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We’ve featured stories of gender reveal parties gone horribly wrong in the past. In one of the most memorable incidents, the parents-to-be touched off a wildfire that cost $8 million to put out and resulted in a $100,000 fine for the father.

Now comes word from a New Hampshire quarry where the proud parents figured stacking up 80 pounds of Tannerite would be the perfect way to announce the sex of their gestating offspring to the world.

From the Associated Press . . .

One New Hampshire family’s gender reveal party was definitely a blast.

Kingston police said they received reports of a loud explosion Tuesday that could be heard in several towns and as far away as Massachusetts. They responded to Torromeo quarry where they found people who acknowledged holding a gender reveal party involving explosives and thought this would be the safest spot to hold it.

NBC 10 Boston reports that residents in several neighboring towns could hear the explosion and some though it was an earthquake. Many called 911. Others said the explosion was so strong it rocked their homes.

“We heard this god-awful blast,” Sara Taglieri, who lives in a home that abuts the quarry, told the television station. “It knocked pictures off our walls … I’m all up for silliness and what not, but that was extreme.

Taglieri’s husband, Matt, told the TV station the blast cracked the foundation of neighbors’ homes.

No injuries were reported from the explosion, police said.

The source was 80 pounds of Tannerite, an over-the-counter, explosive target used for firearms practice sold in kit form, police said. The person who purchased and detonated the explosives has turned himself into police. He was not identified.

Police said an investigation is ongoing and they will make a determination on what charges will be forthcoming.

Don’t try that at home, kids. If you have a bun in the oven, maybe send out an email or a group text. No one really cares that much whether you’re having a boy or a girl anyway.

 

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133 COMMENTS

  2. SMH.
    Then I laughed knowing this is something I would have done not too many years ago.

    • Tom, if someone asked me where is the safest place to detonate some Tannerite, a fvcking rock quarry would have been my choice for limiting ‘collateral damage’…

      • No kidding. They even mentioned that.
        I’ve still got a bunch I haven’t played with.

        • “I’ve still got a bunch I haven’t played with”

          Same. I’m not encouraged by having seen the video of the guys who have almost ended themselves blowing up fridges or the guy who did lose a leg blowing up a lawn mower.

          TBH it’s tough to imagine being so narcissistic you think people care *that* much about your future baby’s gender. These people really needed their parents to say no at least once or twice.

      • Ironically, the blast wave travelling through the rock is likely what caused the collateral damage. Rock is a better conductor than dirt, sand, or air.

        • The sheer mass of the rock would have absorbed most of the blast, like a heavy magnum revolver doesn’t hurt to shoot.

          I agree with with the other commenter that any ‘foundation damage’ is probably an attempt at insurance fraud…

  3. It’s either more than 80lbs of tannerite, the house with cracked foundations is right next to the quarry, or someone is after some money. I’ve made some pretty loud booms out here in the country around Fort Knox because I know people around here further than a few miles just assume it’s the military.

    • I think it’s safe to assume the foundation was already failing and somebody wants somebody else to pay for his foundation troubles.

      • “Taglieri’s husband, Matt, told the TV station the blast cracked the foundation of neighbors’ homes.”

        Did he survey the homes? How did he do it so quickly? Is he a construction professional?

        Or was he just talking out his ass?

  4. There’s a You Tube video some place of someone who used many pounds of Tannerite to knock down a barn. Which they did, but instead of just collapsing it, the literally blew it to smithereens. People do a lot of stupid stuff with Tannerite, figuring, I assume, that sine you can buy it over the counter it isn’t dangerous.

        • That clip was a lot like FPS Russia’s truck door flying past him clip.

          The look in Kyle’s eyes after he saw that was *priceless*. He knew how close he came to being hamburger… 🙁

      • Nope….. People keep pulling dumb stunts with this stuff and it will get regulated like dynamite.

        • Imagine what a terrorist could do With 80lbs to of the stuff. More than annoy the neighbors.

      • Tannerite is not dangerous per-se. It is only problematic when people are stupid and:
        1) set-off too much at once (as in this story)
        –or–
        2) put it inside something which sends-out deadly fragments

        Shooting a one-pound canister of the stuff–which is in the open and at least 100 yards from structures and people–will not harm anyone nor damage anything.

        If fedzilla really wants to stick their nose into this and actually do some good, they could define an upper limit on how much we can set-off at one time for recreational purposes.

