01/03/2025
About Me? Well… I’m “B”, Brian McGuire, and at a very young age I was exposed to Model Rocketry as my Dad was the 4-H Club Leader for now over 50 years. I was fascinated at the speed and sound of the Model Rockets launching off the pad after a T-Minus 5 countdown. Then running through the fields to recover said rocket and hopefully launch it back into the sky. Then came the day when I got off the school bus in our town, and a great guy, “Coonman”, who, whenever he saw me, would talk and chat like we were related, but don’t think we were said, “Hey, come here a minute, put your hands out.” His HUGE hand holding something I couldn’t see at all, but then dropped a pile of M-80’s (Hopefully before they were illegal) and said, “Be careful and don’t blow yourself up”. With that he smiled and got in his vehicle and drove away, and I walked home grinning from ear to ear! I lit them off within a few days, either by the creek, or just in the woods thinking to myself “This is GREAT!” From then on, I was “Hooked” and “Addicted” to the smell of Sulfur and the sound and percussion of the break. When I ran out of M-80’s, I went back to firecrackers and smaller snap bangs of any kind I could get my hands on. I do remember one time my Dad and I made a few homemade bottle rockets out of an old arrow from the Bow Hunter Festival, a Model Rocket Engine, and an M-80. THAT was pretty impressive too! Then came the day when a neighbor and friend of the family asked me to clean out his old shed. I made a few bucks and got fed pretty damn good (He could cook), but the cream of the crop was a 3 foot tall can of Blasting Powder and a full box of “Squibbs”. The Squibbs I would put in an aluminum antenna pipe and shoot them as small rockets, they were pretty cool, but with no report. The Blasting Powder on the other hand…. Oh Boy…. For those who don’t know, the Blasting Powder I just found at the end of my Explosive Rainbow was composed of 6 paper wrapped tubes of 1/4″ crystals for lack of a better term. Myself and a Little Brother to me would have some great times with this can of Black Gold. We started by just lighting small piles of it and watching the smoke rise while enjoying the smell afterwords. Wait, WHAT? Your Grandfather has a can of Blasting Powder in his attic he wants us to get rid of for him? I’m In! So now we have another can of this wonderful substance to play with. Back to lighting small, medium, big, bigger piles until we finished the first can off. With the second can ready to go, we had to come up with a better use for the stuff. Aluminum pipes with a 2″ inside diameter should work right? They DID! We filled the first one to the brim, sealed the ends on and.. wait for it… stuck an Ohio Bluetip Match in the opening of the tube to use a fuse! Hey, I was a LOT younger and didn’t have time to be bothered with visco fuse. We would light the match with another match and run like Hell to hide behind a nearby tree. The first couple went off with a HUGE Explosion and dirt flying all over the place. We would look at each other and laugh, and go make another one. Then came the one that didn’t go as good as the first ones. We lit the match on a 16″ long tube (the largest one so far) and ran for cover, getting no explosion, I started walking toward the tube while keeping a large tree between me and the device. I got to the tree, about 4′ from the tube, peeked around, looked back at my Friend with a shrug of my shoulders when it went off! I remember going back to My Buddies house and laying on the floor behind their couch with a massive headache and a ringing in my ears, but I could still hear his Grandfather yelling at His Mom, Him, And Me as he heard and felt the last one at his house about a mile away. Ahhhhh Memories that we can laugh about now. I dabbled with fireworks from then on trying to build whatever I could to get a Bang out the powder I would take out of shotgun shells or bullets just to get the smell and the noise. A now great Friend of mine nearby would do a Fireworks Show every year, and we would pack in the suburban and go watch it for almost an hour. I didn’t know it then, but this Man would teach me a sh*tload of skills that I now have under my belt over the next 20+ years of Friendship. I remember the first time I walked into his warehouse with $500.00… I was a kid in a candy store!! And he knew it! He said, “What are you looking for?” I told him the biggest loudest I could get! He told me to grab a cart and follow him. As we walked the aisles of Firework Heaven (to me anyway), he asked me my budget. I said $500.00.. He starts piling cake after cake after cake into the cart as I follow along. I try to keep track of the prices as we go, but