Long before I enlisted, I showed my first husband the wonders of magnesium, compression, and adequate heat. Probably not my best idea (neither was accepting his proposal, but I digress). One morning, he and his best friend had an idea, and they spent the morning scraping the magnesium off of nearly two gross sparklers. After crushing it down with mortar and pestle, they put it in a PVC pipe. It was pretty short (less than 4"), but they still couldn't fill it up. Ever the dutiful spouse, I secured some cotton wadding, and lent my assistance in finishing the product, so that they wouldn't blow themselves up in the process.
After it was done, all three of us jumped on one four-wheeler and rode down to a nearby dirt pit. There were lots of people there, riding dirt bikes and four-wheelers and just hanging out. We went to the far side away from the group, dug a little hole, lit the fuze, and hunkered down.
I guess there was a temperature inversion, because holy shit did that little guy bark!!! Scared the folks on the far side of the pit, and about deafened the three of us idiots. We jumped on the ATV and were hauling ass back to dude's house when we passed a sherrif's deputy headed toward the pit. He didn't turn to come after us, but we damned sure went faster and laid low for a while once we got there, just in case.