An unfortunate example of how long black powder can stay viable and dangerous

[Jamie C.]

140-year-old Cannonball Kills Collector




J.C.

[StrawHat]

When I lived in Maryland it seemed like every month someone would discover that grandad's musket was still loaded. Some found out by using a ramrod others by pulling the trigger.

Black powder stays viable forever. Or so it seems.

[Dksimon]

sad story. Amazing that it stays good for that long...

[scrat]

it never goes bad. i have read too many stores just like this pretty sad

[Tommygunn]

As a kid learning gun safety my father bought a book about it which I recall reading. One real life example was a family's heirloom percussion rifle that according to family history was last used shortly after the Civil War. It had been a wall-hanger since in the family home. The son of the then current owner had a friend over to play, and in showing the rifle off, picked it up, aimed it at his friend, cocked it, and pulled the trigger.
BOOOOOOOM!!!!!

Yeah, he just killed his friend, with a gun that had last been used a century before. Used, cleaned, reloaded, and hung on the wall.
Because back then, it was common; if you needed a gun you needed it fast and loading it at that point was going to get you dead.
That was a tragic lesson in gun safety which I recall to this day.
And yeah, other Civil War ordinance can still be dangerous today-- every once in awhile a cannon shell is found somewhere. The explosives in these can be even more unstable than the were in 1864.

[sixgunner455]

Around here, we assume ANYTHING that looks like it might blow up, probably will. And we call the post EOD guys, even if we are in town, because it was probably theirs at some point anyway.

Sad story.

[Rachen]

Unlike smokeless powder, which deteriorates over time and produces highly corrosive and toxic vapors, black powder is extremely stable, the more simple the composition used to make it, the more stable it is and longer lasting.

I know of Cowboy Action folks who fire black powder cartridges that dates back to over 120 years ago, and they worked absolutely fine.

I am very sad to hear this news. RIP Mr. White. And just yesterday on the General Gun Discussions forum, there was an article of how someone tried to disassemble a World War I era 37 mm artillery round, and it blew his legs off.

Live munitions are not a joke at all, and if you don't know what you are doing, trouble is probably going to follow.

[Cosmoline]

I wonder if it was the main powder charge or the detonator that went off. Either way, looks like he's the last fatality of the Civil War.

[Funderb]

though it's a sad story, I just think the blame on a "manufacturing defect" is a moot point. It was designed to explode, and manufactured so. Not to be collected. It looks like its job was executed successfully, though extremely ill-timed. The only defect was that it exploded 140 years too late.

RIP.

[Rachen]

I wonder if it was the main powder charge or the detonator that went off. Either way, looks like he's the last fatality of the Civil War.

Of course it was the main powder charge. The "detonator" in question is just a mercuric fulminate primer that wouldn't have been able to create such catastrophic damage by itself. According to the article, a piece of shrapnel flew more than 400 hundred yards and pierced someone's porch.

The blast is very potent.

[theotherwaldo]

Yep. Black powder stays dangerous. My uncle could have told you that. He confiscated my freshly-found fowling piece and promptly blew two toes off of his right foot.

Rarely have I found a reasonably complete firearm that wasn't loaded. Even the Patterson I dug up where a boom town burned down was still cocked and fully loaded - although the caps were long gone.

Ironically, one of the few unloaded finds was a piece of light artillery, an indian-chaser 2-pounder that was captured by the indians and hidden in a creek.

Boys and girls, any firearm that could POSSIBLY fire should be treated with respect, and that goes double for explosive munitions!

[Beagle-zebub]

Man, 140 years?! That's a long fuse.

[Cosmoline]

The "detonator" in question is just a mercuric fulminate primer that wouldn't have been able to create such catastrophic damage by itself.

I'm not sure about that one way or the other. I also don't know if the report is accurate. A shell of that magnitude going off all the way would have taken out a HOUSE, not just one person. Plus, the raw powder is much easier to neutralize than the detonator and I'm sure an experienced handler would have been able to do that easily. Good old H20 is an extremely effective way to render any BP charge harmless goo, and if the main metal case is pitted through the charge will be exposed to decades of groundwater. But the detonators don't usually corrode away, and they do get sensitive with age. So an apparently inert shell can still be lethal. I know of two late 19th century shells pulled from the old Angoon village site where the USN bombed the natives. In both cases it was the detonator the bomb squad was most worried about because of its size and sensitivity.

9-inch, 75-pound naval cannonball, a particularly potent explosive with a more complex fuse and many times the destructive power of those used by infantry artillery.

That's a huge piece for tearing apart forts. The ones I know about were also from a CW era naval vessel, though they were half that size. I got to see the one my bro had in Juneau before the bomb specialists blasted it. It had a big hole in it and I never would have guessed it was still dangerous.

The reason I bring this up is not to pick nits but to reiterate than EVEN when a shell is hollowed out and "empty" of active powder, it can still be extremely dangerous. It's one thing better left to experts to sort out.

[plexreticle]

I wonder how many of the museum pieces he worked on sill have a live fuse?

[Cosmoline]

Looking further into the background...

Experts suspect White was killed while trying to disarm a 9-inch, 75-pound naval cannonball, a particularly potent explosive with a more complex fuse and many times the destructive power of those used by infantry artillery.
...
Because of the fuse design, it may have appeared as though the weapon's powder had already been removed, leading even a veteran like White to conclude mistakenly that the ball was inert.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h...kkr_gD90DSQPO0

[hobgob]

Very sad!
Also sad that some idiot used that article to display his hatred for mankind, did anyone read the comments after that article, they were pretty dispicable!

