[niteowl77]

When I was a kid, there was a good-sized, coal-fired generating station a few miles from town. Every so often, one of the employees had to open an access door at the bottom of the stack(s) and "knock the soot out." This was done by essentially crouching just outside the door, holding the shotgun sort of at arms length, firing a round up the stack and getting the hell out of the way as quickly as possible.

They utilized a cheap 12 gauge shotgun, and the grownups who had to perform the task did not consider it "fun" after having done it once.

[Robert A Cook PE]

I’ve heard the shots go off while working elsewhere in the plants. Blanks (shock blast only) or do they load a solid fragible clay or salt load above the powder ?

[Still Thinking]

Why did they not make some sort of remote firing fixture?