CW shells are still dangerous....

[Bushrod]

...even after 150 years, the powder inside these shells can still be deadly...I had a friend who dug a 24-pdr shell rigged as a land mine near Spanish Fort, AL years ago...he removed the side plug and dumped the powder on the floor of his garage while I watched...noting "hey-this stuff still looks dry"...he struck a match before I could stop him and tossed it at the powder...in a flash the garage filled with acrid grey smoke and he lost all the hair off his forearms from the powder that had covered them as he dumped the shell contents...I pulled a 10pdr parrot shell out of the James River near Richmond, VA years ago...after sitting in my garage for several days, I noted a yellowish deposit leaching out around the fuse threads...I scraped it off into an ashtray and lit it...with a loud "Poof!" it ignited (sold the shell the next day)...another friend of mine destroyed his wife's oven with a supposedly "empty" parrott shell...it exploded while drying out...he glued all of the pieces together and had the shell on display in his relic shop in Fredericksburg, VA....another acquaintance of mine tried to drill through the side of a case shot with a hand-held drill...unbeknownst to him, the cast iron these things were made of was very poor quality, with hard and soft spots...he hit a hard spot, the drill bit overheated as it penetrated the shell casing and the thing exploded, killing him and destroying his relic shop in Manassas, VA.....another friend was drilling into a parrot shell-the drill bit broke, and when he turned around to get another bit, the shell exploded, hitting him in the leg with shrapnel...black powder from the CW era has a property known as "hydroscopicity"...that is, an affinity for water...as most shell casings are somewhat porous due to poor quality cast iron, water tends to seep inside and cause the powder to form a gooy "paste"...when it dries out, it can still ignite...TRUE STORY:  Two WWI soldiers stationed at Fort Pulaski, GA used two old CW "cannonballs" as andirons for their casemate fire...the things exploded from the heat, killing them...the local newspaper headline read:  "Confederate shell kills two Yankee soldiers 47 years later"...

[Casey]

I think I will bring a digger with me...  any volunteers??

[Boaz]

hey call MR.V HE will do it he like to do thing like that

[Dustin Mills]

Do you know anyone that defuses artillery here local? How much would it cost to have a shell cut in half if I ever found one?

[Casey]

Thinking from a military standpoint...  I video tapped EOD crews going out to old ranges and taking care of old live shells that didn't detonate for one reason or another.  They get pretty unstable after a time, so the EOD techs would just blow them up.  I have heard the same done for old dynamite here locally...someone found some in a old tackle box of grand dads or something...(IT HAPPENS)  Of course, that is a bit different than black powder, but I would guess most experts would just want to dispose of it rather than risk death...  Confirm// Deny??

[RELICUS MAXIMUS]

100 years doesn't make black powder inert, oh no, black powder denatures it becomes even more unstable and dangerous, as in nitro.  So, if you ever dig a shell treak it with kid gloves.  It's probably not dangerous but I'd say there's about a 10% chance it is very dangerous.  I witnessed a "drop" being dug that still had the cotton wadding over the fuse and it was upside down in the hole.  The powder was as fresh as the day it was made in 1864. 

[Knoxtique]

To disarm.......place a drill press in a field ,...stabilize shell .......get a hose with a continuous stream of water at the point of drilling ........get 100 yrds away and shelter  drill slowly  the water will keep down friction heat and sparks .....continue until it drills into powder  or...........blows up!!!!..................

[Bushrod]

....the method that Knoxtique is referring to is called a "Lincoln" Drill bit...and it's a bit more complicated that that...cutting fluid-not water-is used and the entire rig is remote-controlled...EOD units use them from time to time...there is a book out covering radiographic photos of CW shells and how to disarm them...will try to find the name and let ya know, if you're interested...

[HRife]

This was a interesting site.

http://www.inert-ord.net/19cent/fuze/index.html

[Scruch]

That is a very interesting site Harold........ Thx

[Treasurehound]

Great info. I remember hearing about the Confederate shell killing Yankees years after the war. I also remember reading about a man who was killed a couple years ago when he was placing his finds on his driveway and one exploded. And I think we all remember the little girl that found the shell in the creek by the Farragut Library a couple years ago and the father took it to the police and they detonated it. Thanks for the reminder that we all need to be careful if we find a shell.

[Knoxtique]

I used this method with wildman of Kennesaw Ga. and we used water and it works,...but it is still dangerous

[4-H]

This could be the very single most informative and important post of the forum.
Believe this guys.


Great info

[Knoxtique]

thank you for the compliment......