        • The only “problem” with this stunt was the large quantity of Tannerite used. One single pound, in conjunction with blue/pink paint or powder, would have sufficed. But 80 lbs?…geez

        • “Tannerite is not dangerous per-se. It is only problematic when people are stupid…”

          It’s about as safe as it gets, explosives-wise. It takes a (relatively) *huge* amount of energy to initiate. That orange-brown cloud you see? That’s the same cloud you saw in the Beirut port explosion a few months back, and when hypergolic-fueled rockets launch, like the Russian ones. That’s nitrogen gas being ‘cooked’ into nitrates. You see the same cloud, only darker, immediately after a nuclear detonation happens. The fireball is literally destroying that bit of the atmosphere.

          Search YouTube for ‘The 280 MM Gun At The Nevada Proving Ground’ to see what it looks like…

        • When I played with it (once), it was 1/4 pound at a time, which was supposed to be separated into individual batches of 1 oz or less. It was not my game except to shoot it, the idjits who set this up just mixed the entire amount and told me to shoot it from around 20 yards away, fortunately I was using *their* ATV as a rest and barrier, blew the tree it was in to shit, scattered pieces hither and yon, a big shock when you’re not ready for it. I fault my “friends” for considering this a good “joke”, will never trust them as much again, and object to ANY concept of prohibition or control. This nation is supposed to be about FREEDOM, not safety

      • Im surprised its legal to be honest

        In this fucked up world you CAN be censored, black listed, cancelled, put in jail and even killed for telling the truth…

      • ‘Toxic Masculinity’ is what drives progress. The drive to see something go faster, or blow up better… 😉

        • I’ve been trying to go faster all my life, managing 1.6 Mach in 1978 or so, but have never been dazzled by big explosions. That may be due to experience with 15,000 lb bombs close up and personal in VietNam, with liberal doses of 500-2000 lb bombs on a daily basis for a year. Fast I can dig, big explosions not so much.

        • I’ve been trying to go faster all my life, managing 1.6 Mach in 1976

          Mach 1.6, too fast for an A4 or A6, too slow for an F4?… Damn, I’ve worked hard at it too, but the best my earthbound ass could accomplish was 186 mph on two wheels on a KZ1000 and 208 mph on four in a 67 Mustang California Modified at the old Ontario Motor Speedway… Never had the opportunity to strap into a “fast mover”, but as a grunt on the ground I sure did love it when they showed up at the right time…

  5. The level of intelligence running wild in the world today is about the scariest thing I believe I’ve ever seen… Hell it scares me and I’m not afraid of anything… So what’s next some dumbass gets hold of a mini-nuke?

    • Do you think 100 yards far enough away to shoot at the mini nuke if I put it in a car or a lawn tractor? Asking for a friend…

      • Do you think 100 yards far enough away to shoot at the mini nuke if I put it in a car or a lawn tractor? Asking for a friend…

        Check with the possum on that, personally I would use a remote detonator that I could set off with a burner phone from several miles away and use a drone mounted transmitter for close up video…

      • You should be perfectly safe, and if I’m wrong you’ll never know about it.

        A funny story when I dumped a pallet full of motars loading a truck. I grabbed my ears because I didn’t want to hear them go off.

        • Possum; You would get along well with my friend that I saw hiding behind his oxy/acetelyne rig for safety.
          While blowing up a split rim standing free with no chains or cage.

        • “A funny story when I dumped a pallet full of motars loading a truck. I grabbed my ears because I didn’t want to hear them go off.”

          The Possum saying stuff like that is what makes TTAG so fun to read. I could practically see the look on his face when they fell… 😉

    • Just having the ability to acquire and take possession of a mini nuke is a thing in itself. Much less whatever is done with it. Most people can’t even get a full auto firearm. A mini nuke takes more money than most people have, more effort and intellect to create than most people have, more balls to steal than most people have. Mini nukes are the LAST things I worry about. Unless you want to consider the lack of concern our leaders have for our borders. People that can acquire these things are hell bent lunatics that are well connected and well funded. These are people that never do things alone but often find scapegoats.

      The know-nothing idiots that blindly follow BLM/Antifa and the Democrat party are the greater threats (currently).

      • People that can acquire these things are hell bent lunatics that are well connected and well funded.

