We used to hunt with an old prankster when I was a kid. We would all gather around the camp fire and talk about everything under thesu...moon.He would start talking about how if you threw a rifle cartridge into the camp fire it would do nothing but explode, because it did not have the pressure of the barrel and the chamber to generate velocity for the bullet. This discussion would go on for a while, and he would pull a .22 cartridge out and start rolling it in his fingers as he went on to talk about how barrel length increases bullet velocity and such.By this time most everybody would start to feel a little bit uneasy with him holding the .22 shell by the fire, and by this time everybody's full attention was on him.When the time was perfect he would say hereI'll show you, andhe would throw what appeared to be the .22 cartridge in the fire, and it exploded.

I have seen grown men almost do back flips out of their chairs to get away from the fire. It would always have men hunkered down behind pick up trucks. I was fast enough to be 50 yards away.

Later, he showed everybody the black cat firecrackers he had in his coat pocket.

C. Davis