About that demo...

Just a quick note here-

We accidentally sent a shaped charge skipping the other day in similar fashion to what I had described. Seriously... we didn't mean to. We had set up two shots of three shaped charges each, and one of the six charges misfired. Normally, a shaped charge is set up on a metal tripod, pointing downwards to punch a hole into the ground that will be filled with another charge for cratering. The standoff from the ground is required in order for the shaped explosion to fully form. When the one shaped charge misfired, the tripod was blasted away by the concussion from the other five charges, and the misfired charge was left lying on the ground. When we cleared the charge, we simply detonated it where it lay on the ground, for safety. The blast sent a plasma ball skipping across a tinder-dry grassy meadow and up a ridgeline into a stand of trees and high brush, leaving a line of small but quickly growing fires in its wake. The base wildfire unit put out the fire on the ridge, and we just waited for the fires on the valley floor to die down before continuing to blast California sky-high.