Glowing fragments of the pipe bombs

I don't believe I've ever seen this talked about before, so I thought that I may as well share this conclusion I came to. Everyone has seen the pipe bombs exploding on the CCTV footage, and as a reference, I've attached a frame of the most visible one. In it, you can still see these glowing fragments that fly away from blast site. These fragments are the basis of why I'm posting this. I always used to think that they were hot metal fragments; after all, that's how they were depicted in Zero Hour. But, I came to the conclusion that these are not metal fragments, but rather, pyrotechnic stars.
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I'll explain my reasoning here: To start, the mere existence of these fragments is unique to these bombs, and white-hot metal is never seen in any bomb (if the metal is thin enough, it can get hot enough to burn and glow as it shoots away, though, but that's not what's seen here). As well as that, the behavior of the fragments is unlike what one would expect from bomb shrapnel: they're slow and fly in an arc, don't travel that far, and stay glowing for a decently-long time. Finally, the main material used in making the pipe bombs was sourced from fireworks that contain a lot of these stars, and I don't think that separating these out was much of a priority. Also worth noting is that the crickets that are thrown do not have these fragments, and you can see a distinct lack of them with the bomb thrown near Mr. Kritzer at 11:27 (this bomb still does detonate, though, and it causes the camera to shake from a fair amount of distance).

I could get way further into the topic about their bombs overall in another post, but I don't want to violate the rules about bomb-making, so I'll just leave it at that. Let me know your thoughts!

They weren't the most competent bomb-makers. Most of the crime scene photos depicting the pipe bombs shows that they only partially detonated, and all of the explosion came out of one pipe end, possibly due to low-quality powder being used to construct them. I believe those sparks would just be the intense heat from the gunpowder (or flash powder) being expelled out of the pipe.

Low quality black powder and leftover pyrotechnics guessing from bottle rockets. Black powder is also hygroscopic that's also a factor.

Mr Bubbless wrote:

They weren't the most competent bomb-makers. Most of the crime scene photos depicting the pipe bombs shows that they only partially detonated, and all of the explosion came out of one pipe end, possibly due to low-quality powder being used to construct them. I believe those sparks would just be the intense heat from the gunpowder (or flash powder) being expelled out of the pipe.

They definitely weren't. I'm still trying to understand how they thought some of their bombs would actually work! Some of the crime scene photos are misleading from my understanding, and the reason only one end is open is because of the way the EOD disarmed the bombs; they used a PAN disruptor to pierce a hole in an end cap, and you can see the cap still attached in the majority of them.

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For others, they seemed to have removed the cap altogether:
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Generally, black powder wouldn't separate and glow like that, even low quality black powder, because it would burn significantly faster as it's dispersed. Stars, however, burn slower and brightly.

Koltin wrote:

Low quality black powder and leftover pyrotechnics guessing from bottle rockets. Black powder is also hygroscopic that's also a factor.

I agree. They got it from fountains according to Eric's bomb-making document, which have powdered black powder. This doesn't burn nearly as fast as the black powder pellets one would find in lift charges, which explains the lackluster performance. Plus the black powder being hygroscopic, like you said, which would make it burn even slower.

Sarin Gas Attack wrote:

They definitely weren't. I'm still trying to understand how they thought some of their bombs would actually work!

Dylan got the moniker "voDKa" because it was his drink of choice while constructing bombs.

Mr Bubbless wrote:

Dylan got the moniker "voDKa" because it was his drink of choice while constructing bombs.

I didn't know that, but it definitely shows in their construction. I'm honestly surprised they managed to get any of them to fully explode.

Sarin Gas Attack wrote:

Mr Bubbless wrote:

Dylan got the moniker "voDKa" because it was his drink of choice while constructing bombs.

I didn't know that, but it definitely shows in their construction. I'm honestly surprised they managed to get any of them to fully explode.

It was sarcastic, but it isn't far from the truth...

Mr Bubbless wrote:

Sarin Gas Attack wrote:

Mr Bubbless wrote:

Dylan got the moniker "voDKa" because it was his drink of choice while constructing bombs.

I didn't know that, but it definitely shows in their construction. I'm honestly surprised they managed to get any of them to fully explode.

It was sarcastic, but it isn't far from the truth...

Ah, curse me and my obliviousness.

Mr Bubbless wrote:

Sarin Gas Attack wrote:

They definitely weren't. I'm still trying to understand how they thought some of their bombs would actually work!

Dylan got the moniker "voDKa" because it was his drink of choice while constructing bombs.

He actually had it as VoDkA. 

Sorry but I had to.

Yea, made from fireworks. They were prettier than deadly.