# Dynamite



## southpaw (Feb 15, 2021)

Any of you guys old enough to remember when you could buy Dynamite at the local hardware store , I'm not but my neighbor down the road talks about those days for removing tree stumps and roots while starting a new garden area , on occasion you will hear a ground shaking boom in the area and can't think of anything else that would deliver such a force outside of military equipment 

Sure a few of those older guys have a stash left over from those days and when you ask them if they ever hear any earth shaking booms they always say No , don't blame them for being tight lipped about stuff like that


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## AKTrailDog (Feb 15, 2021)

southpaw said:


> Any of you guys old enough to remember when you could buy Dynamite at the local hardware store , I'm not but my neighbor down the road talks about those days for removing tree stumps and roots while starting a new garden area , on occasion you will hear a ground shaking boom in the area and can't think of anything else that would deliver such a force outside of military equipment
> 
> Sure a few of those older guys have a stash left over from those days and when you ask them if they ever hear any earth shaking booms they always say No , don't blame them for being tight lipped about stuff like that


I'm not old enough to have been able to buy stuff at local hardware stores but several of my mentors have told me numerous stories about buying product at the store. I have used similar products over the last 15 years to remove stumps, boulders etc for my job. In my neck of the woods, old dynamites are found year after year. Lucky for me, I get to dispose them at times.
Another method is to throw some potatoes in the ground around the stumps and then get some pigs in there. They'll dig the hell out of the area and root up the stumps in no time. Hardly any hard labor involved. And you've got bacon in a few months!! It's a win/win


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## sonny580 (Feb 15, 2021)

I used to help an uncle set charges and blow trees out of creeks---- then push them up in burning piles with his D-7 CAT. --- YA, remember it like it was yesterday! lol!


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## southpaw (Feb 15, 2021)

The dynamite at the hardware stores ended late 50's early 60's ?
You got some of the best top soil in the country in Illinois but go down 12"/24" you got heavy clay so dynamite and a D7 would be appropriate to move stumps down there, bet you had a riot doing that stuff


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## muddstopper (Feb 16, 2021)

I can remember dad having a box of the stuff. This was in the mid 60's to early 70's. He would take a long bar and punch a hole under a stump to put a stick of dynamite in and then used electric blasting caps to set it off. We would stand on the hill overlooking where the stumps where being removed and watch the stump fly thru the air. Sometimes the only thing we saw was dirt blasting up and the stump not coming out like was planned. No problem, just poke another hole and poke in another stick and let her go boom. I used to take the blasting caps and use them for target practice. Shot several in two but dont remember any of them ever blowing up. Lying Westerns.


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## wcorey (Feb 16, 2021)

Used to be they taught usage as well as how to make explosives (fertilizer etc.) as a matter of course in agricultural schools/programs.


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## southpaw (Feb 16, 2021)

Wow that's sounds & shows how great and unrestricted things were once upon a time in this country

They probably still teach those practices in grade schools in terrorist countries but the intentions are not for agricultural purposes 

Thanks for sharing that part of our forgotten culture, here is a book I found in one of my out buildings 25 years ago an saved 
It's copy write says 1938 and illustrates how to use explosives and has no reference in any form on how to make explosives


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## southpaw (Feb 16, 2021)

Here are couple old farming magazines that were left in the pile of old paper backs , fun to read them every now and then and lot of great ideas


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## AKTrailDog (Feb 16, 2021)

southpaw said:


> Wow that's sounds & shows how great and unrestricted things were once upon a time in this country
> 
> They probably still teach those practices in grade schools in terrorist countries but the intentions are not for agricultural purposes
> 
> ...


Very cool publication. I collect old stuff like that. Have several old DuPont blasting handbooks from the early 1900's and several publications from Hercules, Austin powder company etc on using dynamite for agricultural uses. It often "blows" my mind, pun intended, of how little people know of how the world was shaped and built with explosives and still is.


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## southpaw (Feb 16, 2021)

AKTrailDog said:


> Very cool publication. I collect old stuff like that. Have several old DuPont blasting handbooks from the early 1900's and several publications from Hercules, Austin powder company etc on using dynamite for agricultural uses. It often "blows" my mind, pun intended, of how little people know of how the world was shaped and built with explosives and still is.


Yes very cool stuff for sure ....... have a DVD on Nuclear detonations ,it has a news reel after WW2 where they were promoting Nuclear power as "The friendly atom" and a project called "Plowshare" which would have reduced mountains into rubble for ease in highway construction saving on construction costs , lucky that project never came into practice and hopefully never will


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## olyman (Feb 24, 2021)

southpaw said:


> Yes very cool stuff for sure ....... have a DVD on Nuclear detonations ,it has a news reel after WW2 where they were promoting Nuclear power as "The friendly atom" and a project called "Plowshare" which would have reduced mountains into rubble for ease in highway construction saving on construction costs , lucky that project never came into practice and hopefully never will


you talked of "old" dynamite...….the problem with that is,,if its leaking liquid, thats nitro. bad news,,,,


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## Thumper88 (Feb 24, 2021)

My dad shot for the county road department several times. I’ve seen dynamite that had set in an out building for to long and it was bleeding nitro. You definitely wanna be easy handling it. They piled it up and burned it in place.


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## Backyard Lumberjack (May 25, 2021)

southpaw said:


> Wow that's sounds & shows how great and unrestricted things were once upon a time in this country
> 
> They probably still teach those practices in grade schools in terrorist countries but the intentions are not for agricultural purposes
> 
> ...


i was just thinking that....

have fooled around with some 'go bang!' stuff... learned my lesson early on! a big BANG! unexpected, unprotected... no damage. i slipped thru its fingers! could have been bad! real bad! i took the warning, and din't mess around like that again!! 8th grade. always liked an M80, though! got a small roll of fuse. NIB. in 5th grade, a kid was messing around with fireworks, making etc... it all went BOOM! and away went half his hand, too! eventually, he returned to school... bad deal! split second mistake....


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## Backyard Lumberjack (May 25, 2021)

Thumper88 said:


> My dad shot for the county road department several times. I’ve seen dynamite that had set in an out building for to long and it was bleeding nitro. You definitely wanna be easy handling it. They piled it up and burned it in place.


'bleeding nitro!' yikes, that stuff can be unstable...

my Dad, among other things, was a 'world class gunsmith!'... had a double barrel rifle collection. one was a .577 Nitro Express. showed me the 'powder' one day. brownish looking spaghetti like. 'nitro' Dad, said... the cartridges were machines out of solid brass... i never shot it. but did the 450's.... 

.577 double barrel rifle, Nitro Express.


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## esshup (Jul 12, 2021)

I believe the brown looking spaghetti was cordite.


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## Marco (Jul 28, 2021)

Stuff like cordite in the 303 I guess they'd charge it while the case was still straight then size it down.


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## Abbeville TSI (Jul 28, 2021)

Marco said:


> Stuff like cordite in the 303 I guess they'd charge it while the case was still straight then size it down.


Exactly!


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