he is moving way too quick. We get to the register, and after scanning all the items, he says $625.00. As I look defeated with a budget of $500.00, he says, “hang on, I forgot your discount.” This was my first time in the store. How did I get a discount already?? He looks back and says “$500.00 even, How’d I Do?” I smiled and paid him promptly, then threw all my goodies in my truck and drove home. He knew what he was doing when he treated me right the very first time he met me, because I hate to think how much I spent at his warehouse over the past 20+ years. But with every time I would go see him, my budget grew bigger. I needed to “out do” the last show, and to do that, the budget needs to grow as well. I use to reload canister shells, Excalibur, Golliath, etc. as I did not have all the tubes I currently have in my arsenal. I would reload, until one Labor Day Party at one of my Best Friends House when I was hand lighting with a road flare, and reloading from a wooden military box with my extra shells stored inside. I went to grab a shell as some cakes were going off, when I noticed a bunch of fuses burning in the box. I looked again to confirm my suspicion… S**T!! I took off running with the flare still in my hand to safety, as approximately 30 canister shells detonated at once. The crowd thought it was a great finale as I secretly crapped my shorts. My one Friend yelled out “You ok B?” I said “yup” and collected my thoughts before finishing whatever cakes were left to shoot. So from then on, I purchased Fiberglass tubes and built my own racks so there was no more reloading at all. I kept doing shows for Friends parties, or just lighting them off in my back yard to see the different effects and smell the smell. (Some neighbors were not too impressed with the time frame of some of these nights.) That level of my addiction carried on until I saw Dave on youtube saying he could send me a kit to get me ATF License to light the BIG Stuff. Hell Yea!! So I ordered the kit, followed the instructions, and in a few months obtained my ATF Hobbyist License in 2017. Now we go Big or Go Home! Just ask my Mom watching my bonfires over the years, Yelling form our house over the bank at me “Brian, Don’t you think that fire is big enough?” Go back inside Mom, it’s fine! Flames rising 30′ to 40′ in the air! LOL Yes, I use to light them with a gallon of Gas (back when Gas burned… lol) So we could watch the huge Fireball rise into the night sky. Since then, I have been studying and learning from either Classes, Conventions, Open Shoots, Internet, wherever I can get more knowledge. For 3 years now I have been lighting Professional Shows for again Friends, Family, and just to practice creating a show. I LOVED hand firing these shows! The feel and excitement of being by the gun when the lift charge goes off is indescribable! I looked into Remote Firing Systems for a little while, but never pulled the trigger, until my Girlfriend was upset with me one day because she never knows what to get me for either my Birthday, or Christmas, whatever. “I never know what to get you, cause when you want something, you just go buy it!” So I mentioned I was looking into a Cobra System to get away from hand lighting. She said “That would be safer right?” Yup. “Which one do you want, I’ll get it for you”. And so she got me 3x 18M’s with the 18R2 remote. I didn’t use it too much the first year as I couldn’t break away from the flare in my hand. but I started trying new things and seeing what the system actually would do was amazing. So last year 2019 at the NFA Convention, I stopped at the Cobra booth and took some of their classes, and ended up ordering the 72M, another 18M, the Audiobox, some slats, cables, dongle etc. GREAT company to deal with, my order actually beat me to my house! My Girlfriend got home and had to bring in my new Cobra Gear from the porch. We chatted that night, State’s apart, and joked about my purchase. So where does that leave me now? Well, I always wanted to “Retire” doing something with Fireworks. That came quicker than I thought when my skills were no longer needed at a company I spent almost a decade at. They say things happen for a reason, I agree! I am on track to be an Importer, Retailer, Consumer of 1.3 & 1.4 Fireworks very soon! I apologize for the Long Read, but I like to be upfront and honest about who, and why I am doing what I Love. I look forward to creating a stunning partnership with all of my customers in the future! SAFETY, Customer Service, Quality Products, and Prompt Professional Attention is what you deserve, and it is exactly what you will receive! Keep checking back often please.
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