Bullet and Shell Civil War Projectiles Forum
Relic Discussion => Artillery => Topic started by: emike123 on June 11, 2012, 10:42:20 AM
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Another post wandered off topic into the subject of who has been hurt in the last 50 years by Civil War artillery projectiles. It has been estimated that 200,000 Civil War era projectiles have been recovered in that time and I am aware of a grand total of 4 incidents with 4 injuries and 2 fatalities, all involving hand held power equipment.
1) There was a fellow in the ‘70s killed disarming what I think was a watercap fused ball using a power drill. I cannot recall his name, but others probably do.
2) Tom Dickey in the video “Bombs in the Basement” refers to an accident where a friend of his named Sam (not White) and his son standing nearby were hurt during a deactivation with a drill press.
3) In 2008 Sam White was killed apparently operating an angle grinder on the surface of a watercap ball in his driveway.
4) Lawrence Christopher was hurt in 2006 disarming a 20pdr Parrott shell with a hand drill in a shed next to his house. His grandson was standing nearby, possibly holding a water hose on the projectile, and hurt in the hand but apparently not seriously.
I’d be interested if anyone is aware of other incidents resulting in injury or death in the past 50 years.
Three conclusions:
1) These incidents are extremely rare and the pieces have to be provoked to bite back and so the imagined danger that something that has sat perfectly harmlessly for 150 years will spontaneously erupt is foolish.
2) Use of hand held power equipment on black powder shells is hazardous.
3) I suppose it is an exercise of individual liberty if someone (not me!) wants to operate a handheld power tool on a shell. In my mind this is not too terribly different in risk to oneself from smoking, riding a motorcycle without a hemet, skydiving, shovelling snow, cleaning out your gutters on a long ladder, etc, BUT anyone doing it within range of others such as the children associated with two of these incidents, is doing something I find to be inexcusable, indeed reprehensible, and I assume others feel likewise.
I invite comments that add to the fact base of this thread.
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The only thing to note about the Sam White incident........from what I understand, he had already drilled the 8" ball and was cleaning the outside. The lesson here......just because it has a hole in the shell, does not mean that it is "safe". After drilling, the shell should be soaked in water and rinsed out till the water comes out clear.
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I couldn't agree with relicrunner more. I recently checked a 'disarmed' 12-lber Bormann cannon ball. But when I pushed a wire into the hole in the bottom it wasn't even all the way though the iron. Then I found a hole on the side that had been filled and it went through the iron side but not much past that. Since it was a case shot the hole didn't extend through the case matrix to the powder. I had it drilled correctly and powder flushed out. Now it has 3 holes and really looks disarmed and finally is disarmed.
Three points I'd like to make on this subject is:
- You should be able to push a copper (or other non-ferrous material!) wire from the drill hole to the other side of the shell. If not, it's likely not flushed good.
- It is very hard to wash the powder out of a 1/4 inch hole. You have to get a nozzle in the drilled hole and the powder and debris have to come back out around the nozzle which is hard to do in a small hole. Sometimes you'll see two 1/4 holes to deal with this.
- Many shells can't be washed out with one soaking. I've had some that have required 3, 4 and 5 soaks to get it all.
The Sam White situation is quite unfortunate and weird. He obviously was a very experienced guy doing this. It would seem he thought that shell had been washed out. Perhaps he just purchased it as a disarmed shell and assumed the guy who diarmed it had washed it out. The other oddity is that he was using a grinder on the shell, if in fact that was the case. It's not the type of tool you would typically clean a relic with. But perhaps it was a small grinder that he was cleaning around the fuse hole with and decided to touch something up around the drill hole. I guess we'll never know.
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Mike,
Great post. I am almost certain that incident 1 and 2 were the same incident involving a man getting ready for a show and was drilling a spherical shell of unknown size having a U.s. Navy (Alger) water cap fuse, drilling it in a drill press. As I understand the accident reort (verbal) he was killed and the boy, son injured. Many years later after the case was closed the fuse was given to me and went with my collection to Jack Bell.
I guess I am confused about the name of the person injured in GA. I thought it was Corky Huey. Straighten me out Mike.
I certainly concur with the other points you made along with the following two posts after your informative input.
