Yes. Anvils. Small ones, 95 pounders. Shooting. Into the air. About 30 feet or so.

The two gentlemen who were showing off explained that they were reviving an old tradition: back in the gold rush days, miners would test their powder by shooting anvils. It evolved into something of a competition. Maybe that was true, or perhaps the miners just needed to burn off some excess testosterone. Either way, here's what the revivalists did...

The base anvil is placed on the ground, bottom-up. The one used here has been prepared by milling a hole in the bottom about the size of a frozen orange juice can and lining it with a sleeve of high strength steel. Some anvils don't need this, having a natural cavity in the base.

The cavity is packed with half a pound of FFA black powder.

A length of cannon fuse is inserted.

The powder is covered with several playing cards. This acts as a gasket to help the pressure build up. It also serves as a cushion so that the other anvil is not set right down onto black powder. The gentleman doing the shooting said that he tried plumber's putty once. It was a disaster, with gobs of putty spattered at high speed in every direction.

The "shooter" anvil is then placed on top of the base. This fellow likes to put the shooter on top of the base at a right angle. The whole setup may need a little adjustment to make sure that it is aimed in a safe direction. You don't want the anvil to go straight up and straight back down on top of the base anvil. Neither do you want the shooter to fly off towards the crowd.

The fuse is lit. "Fire in the hole!" The pyro casually saunters away.

There is the most amazing concussion, a huge cloud of white smoke, and the shooter anvil flies into the air.

Here's another anvil flight. The videos are better, showing the shooter anvil gently tumbling end over end above the white cloud.

Down she comes!

Leaving nothing but a big cloud of smoke...

...and some burnt playing cards.

Watching an anvil casually spinning end over end above a big cloud of white smoke sure is something. Another thing was the blast. The exploding black powder is initially confined between two solid objects, the lower immovable anvil, and the shooter which is willing to move only if you push it very hard. A significant amount of energy is radiated as a disc-shaped blast wave emitted from the area between the anvils. This blast has to been felt to be appreciated. It feels like a giant gorilla decided to play frisbee with a truck tire and hit you in the stomach. It is also quite loud.

After a couple of shots, the revivalists ran out of powder. A bystander, already hooked on the sight and the blast, offered to buy them some more. In a couple of minutes he was back from the class-C vending area with a pound of powder. Two shots later, the revivalists ran out and prepared to leave, and somebody else bought them powder. This could easily have gone on all day, as the Anvil Firing revivalists were quite content to keep on blasting as long there was powder around!

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