Kaboom - Redneck style!

Heh.... Quite a few years ago I worked for one if the larger chemical companies. Each year we would have several thousand compressed gas cylinders pass through and occasionally a few would get lost track of and go derelict in some corner of the facility. When found, the derelict tanks would be transported to a secure, remote area at the site's waste treatment and disposal operations. A few times year, the cylinders would be shot with a hunting caliber rifle

First, a derelict cylinder would have the contents unknown because the labeling was gone or the valve was corroded or damaged such that the cylinder could not be safely be emptied. Typical contents would be lab gasses with some inert such as nitrogen and argon and others oxidizers such as oxygen, some explosive such as hydrogen and acetylene and some poisonous such as carbon dioxide. Also never knew with certainty if a cylinder was full or empty.

The cylinders were shot from about 150 yards away. Most would be non-dramatically turned into a cylinder with a hole in it. Acetylene and hydrogen tanks would have some flame, maybe explode and sometimes go rocketing along the ground or spinning in a circle. You absolutely do not want to be anywhere near any cylinder or tank shooting at it. Dangerous plinking.

Absolutely!

I don’t know if you have ever seen this video, but it is a fire at a propane storage facility next to a highway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n85R3OXK3bs

Heh, nobody closed the highway down, and if you go to the 5:40 mark and begin watching, you can see the flaming canisters landing on and around the highway, almost as if there was someone saying “Up 50...down 10...Straddle! Fire for effect!”

“I have shot little propane bottles before with .44 mag and they did not light”

Here’s a piece of trivia.

Your car’s gasoline tank has gas on the bottom and air on top. The top part is a mixture of gas and air. That mixture will not ignite. A hydrocarbon-air mixture has a range within which it will ignite. Less than some percent or greater than some percent and it won’t ignite.

In your tank the mixture is out of the ‘ignitable’ range.

My Dad walked into a gas station across from his business in the 1970’s and was going to talk to the owner about working on his vehicle and he was out. One of the guys working for him had a car on the wrack and was working on the gas tank, it had a hole in it. My Dad says what are doing? Oh it has a hole in it so I’m going to weld it and patch it. What my Dad says? Oh I drained it here is no danger.

My Dad beat a hasty retreat thinking I hope to God there are no gas vapor left in that tank. He kept an eye across the street for a while and there was no kaboom. He later told the owner what happened and the guy who was doing it wasn’t there long. Never underestimate the ability of stupidity to rear it’s head, anywhere, anytime.

Well, they’ll get PETA and the EPA on their asses now for scaring those horses off, and for polluting the water(s) both for the horses to drink, the other wildlife that lives in it, as well as just in general.

Cool video though.

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