Consumer Fireworks Festival Ball Artillery Shell Racks: Cautions and Advice

Learn how to use Class C firework artillery shells with Skylighter mortar tubes, also precautions when buying different sized Class C artillery shells.

Materials Needed

• Class C artillery shells
• Mortar Tubes, (HDPE) (Cardboard)

After we offered the new HDPE Class C festival ball artillery shell mortar racks last month, we started getting all sorts of questions and comments about various Class C artillery shell sizes and firework mortar fits.

Will Kissel reports: "I work in a class C retail stand. We have 31 varieties of Artillery shells. These range from 13/16 inch tube or gun bore to 1.875, with 1.5, 1.625, 1.75, 1.8125 inch and in between." He also expressed concern that smaller bore artillery shells used in larger bore firework mortars could produce dangerously low breaks.

Although our tests with smaller bore artillery shells in our firework mortars did not produce any low breaks, it is always possible with other artillery shells. And different makers and batches of artillery shells can have differing amounts of lift charge. So just for the record, our firework mortars actually have a 1.90-inch inner diameter. So this tube should accommodate just about any Chinese Class C artillery shell on the market. But you should test any Class C artillery shells you are going to fire out of them first, just to make sure you get a good, safe burst height.

Will also points out that "using a mortar that is too tall for the fuse length on the artillery shell is a real pain. One B-Cat mortar is 18 inches in height. Our mortars are 14 inches tall, with about 12-3/4 inches of depth. Be sure your fuse is longer than 13 inches.

Will continues: "I mention these things because quite often I have to advise customers at the retail stand, who are buying several Class C artillery shell kits of different mortar sizes, not to mix up the artillery shells and the mortar tubes." I think our firework mortar rack will help to solve that problem. You can mix Class C artillery shells from different makers in these mortars.

"One last caution - if you can't hold your bare hand around the mortar tube at its base, it's too hot to drop a new artillery shell into, wait a minute or two."

To learn more about shooting artillery shells and class C displays read these:

"8 Ways To Make Your July 4th Class C Fireworks Show Better"
"How To Make a 30-Shot Festival Ball Rack"