All right, here's one for you guys. First of all, let me say that I present this for your amusement only, do not recommend anybody try it, and disclaim all liability for damage or injury if they do. I'll refer to it as "campfire fun with the beer can mortar".
- Required materials are a piece of cast iron/steel water pipe of a diameter that a beer can will fit into snugly, and slightly (an inch or so) longer than a 16 oz. beer can. That and a piece of 1/4" thickness steel plate to which the pipe is welded to form a base.
- Build a hot fire out of good hardwood that'll make lots of nice coals and place the mortar in the bed of coals, heaping even more coals up around it.
- Drop an unopened beer upside down into the mortar tube and then make sure and back everybody off to a safe distance. As the beer heats, the can will swell forming a tight seal to the mortar tube until overpressure reaches critical mass and WHOOMPH!
- Depending on trajectory angle, etc., ranges out to around 100 meters can be obtained. You would think the beer can would empty itself out during the "cooking off" process, or in flight, but that's not the case. It will retain enough of it's contents that the "projectile" will still have a fair amount of mass to it (read that DO NOT launch scalding beers into crowds of people
)
Someday, some idiot (maybe me) will endeavor to build a multiple tube launcher capable of "battery fire". Oh the horror, the horror
Sarge