        AKA: The know-nothing idiots that blindly follow BLM/Antifa and the Democrat party

    • “So what’s next some dumbass gets hold of a mini-nuke?”

      People who’s business it is to know such things estimate a few Russian ‘backpack’ nukes have gone missing when the old Soviet Union collapsed.

      It’s a good news, bad news kinda thing. The good news is, the Russian demolition nukes are of the ‘Dial-a-Yield’ variety, a ‘boosted’ fission device. They require very specialized maintenance, since it’s Tritium gas that is the yield ‘boost’. Since it’s now been 25+ years since they were last maintained with fresh Tritium, they estimate the best they can do now is maybe a kiloton, more likely a few hundred tons of yield. The bad news is, radioactive contamination is still bad. Set off in a large city, a not-insignificant chunk of the city will be badly contaminated. Even if they do decontaminate it, human psychology means a lot of folks won’t want to ever return.

      Either way, it’s a shit-show for the nuked city…

      • And for whoever decided to do such a thing, meet thermonuclear 20+ megatons, if you punish something, you will get less of it.

  6. Is Dan going FUDD? Not a bland “celebrate responsibly and follow the manufacturer’s instructions when using high explosives,” but a full GET OFF MY LAWN “don’t have any fun and nobody cares about you having crotch goblins anyway.”

    And no story on the quick-acting cop who shot to stop a knife attack, or on how dangerous domestic disputes can be (witness the adult kicking a person on the ground in the head as the cop is shooting a the knife attacker).

    • Cop should have let that one play out, just to see if king Lebron would still have threatened the cops life and called him a racist…

  9. So, what is a reasonable amount of Tannerite to explode for this purpose? I have never messed with it, but what is the recommended amount?

    I would assume that a cherry bomb(which can blow fingers off) is a firework that is powerful enough to hear for a long way – would this be like 10 sticks of dynamite?

      • Negative, one canister is 1/4 lb, and is recommended to be separated into at least 4 targets. But that is for reactive targets, having a goal of visible impact at distance, as opposed to blowing shit up. One pound is a large amount. And that means 1 canister=1 target is 1/360th what these clowns used.

    • rt66paul,

      I have never been on-hand when someone shot a Tannerite target. It seems to me that a one-pound canister would be a respectful/responsible amount to go boom for celebratory or recreational purposes.

      • One pound will kick off a Boom similar to a small mortar (firework). 2-3lbs will make a noticeable concussive blast you can feel even from a safe distance. 80lbs would be epic! Lol!

        • One pound will blow a car to shit. That is not a “celebratory” amount. You’re talking about one canister, which is 1/4 pound, vs 1/2-3/4 pound, not 1 lb vs 2-3 lb.

    • I think a reasonable amount is an amount that doesn’t make your neighbors complain to the police and ruin your good time. When people complain because you’re shaking their homes, ruining the peace and quiet, cracking foundations, etc. someone is going to come and stop you with a noise ordinance at minimum. You have only yourself to blame at that point, and you’re ruining good fun for others too. Be good neighbor!

    • Yes, now Tannerite is going to be on somebody like David Chipman’s radar because of some idiots.

      I’ve used Tannerite to blow up a few pumpkins and have some range fun. Safe and a good time if you have some functioning gray matter between your ears.

  10. I view gender reveal parties as a logical outcome of the “Look at Me – I’m Special” mentality. These are the (mostly recent) generations of people who live minute-to-minute regaling their “followers” with their every thought and action on their media feeds…and all of them are striving for the most “Views”, “Likes”, “Friends” or “Shares”.

    • Friends” or “Shares”.

      Friends AND Shares… They want ALL that… Really how fucked up does a persons life have to be to make them want to “follow” some other twits every move throughout the day?

        • Some fool who plays a child’s game, therefore is blessed with the wisdom of a 6-year-old?

          Why do intelligent people pay *any* attention to people so stupid that they support Democrats?

    • “…regaling their “followers” with their every thought…”

      None of which are either original or worth sharing.

    • I’ve seen videos of people setting their cars on fire with gender reveal burnouts. Poetic justice karma in a way.

  11. I say BS. 80 pounds of tannerite is not going to crack a foundation that is not directly next to it. So a bunch of Karen’s called the police and one idiot thinks they can use this to get money for their screwed up foundation.

    There are mines adjacent to towns using literal tons of real explosives that don’t crack foundations. I had a coworker once whose previous job was just inspecting nearby homes prior to explosions to stop the BS claims.

