Hoplophile wrote:
1) Does anyone here own one?
Not that I've heard of yet, but I'm sure there must be some here who do.
2) Where on God's green earth would one go to shoot one?
I've rented them four or five times over the past dozen years. I figured if I bought one, it wouldn't get too much use. Shooting them is good for them.
Here I am, about 10 years ago:
There's a reason those little green "Army men" figures with flamethrowers have that pose...
3) Are they as fun as they look to be?
Of course!
I talked one of my friends into trying one, he always says he's glad I argued him into doing it.
Last year my 15 yo son shot one; with a broken foot in a cast, and in the mud no less!
4) Okay, I want to buy one. From where and how much?
Let's put it this way - if you have to ask... it's too much.
Somewhere I've got a pic I took of a cool "flames" paint job somebody put on theirs. I'll scan it if anybody really cares...
Practical value of a flamethrower? Nil.
Actually, some civilian owners use them for setting practice fires so fire departments can practice putting them out. No kidding. It takes a long time to re-start a wet fire with most normal methods, but a flamethrower gets it going again in seconds. Saves a lot of time.
Yes, melting snow or clearing scrub. But you can put a lot of other things besides fuel in the tanks.
Fun factor? Imagine that you have your hands on a ma deuce. Yeah, that's the sort of fun I imagine they are.
I've had more fuin with flamethrowers than shooting Ma Deuces, FWIW. And cheaper. But a flamethrower is much more dangerous to the user and those around him. Maybe that's why they're more fun?
Aran wrote:
Gasoline + styrofoam until it stops accepting it into the mixture = Hell yeah.
You usually don't put Napalm B in pressurized flamethrowers, it's not thixotropic like other thickeners.