So you find something that appears to be an explosive device. Dam!

[Brad69]

You had the spoon taped.

Yes sir

 

[TheGrumpyGuy]

The issue was created by the bulldozers that were clearing the path....They were buried under the dirt, but apparently not deep enough.

Still, boggles my mind that this would be in a spot accessible to the general public.

 

[indykid]

Well, I know the first thing I would do if I found something that resembles a grenade is pull the pin. I mean, you gotta know if it’s real or not, right?

Even I can see the purple.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

Still, boggles my mind that this would be in a spot accessible to the general public.

 

[Ingomike]

Still, boggles my mind that this would be in a spot accessible to the general public.

Fifty years ago there were not even the orange plastic fences, it was all open. Heck played on the bulldozers and other equipment when they went home. Found dozens of caps on an old farm my family bought in the 70’s. They are definitely out there and probably can still be found…

 

[LtScott14]

Times have changed. In my youth, we watched John Wayne, and a host of actors in WW2 movies. They threw grenades enough that we even knew the time delay. I know Hollywood does it best.

I had a call to remove some old bullets from a widow's mobile home. She was a typical little lady and husband had been a Veteran of WW2. She dragged his foot locker to the living room, and said it was locked, didn't have a key. She handed me a hacksaw, cut off the lock, and inside was a few clips of rifle ammo, and couple fragment type pineapple grenades.

We had FD respond, Ambulances, Nipsco too.
After evacing the mobile home park, Bomb Squad got there, and took the entire box out. They found dummy mortar shells, and their was an artillery shell being used as a doorstop. They removed all of it and later confirmed the grenades were inert.
The artillery shell was live and they exploded it someplace safe.

My Police Chief advised her about the AT Shell, and she said it was so heavy she would kick it around to get the door shut. You never know, best to call and get help so nobody gets hurt.

 

[thompal]

Anyone else remember the commercials back in the 60's warning of finding blasting caps?

I do. I was led to believe that we would find them laying around everywhere.

 

[KellyinAvon]

Anyone else remember the commercials back in the 60's warning of finding blasting caps?

Wow... there was a lot of dust on the brain cells with that memory, but yes.

 

[KellyinAvon]

I do. I was led to believe that we would find them laying around everywhere.

The Interstates were built from the 50's into the 70's. A lot of mountains got lowered with explosives in the process.

 

[Ark]

"Sweet, free grenade."

"What's that, hon? Find anything cool in your granddad's stuff?"

"Nope just papers and photos."

 

[rob63]

The article doesn't really specify who pulled the pin, but it does mention a teen-age son. Just my guess, but I can easily imagine the teen-age son assuming it wasn't live, pulling the pin, and tossing it to the dad as a joke.

I collect Civil War era items and twice have purchased shells that proved to still be live, once from a dealer that should have checked it, and one from a local auction. I had the powder removed by someone with the proper equipment. At least they didn't have a live fuse to deal with and were easy to check for powder.

 

[Cameramonkey]

The article doesn't really specify who pulled the pin, but it does mention a teen-age son. Just my guess, but I can easily imagine the teen-age son assuming it wasn't live, pulling the pin, and tossing it to the dad as a joke.

If that were true, oof. That would be a hard one to live with. Especially as someone else mentioned upthread... "Havent seen you in a while. How are your parents doing? Oh, and whats up with those scars?"

 

[Alamo]

Fifty years ago there were not even the orange plastic fences, it was all open. Heck played on the bulldozers and other equipment when they went home. Found dozens of caps on an old farm my family bought in the 70’s. They are definitely out there and probably can still be found…

The current State Highway 46 between Nashville and Columbus was built in the mid? early? ‘60s. I lived on Coffey Hill Road, which is on a ridge between ”new” and “old” 46. On the “new” side that ridge base was dynamited so the new 46 could go in straight lines and gentle curves, instead of like the snaky old 46.

During the day we could hear the booms from the dynamite, which was of course completely fascinating to us kids. At the end of the day, and on the weekends, I used to go down there with my sister or my friends and climb all over the jumbled broken up boulder-sized rock and collect the orange wire that was running everywhere. I assumed then and now that it was blasting water, but we never worried about pulling up something that hadn’t gone off yet. Heck, we’d would have been delighted to do so.

Every kid had a big ball of this orange wire, which, mostly we just collected. Sometimes we wrapped up stuff or repaired our bikes with it. We also climbed on the digging equipment as well, if it was still parked there. There was absolutely no fencing, no sign signs, and nobody around to tell us otherwise. Our parents let us run all over the neighborhood, as long as we were home for supper.

p. s. I remember being fascinated by the highway because it was pouring concrete instead of asphalt. I thought concrete was only used for interstate highways. In my kid’s mind this made new 46 a “superhighway”. I also remember that before it was built, we would also be trapped on Coffey Hill Road in October because tourist traffic would be backed up from Nashville halfway back to Columbus on the old winding 46. Coffey Hill Road has two entrances, but both of them are on 46.