    • Same here. Not buying it for a second, and I have an FEL.

      As far as tannerite, I’ve seen 2 pallets of it blown up at once for a gender reveal. A respectable boom, but far from cracking concrete foundations, and that was several hundred pounds.

  12. Some infants never grow up, but yet manage to procreate anyway. Next, BATFE closes down Tannerite, declares anyone owning it manufacturing explosives without a license, and a felon. Thanks Moron.

  13. Aww there’s no video? What a rip off. I remember watching one highly intelligent individual blow up an old refrigerator using tannerite. The resulting explosion almost took him out when the door blew off in his direction.

      • FPS Russia video’d himself blowing up a Ford Ranger with Tannerite, and a large chunk of truck door passed a few feet in front of him.

        Had it hit him, dismemberment would have been the most optimistic outcome for him…

      • The crazy part in the video of the dude shooting the lawn mower is that his AR15 jammed seconds before he hit his target (and he also kept on missing, hitting everything but his target). I think it was the good lord trying to tell him “are you really certain you want to proceed with this stupid idea?” oh well…

    • Geez all we hoped for was a healthy kid. I got 4 sons from 2 very different women. Seriously retarded chit!

      • No shit. My “gender reveals” were on the mornings our sons were born, and that worked fine, I don’t recall anyone mentioning they were disappointed. But I betcha that between the costs of determining gender before birth and the fancy parties to “reveal” it, there are many billions of $$ spent every year, and what does it change?

  15. 32 years ago, my next younger brother did a gender reveal for my not-yet-born nephew….. an eight foot tall snow penis…. then asked if I thought he needed to dye it blue… Still wonders why his wife is nicknamed Saint Cindy.

  16. I’m calling BS on the cracked foundation. Any blast that could crack a foundation wall would have blown out all the windows and probably done other damage as well. I’m guessing neighbors got to talking about the blast everybody heard, and somebody figured this was a great opportunity to get some expensive home repairs paid for.

    But still, pan metron ariston, people.

    • the ground transmits the shockwave differently then the air.
      if that house was close to a rock quarry I’d say the foundation was damaged before the tannerite blast.

  17. The real offense here is daring to presume their child’s gender. That and assuming it’s even human, since the ‘science’ says it’s just a clump of cells. Basically a tumor.

    • Ar a point in the pregnancy the gender can be determined in the ultrasound. It’s how I knew I had a son on the way.

      • You can actually train them. I had a nest of paper wasp above my door, they never bothered me but would swarm other people. I started it when they were first building the nest. When people knocked on the door it jarred the nest and pissed them off. I got them used to me by holding a slice of apple they would feed on. I’d put my face close and gently blow on them. I figured they’d get used to my scent and face. It worked.

      • So they have chosen death by lightsabers and laser weapons then, lol. I hope I live to see it. Ban on high capacity batteries? Or will they be star wars self sustainable and never run out of “ammo” and never need recharged?

        • Batteries? There’s some fun, I’ve read recently that it’s theoretically possible to recharge a Tesla-type battery in 2 minutes, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Caused me to think, hey, the amount of electrical power to move a 2-ton car with 4 occupants 300 miles at 100 mph, wouldn’t that also be able to electrocute a man and then cremate him within the same 2 minutes, delivering a nice little pile of ashes if you do not pay your bill? Are we sure we don’t just want gas stations?

  20. Yea bullshit. Just some lefty media fucks trying to push how dangerous tannerite is cuz “boogaloo” and the government can’t have their billion dollar convoys hit by simple over the counter shit.

    I say the more people know how to make explosives the better.

  21. Tannerite is normally just a harmless, amusing noise maker when employed properly in the factory container. However; people get into trouble when they get creative about confining the low grade explosive inside automobile bodies, refrigerators or steel pipes. Unlike propellant s, the detonation velocity of explosives increases more than linearly with pressure. Stronger confinement means more pressure. More pressure equals higher detonation velocity. Higher detonation velocity equals more rapid production of explosive gases equals even higher detonation velocity equals more rapid production of explosive gases equals… .

    Similar considerations apply to nuclear explosives.

    • “production of explosive gases”

      Nuclear weapons do not produce “explosive gases”.

      • Actually, nuclear weapons do produce gasses, mostly ionized, as well as solid chunks of bomb casing that fly a long, long distance.

