respond to grass and forest fires started by idiots shooting Tannerite. The idiot shooter not only puts himself at risk, but also those who must deal with the results of his foolishness. I am usual not in favor of outlawing things that amuse other people. Tannerite is an exception.

I wouldn't say ban it, I'm all for someone having to pay for any mistakes they make while using it though. It's fun to use when you use it as intended but I don't want it banned due to idiots not using it the way it was intended.

I'm willing to bet this idiot that blew his leg off will probably try to sue the makers of Tannerite. I'm sure they'll say something about the safety label or something like that. All of this was his fault, he should be lucky that one of his friends filming it didn't get killed. Or else he might be looking at manslaughter charges for being an idiot.

GBExpat, I agree. Some of the really stupid things I had done in younger years, and was fortunate nobody got hurt or worse.

That said, not just the mower blades. But sheet metal and explosive energy. Anybody seen what damage sheet metal thrown around by a tornado does.

He cant kick, it did what explosives are supposed to do