Stump grinder versus German tank shells.

[Gary Prentice]

My uncle used to do an enormous amount of metal detecting and would often bring back live .50 calibre rounds.

He once put one in a vice and hit the pin with a hammer and nail.

He only did it once.

 

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Did he win a Darwin Award?

 

 

Jokes aside, did anyone ever ask him why he thought it a good idea?

[Pinkfoot]

Did he win a Darwin Award?

 

 

Jokes aside, did anyone ever ask him why he thought it a good idea?

He was prone to doing loon things.

My Grandfather , his father , had a wildfowling punt gun .

This used coarse grained black powder.

Uncle thought nothing of filling tins with it , burying them and lighting a fuse to them .

So yes , he was suspect at times.

 

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[Gary Prentice]

He was prone to doing loon things.

My Grandfather , his father , had a wildfowling punt gun .

This used coarse grained black powder.

Uncle thought nothing of filling tins with it , burying them and lighting a fuse to them .

So yes , he was suspect at times.

 

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:lol:

Lighting the fuse and standing well back seems eminently more sensible than banging away at 50 cals with a hammer.

[Pinkfoot]

Well it may have seemed a good idea at the time. Both parts of the round went their separate ways , the hard bit through the shed and into the distance and the brass bit bouncing around in the shed in and out of the smoke.

 

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[dan blocker]

Dynamite leaches nitro glycerin,TNT is a totally different explosive,TNT can also leach accelerants,Dave and his stump grinder would be seriously compromised if the shells were still viable.

Agreed - Nitro can become very unstable and can sometimes be detonated by a blow with a metal object on other metal or stone or heat, TNT and other high explosives such as RDX based explosives are more stable and require a small booster charge to detonate them(so does nitro in normal situations). Remember in this type of find the explosive is encased in a steel/cast iron casing and is therefore the explosive fill is likely to be protected and not degraded sufficiently to make it safe, so its possible the explosive would still detonate, it would of had some type of fuse/ booster charge/ detonator to initiate it - thats the dangerous bit:001_huh: All bombs require some sort of initiator - as is the primer in the base of a .50 round:001_huh:(what a character grandad was:001_rolleyes:) 1WW/2WW bombs contained Nitro and or TNT based fillings so you are unlikely to know what the danger is:confused1: 70 yrs old or not standard PPE would not give you any protection if one did explode and to think its old so must be OK is fool-hardy. as they say - If you hear a clock start ticking or a fizzing noise, see smoke etc - bend down, put your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye:big grin:cos its goodnight Vienna:sleep1:

[David Cropper]

Agreed - Nitro can become very unstable and can sometimes be detonated by a blow with a metal object on other metal or stone or heat, TNT and other high explosives such as RDX based explosives are more stable and require a small booster charge to detonate them(so does nitro in normal situations). Remember in this type of find the explosive is encased in a steel/cast iron casing and is therefore the explosive fill is likely to be protected and not degraded sufficiently to make it safe, so its possible the explosive would still detonate, it would of had some type of fuse/ booster charge/ detonator to initiate it - thats the dangerous bit:001_huh: All bombs require some sort of initiator - as is the primer in the base of a .50 round:001_huh:(what a character grandad was:001_rolleyes:) 1WW/2WW bombs contained Nitro and or TNT based fillings so you are unlikely to know what the danger is:confused1: 70 yrs old or not standard PPE would not give you any protection if one did explode and to think its old so must be OK is fool-hardy. as they say - If you hear a clock start ticking or a fizzing noise, see smoke etc - bend down, put your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye:big grin:cos its goodnight Vienna:sleep1:

Thanks Dan and Watercourse Management for an excellent summery. That should give me nightmares for a couple of weeks of what could have happened when the grinder battered the casing. Remember the old adage of "Adrenaline is brown".

[Watercourse management]

No problems Dave anything to help cheers Simon.

[kev7937]

My uncle used to do an enormous amount of metal detecting and would often bring back live .50 calibre rounds.

He once put one in a vice and hit the pin with a hammer and nail.

He only did it once.

 

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One of my pals got hold of some blanks some how when we were kids, not sure what they were but they wouldn't have looked out of place slung round Rambo's shoulders.

 

Bored one evening we thought it would be a good idea to get a hacksaw on them to release the gunpowder, after a few minutes and only half way through due to a blunt saw we put a match to one.

 

Only did that once too.

[Pinkfoot]

One of my pals got hold of some blanks some how when we were kids, not sure what they were but they wouldn't have looked out of place slung round Rambo's shoulders.

 

Bored one evening we thought it would be a good idea to get a hacksaw on them to release the gunpowder, after a few minutes and only half way through due to a blunt saw we put a match to one.

 

Only did that once too.

Grandfather fired his punt gun in the conservatory , no shot though it was capable of firing a pound of it.

Dad said it shook all the windows in the house .

I suspect idiocy runs in the family.

Now what have I done that may qualify...

 

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[David Cropper]

 

 

This is the damage done to brand new yellow jacket teeth after hitting the shells.