        • solid chunks of bomb casing that fly a long, long distance.

          Wouldn’t the bomb casing be EVAPORATED in the heat from the blast… Asking for a friend…

        • The bomb case of an exploded nuke is converted into an ionized plasma that becomes part of the ‘fireball’ of the detonation.

          You can do really ugly things in the areas immediately surrounding the ‘device’, like packing cobalt metal around it. The neutron impulse of the detonation converts it into cobalt-60, a very nasty radioactive gamma-emitter contaminate with a half-life of about 5 years…

  23. Here you go :
    Too much Tannerite used, too close and…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS9USKP0f2o

    I’ve been to many tannerite shows. ALL you have to do is read the instructions and you will be safe.

    This gender reveal group are the same folks who strike a match to see if the gasoline can is really empty.

      • “He’s a manager at IHOP now.”

        *Snicker*… 😉

    • “This gender reveal group are the same folks who strike a match to see if the gasoline can is really empty.”

      Or use a lit candle to look for your sock under the bed…

  24. That’s great but are they having a boy or girl? When I was a kid my grandmas house would shake whenever the PA National Guard would fire their artillery at Ft Indiantown Gap which was miles away. The plaster would even come off the lath walls sometimes.

  26. Why bother with reveal parties since CNN said it’s impossible to determine the sex of newborn baby.

    When have you ever known CNN to be wrong?

  27. When I was a 12 years old, my brother and I started to make our own gunpowder out of sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal. We could actually buy these ingredients at our local drugstore. We would pack it into model rockets (the old Estes models) and fire it off for our own fireworks. Today, we would probably be jailed by the ATF.

    I bought tannerite on one occasion. Set it up at fifty yards and shot at it multiple times. Not a damn thing happened. Haven’t bought it since.

    • You might have missed! OTOH, were you firing supersonic ammo? And finally, of course, did you read the damn instructions?

  29. EIGHTY POUNDS! 😂😂😂😂
    There is nothing more American than that! 😂
    Say it again! EIGHTY POUNDS!

    (Now I’m certain that some lily-livered liberal is already writing a law that will ban Tannerite and fun and enjoyment and silliness). Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch “Stop that, that’s SILLY!”

    • It has been banned in California, blamed for a number of forest fires, no matter what Tannerite says about its inability to start fires. (Started a big grass fire in Utah too.)

      • Well…all you needed to say was “California”. They are their own worst enemy when it comes to fires, they let the nature nuts set policy and have no idea about forestry anymore. Sad state of affairs.

  30. Any thoughts I might have once entertained about playing with Tannerite ended when I watched some fool on YouTube nearly taken out by a refrigerator door that was launched 75-100 yds at considerable velocity directly back at the shooter. 80 lbs? Pure dumb@$$ luck no one was taken out by the blast wave or shrapnel. A Tannerite ban won’t affect me.

    • Well, there are the idiots that natural selection SHOULD take out…the YouTube refrigerator idiot just got lucky.
      As for Tannerite, it has some interesting uses when it comes to wild hog eradication. Think “poor man’s” M18 Claymore Mine. 😎
      I’ve set off MANY of them & the Tannerite with ball bearings is a pretty good equal.

    • I saw that one. It left me rolling on the floor laughing my ass off. The refrigerator almost got him.

      This is a perfect illustration of my point about robust containment boosting detonation velocity and pressure.

      Next thing you know they will exploit incidents such as this from banning private citizens from manufacturing and possessing their own nuclear explosives.

  31. Mary and Joseph did not need a gender reveal party. Who started this fad? And in what universe does a party need explosives? Chips and Pretzels not good enough?

    • It becomes obvious at the moment of birth. Problems after that are probably due to parents who are defective to the point of criminality. I am expecting, before I die, to discover I can identify as a minority. If I can, at 75 years old, discover I identify as a woman and be considered seriously, why can’t I realize I identify as black, and claim all the bennies of that status? And, of course, if you say I cannot, then you are clearly a RACIST!

  33. Idiots, once again, are going to fuck it up for everyone else.

    • Of course they are! Where do you expect the next generation’s idiots to come from?

  35. A gender reveal party is one of the lamest things I have every heard of. What makes people think anyone gives a shit what gender their spawn are?

    • It provides a chance for morons to one-up each other with potentially Darwin-level results… 🙂

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