Live Explosive Cannonball? (photo)

Status
Not open for further replies.
If I owned it I would rather it be destroyed then to possibly be set off and killing people. With it being real old then I think it is more likely it could be set off by almost anything.
 
Obviously, safety comes first.

My question was not if they would deactivate it; it was whether they could determine if it were actually live, via a means that would not require cracking or drilling it.

As in, it may have been drained of powder by the previous owner. Is there a way to tell?

(Note the word, "safe" in my earlier post... I am not suggesting putting an EOD tech at increased risk. I just wonder if there is a chemical sniffer, or some other residue test that could confirm presence of powder.)
 
I put in a call to the nonemergency police number to let them know the situation. The guy I talked to is going to make some calls, and he wants me to call back at 7am.
 
Last edited:
I just wonder if there is a chemical sniffer, or some other residue test that could confirm presence of powder.)
Click to expand...

An x-ray does it very well. i sometimes inert Civil War era explosive ordnance for collectors and museums-remotely. i have an industrial x-ray but seldom use it because it's hard to set up.
 
Black powder is highly UNstable.

Over time the total power will degrade, yeah, but some will turn into something a lot like "primer". Drop that thing off a shelf and it very well might kill multiple people.
Click to expand...

Dangerously incorrect. :eek:
Black powder is about as stable as anything can be. It is not a compound, it is a chemical mixture and will be usable, as far as we know, indefinitely. It does not crystalize with time, it stays exactly the same unless it gets wet or contaminated. Even wet bp when dried is still good to go.
Lot of myths about bp. Those who use it (as I have for 40+ years) know differently.
Treat with respect.
 
If you want it identified, just try to take it aboard an aircraft. At your trial, you'll hear the government's expert witness describe it to the jury. :rolleyes:
 
Have your friend contact one of these folks to see if they could help him out.

http://www.ambroseantiques.com/cannons.htm

http://getaspecialdeal.com/products/cannon balls?tid=5337007982

http://www.ncwaa.com/

Some of those cannon balls can be worth big $$$$ and I would hate to see him lose it. On the other hand, I would hate to see him really lose it if it were to explode.

It seems a lot of these things go off when people try to deactivate them. I remember one guy talking about how he deactivated the things in a large tub of water. Kept the sparks and heat down or something.

Good luck.
 
I just got confirmation that he is discussing this with the authorities, and that he has been following our discussion here.

Hopefully they can find a brave professional to make this thing inert. It's a very interesting object, even if it caused me to not get much sleep last night. :)
 
Black powder is about as stable as anything can be.
Click to expand...

Not exactly. Most materials do not explode with exposure (often brief) to heat, flame, impact, friction, and/or static electricity.

http://web.mit.edu/rocketteam/www/documents/MSDS/Black Powder.pdf

It does not crystalize with time, it stays exactly the same unless it gets wet or contaminated. Even wet bp when dried is still good to go.
Lot of myths about bp. Those who use it (as I have for 40+ years) know differently.
Click to expand...

Black powder itself does not crystallize with time. This is true. Black powder that has become wet and dried out can grow crystals, hence be said to "crystallize." The crystals are potassium nitrate (saltpeter).
http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/foxfire5.html
http://www.vk2zay.net/article/74
 
BP isn't necessarily stable from an ignition standpoint. I meant stable from a degradation/longevity standpoint.
I have read rumors of loaded civil war guns still shooting. Can't verify it, don't know if it's true but I wouldn't bet against it.
 
Black powder is about as stable as anything can be. It is not a compound, it is a chemical mixture and will be usable, as far as we know, indefinitely. It does not crystalize with time, it stays exactly the same unless it gets wet or contaminated. Even wet bp when dried is still good to go.
Click to expand...

Right...and what are the odds water may have seeped into that old critter over time?

For that matter, how well was it packed originally? Is it possible it was assembled in humid enough conditions (remember: no air conditioning!) that over time and temp changes you might well get potassium nitrate crystals?

Which in turn are enough like "primer" to be scary?

BP is stable over time under perfect conditions. I wouldn't assume perfect conditions - at all. It was likely assembled in wartime in a hurry, just for starters...
 
But potassium nitrate crystals are not sensitive. The powder gets wet and becomes inert, mostly. Then it dries out again (and crystallizes) and it's back to being black powder again -- probably less powerful now because it's no longer mixed as well as it was, but still dangerous enough it needs to be respected.

Perhaps you are thinking about old dynamite where the NG leaks out, or picrate explosives that crystallize? (or even old diethyl ether bottles than have auto-peroxided and the peroxide crystals explode when you open the ground glass stopper)
 
Don't know whether the inside where the bp is at is nothing more than steel but if so, my guess would be there has been enough sweating inside the capsule over the years to have caused crystalization. Also, depending on how rough the bomb was treated over the years, much of the bp granules could now be dust which would make things a bit more volatile... think making bp using a ball grinder and how volatile the dust is versus the granules.
 
As in, it may have been drained of powder by the previous owner. Is there a way to tell?


It has not been rendered inert by a previous owner. The fuze is made of soft lead. There is a waterproofing compound (it looks like Permatex #1) in the threads of the fuze. There is a threaded under plug made of iron or brass under the fuze: This plug supports the fuze. The fuze is destroyed by any attempt to remove it. i never found a cannon ball of that type with an intact fuze that was inert.

BTW: The type is case shot. Case shot has iron balls (Almost always iron) in a matrix of pine rosin and sulfur. There is a cylindrical column of black powder under the fuze that bursts the round.

Besides X-ray there may be another method of finding out if a round like this one is live. It's called PINS and it's used to identify the filler of chemical munitions.

http://www.inl.gov/techtransfer/factsheets/nat/pins.pdf

i'm not sure what effect a bombardment by neutrons would have on black powder.
 
I wondered that, too, thallub.

I know radars tend to heat up exposed metals, and I'm not sure I'd want to run an x-ray over that thing.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top