If I may add a note about cleaning shells: You can read in my book on what happens to the powder after setback and impact, with illustrations. One cannot just rinse the inside of a shell, it has to be forcefully ejected out with a powerful water jet. I have found, in some instances , where the powder had gotten wet and then dried over the years to be as hard as sun dried clay. Some would not ignite with a blow torch, while others were just as sensitive as the day it was poured into the shell.
Regards,
John
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Several of us know Corky well and I am not aware of him being involved in an accident, much less one that caused injuries. There is always the possibility I am wrong, but I have never seen any visible physical issues on him in all our discussions. Also, he lives in South Carolina and always has.
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Mike,
Thanks, then it was Lawerence that had the serious injury to the frontal lobe and left him impaired.
I hope this rather unpleasant discussion of injuries caused by on site drilling of projectiles, of any type, will discourage any of our readers/members from any thoughts of disarming a shell, just one, or induce those that are currently drilling shells with power tools will stop the dangerous game of 'Russian Roulette" as the next shell may cost you your live or permnaent disability.
some have referred to people who inert shells as 'professionals' , those that are still with us may be more aptly called 'Mr. Lucky".
Regards,
John
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John,
Agreed. I guess you can be considered a professional if you've drilled some and are still alive. But I'd prefer to leave that term to service providers who take all reasonable precautions and do a complete job.
What amazes me is that I know of people who still hand drill. I think I'd be way too nervous waiting for the ka-pow to hold the drill steady. :)
I saw Corky on Saturday at the Columbia Show and can vouch he is alive and well with all appendages in good working order.
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The 1st incident mentioned was Rick Swain, owner of Ricks Relics near Greenville, NC. It happened in 1978. I heard it was a Fort Fisher found naval shell, but I really don't know that to be true. Two teenagers standing nearby were hurt pretty bad.
I have also heard of a accident involving World War 2 era soldiers being killed or injured at Fort Macon, NC by shells being used as andirons in one of the post fireplaces.
Hope this info is useful.
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Thanks Pipe. So I need to update the 50 year casualty number to 6 injured and keep the incident # at 4 and the killed at 2.
WWII ordnance and timing is outside the scope and 50 year window.
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You are welcome. I just thought I would mention the Fort Macon accident. I'm not sure if someone was killed or injured there, so I went back and changed that on my post. Rick Swain info is pretty solid, as what I have heard over the years matches a article I found sometime back.
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One other thing, the Fort Macon kaboom was Civil War era artillery shell. Still outside of your 50 year period though.
Thanks
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Sir,
Was Swain killed in his incident?
John
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That is what we wrote John
I should add a #4 after reading the Fort Macon incident for sheer stupidity aka the "Darwin Awards"
There are folks out there who think this stuff is a hazard that must be actively and heavily regulated, to a vastly greater extent than it is now with existing laws. I chose 50 years as a window arbitrarily, but if we extended it to 70 the statistics would still be similar in showing the black powder shells require provocation and the #s involved are minuscule. More people died riding motorcycles in my state today I bet then the sum total over the last 50 years from artillery de-milling.
I am shocked, however, that 3 of the four incidents involved young people standing nearby. See point #4 above and in my opinion those responsible adults that survived deserve severe punishment and liability for endangerment.
If you fiddle with any type of shell (and the #s of carved Civil War era bullets as well as my own youth living in the country are testament to it happening) or expose to fire the box of shotgun shells bought today in lots of 25 at Walmart for $6.50 a box, you are inviting consequences. My light target shotgun rounds for skeet have 1 1/8 ounce of powder per so nearly 2lbs of powder in a box. That rates far above any field artillery projectile and into the realm of large shells.
I think that authorities have tended to recognize this relativism and generally only react decisively when things are brought to them or there is an incident as with Sam White and Lawrence Christopher.
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Sir,
Was Swain killed in his incident?
John
Yep he died. The newspaper article said it blew the roof off of the building.
