Talk:British firework classification

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An article on 'magazine' in the arsenal rather than publishing context would be useful. If anyone has the requisite knowledge please add it. 84.69.120.56 11:11, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

The categorisation here is generally unhelpful to the amateur. It seems to be based on the mass of explosives, rather than the maximum range of the firework. For example, a very small single-shot roman candle would be in category 2, but could shoot a single fireball up to 20 m if it fell over at 45 degrees. On the other hand, a large fountain of cat 3 type may only have a range of a few metres, even in the worst case. Thus while cat 2 fireworks are always smaller than cat 3, the actual "safe-distance" is almost completely uncorrelated to the category! Most garden fireworks are labelled with the effect (usually "ejects stars" for a roman candle, or "emits showers of sparks" for a fountain), and with a distance recommendation based on the category ("retire at least 5m" for a cat 2, or "retire at least 25 m" for a cat 3). In my experience, the distance recommendation is bad advice: it is sometimes too close for comfort, and sometimes far too far, giving a false sense of security. It's also too granular (there's no 15 m range). Experience and common sense are usually a better guide than the instructions; in particular, small roman candles are potentially much more dangerous than they look, whereas large fountains are usually less dangerous than the instructions say. [BTW, I'm a physicist, with quite a lot of experience of garden fireworks, but I'm not a professional pyrotechnician.] RichardNeill (talk) 06:17, 5 May 2008 (UTC)