[Mausermike]

There was some local guys that tried to kill themselves when they heated the stuck nipple on an old caplock muzzle loader with a torch. Boy did they ever get a surprise when the gun went off, the ball went through their garage door, grazed their car, flew across a street full of kids playing road hockey, and lodged in a telephone pole.

[alsaqr]

I've have 40+ years as an explosive ordnance disposal tech. The guy who was killed endangered his neighbors and his family. He had a lucrative business inerting civil war explosive ordnance and, unfortunatly, the law of averages caught up with him.

[Funderb]

The fuse is not mercuric fulminate. that it a percussion cap.
a percussion cap would explode inside a cannon upon acceleration.
Naval cannonballs had timed burn fuses.

I also don't think the ball would take out the entire house if it were just in the driveway. It's not a 3000 lb. bomb.

[Rachen]

He had a lucrative business inerting civil war explosive ordnance and, unfortunatly, the law of averages caught up with him.

Should have taken an explosives-handling course before messing around with stuff like that. Like I said, live munitions is not a joke at all.

I'm not sure about that one way or the other. I also don't know if the report is accurate. A shell of that magnitude going off all the way would have taken out a HOUSE, not just one person. Plus, the raw powder is much easier to neutralize than the detonator and I'm sure an experienced handler would have been able to do that easily. Good old H20 is an extremely effective way to render any BP charge harmless goo, and if the main metal case is pitted through the charge will be exposed to decades of groundwater. But the detonators don't usually corrode away, and they do get sensitive with age. So an apparently inert shell can still be lethal. I know of two late 19th century shells pulled from the old Angoon village site where the USN bombed the natives. In both cases it was the detonator the bomb squad was most worried about because of its size and sensitivity.

Mr. White didn't use water or any other method at all. He actually DRILLED into that shell, with an extremely high velocity power tool that obviously created much sparks and friction heat. Also the thing was in the driveway. If it had been inside the house, it would have leveled it like an F4 tornado. It exploded on the sidewalk outside the driveway, and of course, it would have scarred and pitted the front of the house, at the same time sending shrapnel flying about like hailstones. It wouldn't have been able to take out a house from that range, because black powder, even though it is compressed beyond comprehension inside it's steel casing, is still a low explosive, with little, if any shock wave. Modern high explosives do much of their devastation with merely the shock wave caused by compressing air in front of the blast "fan". A black powder explosion creates tremendous heat and concussion, but little shock wave effect.

In order for a black powder explosion to be devastatingly effective, it MUST be contained. Modern explosive shells do not have that requirement. When these explode, their shock wave obliterates anything within immediate range. However, black powder, as long as there is plenty of space for it to burn, it is not usually as effective. Lets look at a fort for example. If a black powder shell strikes the fort's outer wall and immediately explodes on contact, it would gouge out a crater within that wall, and inflict a massive char mark. HOWEVER, if that same shell had a delayed detonation device, and instead of exploding on contact, it penetrates through the wall, lands in a small room, and then explodes, the damage done would be far more deadlier and tremendous than if the shell merely exploded on contact with the wall. The small room, and the narrow hallways beyond the room would create the perfect atmosphere for the rapid conflagration of the burning powder, concentrating it's heat and energy within a small space.

[Rachen]

The comments posted after the CBS article is truly IMBECILE and IMMATURE. More like a drunken Saturday night rant session than a civilized discussion.

Especially those people who called somebody "right wing nuts", and somebody else who mocked the Charlton Heston quote.

GROW THE HELL UP FOR GOD'S SAKE.

[Cosmoline]

Mr. White didn't use water or any other method at all. He actually DRILLED into that shell, with an extremely high velocity power tool that obviously created much sparks and friction heat.

You don't know what safety methods he used. According to the article he was an expert who thought he had already neutralized the charge:

Because of the fuse design, it may have appeared as though the weapon's powder had already been removed, leading even a veteran like White to conclude mistakenly that the ball was inert.

Naval cannonballs had timed burn fuses.

Not all of them. There were an array of fuses used during that period, from simple to complex multi-stage affairs. The point is you cannot trust that one of these things is inert simply because the main charge has been drilled out and removed. This is the one the Air Force bomb squad took:

http://vilda.alaska.edu/cdm4/item_vi...=0&x=316&y=221

[Tru Griff]

What does one use to preserve the outside of a cannon ball like those pictured in his collection?

Read the story and reminded me of a Dr. / relic hunter who told me various stories back in the 80's of how he had found some of these and how he removed the fuse and powder in the past. Just enough info to know not to mess with one if found with a fuse.

Found this 80lb solid shot in buddies backyard but would like to seal/preserve it.

[Rachen]

Found this 80lb solid shot in buddies backyard but would like to seal/preserve it.

Um......................................................Are you positively sure it is SOLID?

[Tru Griff]

"Um......................................................Are you positively sure it is SOLID?"

It wouldn't be sitting there if it wasn't. No fuse hole at all. No hole period, even for the forks to pick it up for loading. The ends of my fingers can vouch that it is solid as well after pinching them various times when trying to pick it up. Found that it's a lot easier to just roll on a towel then pick it up with the ends of the towel.