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When I lived in DC, about a mile from the White House, in an apartment with 500 shells, I was constantly worried about a worker entering the apartment, calling the authorities, and suffering the loss of all my "explosives" in a spectacular raid of my apartment. In particular, I didn't want the firemen to worry if they were called to the building and refusing to fight a fire. I called the fire chief one day, said that a friend of mine was moving to DC with his historical collection of shells, and asked for guidance. The fire chief of DC said that they would immediately contact the explosives removal authorities, and asked me for names and addresses. I hung up, thankful I had called from my Skype phone. I never again attempted to notify any authorities.
I now live in the free city of Atlanta, where my neighbors are respectful, and no one has ever mentioned any anxiety at all. What a difference 650 miles makes.
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Anyone interested in this topic can find additional information at the link below - it goes to a discussion of deactivating CW shells, the chemical composition of black powder, and other relevant information posted on Harry Ridgeway's web site. Makes for interesting reading. I'm away from my collection of North South Traders, but I recall an extensive article in one issue on disarming / detonation of CW artillery.
http://www.relicman.com/artillery/zArchiveArt.zRestoration.00.htm
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Yep, I lived across the river for several years. Gotta love DC logic.
Note in this picture they recently turned the cannons in Lafayette square to point away from the White House. When you lived there they were pointed right at it!
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Here's the article Jimmy:
http://www.civilwarnews.com/archive/articles/07/projectiles_exp.htm
But I strongly disagree with the part about No “relic shell” that has been outside, in the ground or under water for 25 or more years, contains a live powder charge.
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Mike, I agree with you. I've dumped black powder out of a 10 inch mortar shell and lit it. Have to believe some shells are sealed tight enough underground to still be live.
Thanks for pulling this out and posting.
On this thread, do you know if the story of Lee Sanzo blowing up an oven drying a shell is true or Civil War collecting myth? I've heard it from several sources - but all stories are consistent that no one was injured in the explosion so it was never a "public" story
And as an aside, heard any other reports on the Brandon show? I've not heard from anyone who attended - have to believe the CW collecting community attendance was pretty low.
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I heard the Brandon Show stunk basically for our kinds of stuff. Guy I spoke with bought a 3" Hotchkiss shell there and passed on the only other shell which was a $200 rough 20pdr Parrott. He also bought a half blown Bormann and a base of another Parrott. Otherwise nada, but the rumor is they are moving it to Vicksburg next year.
The oven story is true. What I heard was he put the shell in the oven to dry it out and "retired upstairs with his girlfriend." Their time together was rudely interrupted by a large "bang" (sound that is). He subsequently discovered his oven door was blown open and twisted some.
He was not entirely a violator of rule #4 above because he had the oven set on a low temperature. It seems the explosion was not the powder but rather the tar matrix inside the ball. Hence the relatively minimal damage.
No one was injured so this does not change the statistics stated above. Still, an entertaining story that is worth remembering, and I admire the way he took care to make sure his girlfriend was out of the line of fire. No doubt he told her she was going to get "galvanized."
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Sir and Mike,
My friend told me the exact same thing, "it blew the roof off".
so that really confirms that 1 and 2 are the same incident.
Regards,
John
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Agree, probably the same incident. A lot about Rick Swain's accident is anecdotal since all this time has passed. I guess the two boys are still alive these days. I don't think they were related to him, but were merely interested in Civil War stuff and hung around his place.
I've heard the shell in the oven story as well and was confirmed as true, but didn't know who did it.
As far as powder in underwater shells go, according to Dr. Stanley South's book, he found a 15 inch shell in the Cape Fear River in front of Fort Anderson in the 1960's. He removed the nwc fuze and the powder was so dry that he was able to pour all of it out.
I can also attest to powder being left in shells that were previously thought inert. Using a bore light and copper wire I found two case shot balls in my collection that still had clumps of powder in them.
We may never know, but I concur with the thoughts that Sam White was working on a shell that was drilled and considered empty. I didn't know him well, but he wasn't a careless person.
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I pinched my finger the other day moving a 13-inch mortar shell. Does that count as an artillery injury? ;D It sure hurt!
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From what I've been told, relicrunner is right about the Sam White incident. I think powder was spilling out of the drill hole, the grinder sparks ignited it and the lit powder burned back into the shell, and it exploded. It would probably be hard to recreate that situation. Pete knows all the details about what happened.
