Shell Storage

[John M. Brooke]

Jine, I see you are a night owl as well, your post being at 3:51 AM. I work a 12 hour night shift from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am.
I make most of my post while on my break using my phone, nothing like a cold drink, a snack, and Bullet and Shell Forum to escape a long hard shift. However on my days off when I am well rested I discover how bad my grammar and spelling is.
Example: "ORDINANCE RELICS" found that one after a good "days" sleep. Pete George is probably thinking " what a dumb a@@" 

[Jine]

Jine, I see you are a night owl as well, your post being at 3:51 AM. I work a 12 hour night shift from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am.
I make most of my post while on my break using my phone, nothing like a cold drink, a snack, and Bullet and Shell Forum to escape a long hard shift. However on my days off when I am well rested I discover how bad my grammar and spelling is.
Example: "ORDINANCE RELICS" found that one after a good "days" sleep. Pete George is probably thinking " what a dumb a@@" 

 John,

 Here's a tip that works for me- once I post something I never read what I typed again, it saves me a lot of wincing and prevents elevated blood pressure. I believe the end result will be increased longevity. You likely are familiar with the saying that "To err is human, to really foul things up takes a computer"; dare to err on a computer and call it a day!

[Bryan]

I had some concerns about some shells also.  I went to a hobby store and bought different size tubing.
The sizes ranged around the 3mm size.  I got copper, alum. and plastic. Then I went to a hardware store and got end caps for garden hoses.  The hard part was drilling small holes in the sides of the tubing, even with a drill press. I crimped the end of the tube.  Then I drilled the garden hose end cap and put the tube in it.  Your ready to flush out your shells.  You don't need to turn the water on too high.  It worked well for me.

[CarlS]

Bryan,

Very similar to what I did.  In the plumbing section at Home Depot and other hardware places there is a section of brass fittings.  There is one that fits a garden hose on one end.  I then got a brass fitting that fit the other side and had a compression fitting for tubing into whch I attached a foot or so of 1/4 inch brass tubing.  Then with a real small bit I drilled holes in the side and crimped the end.  It does provide plenty of wish power.  I also created on without the holes and no crimping to send a strong wash straight into the shell.  Between the two they wash them out quite well. 

Even after washing them out I recommend filling the powder chamber with water and soaking a day or so and washing again. 

[callicles]

Callicles,

It's pretty hard to describe in a few words in a forum blog how to tell if something is disarmed but I'll offer a few general comments for what it may be worth.  Make sure the disarming hole is larger than 1/4 inch.  It's very, very, very, very hard to adequately wash a shell's guts out through a hole that small.  I recommend at least 3/8ths inch.  I would first find a piece of rigid non-ferrous (copper, aluminum, etc.) wire and push it in the hole.  If it doesn't go at least 3/4 of the way into the shell it's not been washed out very well.  Then I would use a syringe and inject water into it and make sure enough goes in that you feel like there is a bigger cavity than just the path of the drill bit.  I would then let this sit overnight and in the morning go outside in the yard and pour it out.  If it's black it needs washed out more and is best done with pressurized water and a copper tubing fitting that is drilled to shoot water out of the sides so it can spray the whole shell interior.

This will give you some piece of mind that you won't have to worry about making someone's day bad because they were cutting on your shell and it wasn't empty.

As an aside, I spoke to someone who some years back cut quite a number of shells in half.  I asked him if he was worried about the steel blade cutting through the shell and setting it off.  He said he wasn't because he cut with water on the blade and at a slow pace.  Also, for most of them, he used a special (expensive) blade that had some special diamond edge rather than teeth.  It cut faster and better plus he figured it wouldn't spark.  It all sounds reasonable but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

Again, just some thoughts I figured I'd share for what they may be worth and in case anyone else finds them of value.  You could show it to someone with good experience disarming and get a 2nd opinion for more peace of mind.

