This amazed me that something like this is still happening after 140 years.

Civil War cannonball kills relic collector

Hobby cost collector his life, shaking close-knit community of relic hunters


updated 9:17 a.m. CT, Sat., May. 3, 2008

CHESTER, Va. - Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown.
As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics — weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms.
But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway.

More than 140 years after Lee surrendered to Grant, the cannonball was still powerful enough to send a chunk of shrapnel through the front porch of a house a quarter-mile from White's home in this leafy Richmond suburb.
White's death shook the close-knit fraternity of relic collectors and raised concerns about the dangers of other Civil War munitions that lie buried beneath old battlefields. Explosives experts said the fatal blast defied extraordinary odds.
"You can't drop these things on the ground and make them go off," said retired Col. John F. Biemeck, formerly of the Army Ordnance Corps.

Battlefields everywhere
White, 53, was one of thousands of hobbyists who comb former battlegrounds for artifacts using metal detectors, pickaxes, shovels and trowels.
"There just aren't many areas in the South in which battlefields aren't located. They're literally under your feet," said Harry Ridgeway, a former relic hunter who has amassed a vast collection. "It's just a huge thrill to pull even a mundane relic out of the ground."

After growing up in Petersburg, White went to college, served on his local police force, then worked for 25 years as a deliveryman for UPS. He retired in 1998 and devoted most of his time to relic hunting.
He was an avid reader, a Civil War raconteur and an amateur historian who watched History Channel programs over and over, to the mild annoyance of his wife.
"I used to laugh at him and say, 'Why do you watch this? You know how it turned out. It's not going to be any different,'" Brenda White said.
She didn't share her husband's devotion, but she was understanding of his interest.
"True relic hunters who have this passion, they don't live that way vicariously, like if you were a sports fanatic," she said. "Finding a treasure is their touchdown, even if it's two, three bullets."

Weapons remain buried
Union and Confederate troops lobbed an estimated 1.5 million artillery shells and cannonballs at each other from 1861 to 1865. As many as one in five were duds.
Some of the weapons remain buried in the ground or river bottoms. In late March, a 44-pound, 8-inch mortar shell was uncovered at Petersburg National Battlefield, the site of an epic 292-day battle. The shell was taken to the city landfill and detonated.

Black powder provided the destructive force for cannonballs and artillery shells. The combination of sulfur, potassium nitrate and finely ground charcoal requires a high temperature — 572 degrees Fahrenheit — and friction to ignite.
White estimated he had worked on about 1,600 shells for collectors and museums. On the day he died, he had 18 cannonballs lined up in his driveway to restore.
White's efforts seldom raised safety concerns. His wife and son Travis sometimes stood in the driveway as he worked.
"Sam knew his stuff, no doubt about it," said Jimmy Blankenship, historian-curator at the Petersburg battleground. "He did know Civil War ordnance."

Investigation continues
An investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will not be complete until the end of May, but police who responded to the blast and examined shrapnel concluded that it came from a Civil War explosive.
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.

Biemeck and Peter George, co-author of a book on Civil War ordnance, believe White was using either a drill or a grinder attached to a drill to remove grit from the cannonball, causing a shower of sparks.
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.
The weapon also had to be waterproof because it was designed to skip over the water at 600 mph to strike at the waterline of an enemy ship. The protection against moisture meant the ball could have remained potent longer than an infantry shell.

Homes evacuated
Brenda White is convinced her husband was working on a flawed cannonball, and no amount of caution could have prevented his death.
"He had already disarmed the shell," she said. "From what I was told, there was absolutely nothing he had done wrong, that there was a manufacturing defect that no one would have known was there."
After White's death, about two dozen homes were evacuated for two days while explosives experts collected pieces from his collection and detonated them.

Today, there is little evidence of the Feb. 18 blast. The garage where White did most of his work is still crammed with his discoveries, many painstakingly restored and mounted. Rusted horseshoes are piled high in the crook of a small tree.
White's digging partner, Fred Lange, hasn't had the heart to return to his relic hunting.
"I truly miss him," Lange said. "Not a day that goes by that I don't think of him."

heard about this.

oops.

Recently, the police were called to a house in the town where I work and sure enough, there was a mortar round on the homeowner's fireplace mantle. Maybe it's Darwinism in operation.

Natural Selection at work, I'd say.