I have a very small projectile collection, but I had the same worries that Scott did. (It was a discussion Scott & I had that led to his calling the fire authorities in D.C. for their "helpful advice".) I live in a small city, am friends with the police chief & the asst. fire chief, so I wrote them a letter, explaining that I had projectiles at both my home & my office, & all of them had been made inert or were solid. I invited them to inspect my collection. I pointed out that a number of "experts" had seized & foolishly destroyed shells (including solid shot) in other communities, & I didn't want want them to fear & destroy my collection. The asst. fire chief recently took up relic hunting, so I think I'm in good shape.
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Emike123 wrote:
> 1) There was a fellow in the ‘70s killed disarming what I think was a watercap fused ball using a power drill.
> I cannot recall his name, but others probably do.
Rick Swain, Kinston NC, 1978. The shell was a 9" US Navy Watercap fuzed ball. Rick was using a (vertical) electric drill-press, in his relic shop. Frags went through the roof, but did not "blow the roof off," as erroneously reported. The shellwall of that 74-pound roundshell was 1.7" thick. Rick's error was drilling through its iron body for too long a time without backing the bit out of the hole for cooling, and not keeping water in the BOTTOM of the drillhole. According to the teenager who was present, the shell began to "fizzle," and Rick only had time to yell "Look out!" before it exploded. My EOD contacts have told me the ignition-temperature for Blackpowder is 572 degrees Fahrenheit. A drillbit can get hotter than that when you use it continuously for (approximately) 60 seconds ...especially if the bit has become dulled.
> 2) Tom Dickey in the video “Bombs in the Basement” refers to an accident where a friend of his named
> Sam (not White) and his son standing nearby were hurt during a deactivation with a drill press.
Tom's friend was Sam McLaren, who lived in the Washington DC area. The shell was a Bormann-fuzed 2.9" Read-Parrott. Mr. McLaren lost part of two fingers. The incident happened in the late-1960s or early-1970s.
3) In 2008 Sam White was killed apparently operating an angle grinder on the surface of a watercap ball in
> his driveway.
The shell, as in the Rick Swain incident, was a 9-inch Navy Watercap fuzed ball.
> 4) Lawrence Christopher was hurt in 2006 disarming a 20pdr Parrott shell with a hand drill in a shed next
> to his house. His grandson was standing nearby, possibly holding a water hose on the projectile, and hurt
> in the hand but apparently not seriously.
Lawrence was using an electric drill. His older-teenage grandson was holding a waterhose on the shell during the drilling. This incident shows water must be kept at the bottom of the drillhole, not just at its top. Metal shavings clog the drill's flutes as it operates, pushing the water out of the bottom of the hole. Also, the drill's spin causes the flutes to act like a propeller, pulling water out of the bottom of the hole.
Additional incidents, due to extremely high temperature, not drilling:
The "Lee Sanzo's Oven" incident occurred because the shell was a Schenkl Case-Shot. It had already been drilled, having two drillholes in it. Lee told me he was attempting to melt the asphalt matrix out of it. When exposed to high temperature, asphalt releases explosive hydrocarbon gases. The oven's burner ignited the gas.
In the late-1970s, Tom Dickey paid a worker to melt the lead sabot off of an excavated Hotchkiss shell, which Tom had mistaken for a Bolt (Solid-Shot projectile). That excavated shell turned out to have a very rust-encrusted Iron-Anvil-Cap West Point fuze in it, which Tom thought was merely a Hotchkiss Bolt's sharp-pointed nose. The worker sued Tom due to injury, and Tom settled out-of-court. Tom himself told me the details I'm telling you here.
If you are not 100%-certain that a projectile is a Solid-Shot, check it on a PRECISION weighing-scale, such as a Postal Shipping scale -- NOT a typically-inaccurate household bathroom weigh-scale. An actual Solid-Shot will always be appreciably heavier than a shell, or even a Case-Shot. The precise weights of nearly every type of civil war shells and Solid-Shots are given in my book, and some are given in Melton-&-Pawl's paperback guidebook.
I know of two unintended-detonation incidents in which a civil war shell was blamed in the newspaper reports ...but in both cases the shell turned out to be a World War Two era shell.
