[pengaru]

Made something similar without a book...

The best was breach loading a racket ball that wouldn't quite fit into the barrel, but would get stuck enough to not fall away when presented forcefully from the larger combustion chamber side.

They flew way farther than potatoes, and exited the barrel with deformations in their ball shape from not quite fitting, making the flight path all sorts of erratic for the first hundred feet or so.

We used to take it to a nearby park and get kids to catch and return fly balls by shooting ~vertically for them. You couldn't even see the ball for a good chunk of the flight, good times. Prolly get arrested for such a thing today.

[plastiquebeech]

Prolly depends more on where you are than when you are.

In a rural area, you're still looking at a pat on the back instead of handcuffs, in the unlikely event that an authority figure notices.

In a suburban area, you get cops asking if you could please stop detonating vegetables near your nosy neighbor's property.

In a dense city, you might be lucky if you can avoid being shot to death after the first few explosions.