I was given a "disarmed" 40mm Bofor projectile some years ago by a widow clearing up a deceased estate. I was told that it was harmless and empty, in fact she then proceeded to unscrew the nose fuse and show me,... indeed the projectile was empty, but I had a nagging doubt about the fuse (time) itself and promptly took it to a collector acquaintance of mine who was also a Major at the nearby Army storage depot. He was not willing to fiddle with it and instead, after a month or so found me a replacement fuse assembly with no detonator and an empty gaine.

Several weeks later he told me that the original fuse was live and had been destroyed. The gaine had contained several grams of PETN mix which alone would have ruptured the case and could have killed anyone within about 5 yards.

This decoration had been sitting in the owners lounge room for 40 years and had been often played with, and examined by their children and visitors.

20 or more years ago a live hand grenade was found sitting on a rail in a local outbuilding after the house had been vacated by tenants. I remember the event but not the outcome, no doubt it was destroyed.

After all of the warnings and occasional maimings and deaths, these items still turn up from time to time.

"On the day he died, he had 18 cannonballs lined up in his driveway to restore."
Sounds a bit like holding a running event on a rail road track, then being baffled at the fact that someone's foot got stuck and got run over.

used to happen in okinawa, tons of unexploded shells in the hills and on the ocean floor people still find em all the time

Originally Posted by senojekips

I was given a "disarmed" 40mm Bofor projectile some years ago by a widow clearing up a deceased estate. I was told that it was harmless and empty, in fact she then proceeded to unscrew the nose fuse and show me,... indeed the projectile was empty, but I had a nagging doubt about the fuse (time) itself and promptly took it to a collector acquaintance of mine who was also a Major at the nearby Army storage depot. He was not willing to fiddle with it and instead, after a month or so found me a replacement fuse assembly with no detonator and an empty gaine.

Several weeks later he told me that the original fuse was live and had been destroyed. The gaine had contained several grams of PETN mix which alone would have ruptured the case and could have killed anyone within about 5 yards.

This decoration had been sitting in the owners lounge room for 40 years and had been often played with, and examined by their children and visitors.

20 or more years ago a live hand grenade was found sitting on a rail in a local outbuilding after the house had been vacated by tenants. I remember the event but not the outcome, no doubt it was destroyed.

After all of the warnings and occasional maimings and deaths, these items still turn up from time to time.

40 mm. Bofors does ring a bell here..
Once my unit was tasked with "cleaning out" a storage of thise 40mm.'s.
We carried thee containers out to a gun, and fired them out over the sea, roughly aimed at a rock that was sticking op from the water.
In the scope I noticed something I took for blasts when the grenades hit the rock, wich puzzled me beccause the grenades was painted blue, and therefore should be inert training shells, they were even labeled "Cold Grenades" in the storage list.

So I went and picked up one of the packing sheets from a container and started reading, sure enough.
According to the packing sheat our bulk of ammo had been remanufactured at Lake City Ordnance Plant (as I recall) in 1944 and far from being cold grenades, they were issued with a phosforous tracer and a self destruction load of TNT....

So after some 45 years in storage, the tracer did in most cases function, but didn't set off the self-destruction load, but the impact on the rock sure did.

Korea
After I got to Korea I was assigned to A Company, 1st Armored Amphibian Battalion. We were stationed at the northern tip of the Kimpo Peninsula. Each platoon was set up like an artillery battery, firing the 75mm howitzers mounted on our LVTAs at the Chinese Army on the opposite side of the Han River. For several months, I was Platoon leader of the First Platoon, which was set up on the reverse slope of a fairly steep hill about fifty yards south of the river bank.
One day we were getting some incoming 76mm fire from the Chinese. Most of the rounds passed over us and landed near the road leading up to our position. About a half hour after the Chinese quit shooting, four truckloads of fresh 75mm ammo arrived. The driver of the lead truck raced up to me carrying a 76mm dud round in his hands.
I instructed him to carefully but quickly carry the dud out of the platoon area and over the nearest ridge line, to set it down very gently, and then run like hell back to my CP.
A few minutes later he returned. He told me he had found the dud lying by the road as they were bringing up the ammo. He had brought it to me (nestled in the seat beside him in the truck) because he knew "military intelligence was interested in these things."
I told him he and his fellow truckers would have been in considerably less danger if he had simply marked and reported the location. And I asked him if he had considered the danger of carrying an unexploded live round in the truck with him -- especially since his cargo consisted of several tons of artillery shells. He replied, "Oh, yes sir, I knew it could be dangerous. But I kept it pointed away from me all the time."

I've got a few bits o' artillerty, a lovely .50 calber round that has no powder and has a spent primer, a grenade that's drilled out, etc. I make extra sure that it's dead or I won't buy it.