Having kept up with the subject of unintended detonation of civil war shells for nearly 40 years, I am also aware that a small number (less than half-a-dozen) of civil war shells have exploded during Remote Drilling. That is a noteworthy statistic in view of the fact that tens-of-thousands of civil war shells have been drilled.
Despite exhaustive research, including Internet-searching of multiple decades of Newspaper Archives, I have not found a single report of an EXCAVATED civil war era artillery shell exploding from merely being dropped, Nor, even from as "provocative" an action as being hammered-on. (Relic-diggers are notorious for bashing the rust-crust off of their shells with a hammer.) Apparently, not a single explosion has resulted from either of those two kinds of provocations even when the EXCAVATED civil war shell has a Percussion (impact-detonation) fuze. At least, not during the past 100 years.
Clearly, civil war artillery shells are a FAR less dangerous class of Ordnance than 20th-Century artillery projectiles.
That being said, I do understand why the Police and other government officials have the attitude they do, telling the public to call the police if a shell is discovered. The average American cannot distinguish between a highly dangerous 20th-Century shell and a comparatively harmless civil war era shell. Frankly speaking, nearly all Policemen and Soldiers cannot do that. It is our duty to educate them about the actual Facts. Some of them, if approached properly, will listen. For example, the local Police and the Fredericksburg and Richmond National Park Service personnel now contact me when they encounter a shell. Please encourage your local police department (and battlefield park personnel) to do that also.
I will have some interesting news to announce to this forum on that subject next month.
Regards,
Pete
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Most of us here understand that these shells aren't going to blow up by themselves, but for lay people, no amount of reassurances are going to help. If anyone has ever perused a copy of Warman's Civil War Collectibles identification and price guide (you can get it at Barnes and Noble), the author John F. Graf states that "Many cartridges and artillery rounds are live! That is, they can explode. Know what you're acquiring before you take it home. If you are out digging, bear in mind that the artillery round you are unearthing could explode. Take extreme caution. Only allow experts to disarm a projectile. There isn't much of a learning curve that allows for mistakes." This is followed by 14 pages of various shells with a description of each and a value. He doesn't do much to sway a non-collector from thinking that any part of our hobby is safe. Here in Hawaii, every so often WWII ordinance is recovered on the beaches and it makes big news, clearing the beach and ending up on the front page of the paper and on the news. Agree with Scott, unless the general public is made more aware of our hobby it's better to keep it under wraps. I know I stated it on the previous thread, but people disarming shells by hand don't do artillery collectors any favors when they are killed or hurt in the process.
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I had forgotten about the incident with Tom Dickey's helper.
Revised 50 year #s: 5 incidents with 2 fatalities and 7 injuries
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EOD work is a pass/fair course where one mistake fails you.
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From what I've been told, relicrunner is right about the Sam White incident. I think powder was spilling out of the drill hole, the grinder sparks ignited it and the lit powder burned back into the shell, and it exploded. It would probably be hard to recreate that situation. Pete knows all the details about what happened.
I have a very small projectile collection, but I had the same worries that Scott did. (It was a discussion Scott & I had that led to his calling the fire authorities in D.C. for their "helpful advice".) I live in a small city, am friends with the police chief & the asst. fire chief, so I wrote them a letter, explaining that I had projectiles at both my home & my office, & all of them had been made inert or were solid. I invited them to inspect my collection. I pointed out that a number of "experts" had seized & foolishly destroyed shells (including solid shot) in other communities, & I didn't want want them to fear & destroy my collection. The asst. fire chief recently took up relic hunting, so I think I'm in good shape.
That's true, Lamar, and I appreciated your sage advice.
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My "advice" came close to having the authorities save us by seizing (& destroying) your collection - good thing your inquiry was made on behalf of a "friend".
I enjoy the advantages of a small town, where the "authorities" are much more friendly.
For reasons no one knows, a CS 12pdr common shell, designed for a Bormann fuse, is in a display case in the local courthouse. I took it to Pete to make it inert, and gave the clerk a letter (that Pete edited for me) describing the shell, explaining how it "worked", etc., and making it clear that it was disarmed. I also put a sticker on the ball, stating it was disarmed. I still worry that a do-gooder will "discover" it & call the bomb squad (that happened several years ago at a Georgia college).
http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/live-civil-war-cannonballs-602538.html