Thanks CW,

That is good advice.   Again, the guy down here in Mississippi who disarmed my shell is "supposedly" as good as it gets. However, after reading your post above, I followed all the procedures you recommended and I think it passes. I washed it as best I could (probably not to your specs, but I gave it my best). Now, I don't know what "non-ferrous" means, but I put an aluminum wire into it and it went in deep.  I also inserted, to my wife's dismay, a meat themometer (kinda like an ice pick).  I was dang near tapping the bottom of the boreman fuse.  However, both the wire and the themometer were coated with, what appeared to be, tar matrix.  I went as far as to take the themometer -- again, coated with this matrix -- outside and put a match to it to make sure it was not some sort of powder. Maybe I should have let the matrix dry first?  Could I be confusing powder for matrix?  I have no experience with matrix -- just have read about it in books.  This stuff (whatever is on the wire and themometer) is worse than glue.  It reminded me of the roofing tar I put around my chimney every couple of years.

Anyway, thanks and I hope you will give me your thoughts.  I do not want to, as you stated, "make somebody's day bad."  I'm new to this and want to do the right thing.  This is why I love this site!   

[CarlS]

Callicles,

I have to say you had me laughing!  My wife would have killed me if I'd used the kitchen thermometer.  You did right with regards to ferrous.  Basically I meant to use something not made of iron or steel as they can cause a spark.  A non-ferrous material like aluminum, copper, brass, most alloys, etc. will not cause a spark other than with an electrical discharge.  So the aluminum wire was great and as you indicated showed opens pace from the fuse to the bottom of the shell indicating an open path the length of the powder chamber by the bit.  The washing is then used to open the powder chamber  width-wise.

I certianly sounds like you got matrix on your probe.  Black powder disolves in water and wipes off things rather easily although it does stain clothes, etc.  If sticky it's almost for sure black matrix or, more accurately, asphaltum (distilled coal tar) indicating a case shot projectile.  This tells you that the small amount of powder that was in the shell was in a cored hollow area from the fuse (mostly) down the center. 

For some interior shots of shells you can look at the ones on Jack Melton's site (www.civilwarartillery.com) where he has a section showing internal views:
    http://www.civilwarartillery.com/projectiles/halfshells/halfshells.htm
There is one image on this page but you can see a number of them if you click on the text "Enter Cross Sections Here" toward the bottom.  The ones with light colored matrix have sulfer matrix and the dark ones have the asphaltum.

It sounds like the guy who disarmed it did a good job and you'll soon have two nice half shells.

[callicles]

Yeah, CW, the kitchen themometer went over like a turd in a punch bowl.  I had washed the shell out -- she knew none of this.  Then, tonight, I was in front of this very computer, shoving wire and her themometer through the drill hole in order to meet your recomendations. At first sight, she was merely irritated that I was using her themometer outside its prescribed usage.  Then, when she saw that I was ramming it into a shell, she yelled, grabbed our son and retreated to the porch. I finished up.  Then I thought it would be of great interest to her and my son that there was matrix on it, so I went to the porch.  I looked at it as a great historical revelation and insight. For whatever reason, she didn't seem to share my enthusiasm, especially when I put a match to the matrix glued to the meat themometer (I was just making sure it was not powder). 

Anyhow, I'm sure most of us guys here are familiar with the female glare and cold-shoulder.  Well, I got it!  I cleaned the themometer, but that did no good in her eyes.  She just reminded me that every pretty thing she puts out for display in "our" house is devalued by "tons" of lead and iron objects from the ACW.   And, yeah, before she retreated to the bedroom, and just before she slammed the door on me, she reminded me that I could have killed everybody!

Hell, I'm ready to go relic hunting!

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

You think you were in the dog house?  When I cut holes in my wife's only pressure cooker to make it into an underwater camera housing, wow did I ever get it.
John

[divedigger]

Bart you should have told her you were doing her a favor, pressure cookers are dangerous you know