 

[Sylvain]

Times have changed. In my youth, we watched John Wayne, and a host of actors in WW2 movies. They threw grenades enough that we even knew the time delay. I know Hollywood does it best.

I had a call to remove some old bullets from a widow's mobile home. She was a typical little lady and husband had been a Veteran of WW2. She dragged his foot locker to the living room, and said it was locked, didn't have a key. She handed me a hacksaw, cut off the lock, and inside was a few clips of rifle ammo, and couple fragment type pineapple grenades.

We had FD respond, Ambulances, Nipsco too.
After evacing the mobile home park, Bomb Squad got there, and took the entire box out. They found dummy mortar shells, and their was an artillery shell being used as a doorstop. They removed all of it and later confirmed the grenades were inert.
The artillery shell was live and they exploded it someplace safe.

My Police Chief advised her about the AT Shell, and she said it was so heavy she would kick it around to get the door shut. You never know, best to call and get help so nobody gets hurt.

In Normandy we have some folks who collect explosives from both WW1 and WW2 ... usually stuff they find underground, usually live and rusty.

Of course it's totally illegal but some folks have mortar shells, grenades, land mines etc ... on display in their homes (on top of the guns also illegally found and kept).

A few years ago the police found a huge collection of ordnance, ammunition, lots of machine guns, ammo etc.

The owner died and the neighbors didn't know he stored tons of explosives in the house.
It took over 3 days to empty the house.

I have an official document listing all the kind of ordnance I can find in the region, it's 48 pages long with pictures.

It's called "While waiting for the bomb squad".

It's a list of pretty much everything from both world wars, from all countries (Germans, French, US, Brits etc).
It as everything from chemicals mortar rounds of WW1, incendiary bombs, all the way to 1,000lbs US bombs from WW2.
It's thousands of different rounds our bomb techs have to know.

That's a private collection in somebody's home:

All found with a metal detectors in woods, fields etc.
God only knows if they are live or inert.

Some people have been killed over the years by grenades sent by mail.
They buy them online, not knowing if they are live, and the seller just send it by mail ... and sometimes they explode.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

The article doesn't really specify who pulled the pin, but it does mention a teen-age son. Just my guess, but I can easily imagine the teen-age son assuming it wasn't live, pulling the pin, and tossing it to the dad as a joke.

I collect Civil War era items and twice have purchased shells that proved to still be live, once from a dealer that should have checked it, and one from a local auction. I had the powder removed by someone with the proper equipment. At least they didn't have a live fuse to deal with and were easy to check for powder.

How do they remove the powder? I've seen photos of explosions caused by people drilling or cutting cannonballs.

 

[Sylvain]

How do they remove the powder?

Very carefully?

 

[Leadeye]

Pictures and museum examples I've seen look like the "fuse" is screwed into cannon ball that is hollow on the inside containing BP and balls. My guess would be soaking it for a long time in penetrating oil or diesel to allow the solvent to wet out the BP before doing anything mechanical. It's how I get old guns to move around before I start working on them.

 

[rosejm]

This is what happens when we stop showing cartoons that play hot potato with explosives.

 

[rob63]

How do they remove the powder? I've seen photos of explosions caused by people drilling or cutting cannonballs.

They have a drill set-up that has a remote control and a pulley system that allows the drill bit and shell to be immersed in water during the drilling process. There aren't too many people around with the proper set-up to do it safely.

Sadly, one of the people that was killed a few years back was one of the guys that did one of my shells. He was doing a bunch of them in an assembly line process and accidentally got a live shell mixed in with ones that had already been deactivated. He was using a power tool to clean the rust off of it and a spark set it off. It's certainly not a hobby tolerant of mistakes.

There are also Civil War era shells that had a particular kind of fuse that is very dangerous because it becomes unstable. The people that dig them really need to know what they are doing as well.

The flip side is that you also see stories of people calling in the bomb squad for shells that a knowledgeable collector can see from the photos isn't dangerous. Solid shells don't have any powder at all, but they get "disarmed" fairly frequently.

 

[HoughMade]

...and don't use Civil War cannonballs as andirons for an active fireplace:

Last Shot of the Civil War Wounds One

The 6-pound round of Confederate solid shot rolled into the fire and exploded. Shrapnel flew throughout the room full of Federal soldiers.

www.historynet.com

Turns out it wasn't the "last shot":

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/news/civil-war-2.html?A1c=1