Posted on 05/02/2008 8:39:16 PM PDT by fishhound
CHESTER, Va. (May 2) - 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 lay 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.aol.com ...
One thing I learned shooting old time black powder guns over the years is that unlike smokeless powder, black powder has a very long shelf life.
Hope to build a traditions soon.
Trying to find a civil war history ping list do you know who might have one?
Color me ignorant, but I didn’t know that old cannonballs explode. I honestly thought that the explosion was in the cannon, which propelled the ball as a projectile and the resulting damage was from impact, not explosion.
How are those things constructed?
What did these cannonballs use for a detonator? Was there some kind of primer/fuse that went off on impact?
Might have been:
Light fuse
Drop cannonball in cannon
Light cannon fuse
I could be wrong though.
Don’t know but I do know some where explosive.
Trying to find and ping the civil war or guys in the know on FR.
“Now, son, gunpowder is very safe, and i’m a trained profeessional. Hand me that blowtorch so I can get started.”
Holy delayed-reaction, Batman!
Great picture.
Fuses...they’re whats for dinner. lol
indcons...Ping Mil History
On the other hand I could see a few names!
Names I wouldn’t loose sleep over!
thanks
did they have special wrencheds for these like deck plate wrenches?
LOL.
Hence the "Star Spangled Banner" lyrics: "And the rockets' red glare; the bombs bursting in air"...
Trying to find a civil war history ping list do you know who might have one?
It is a blast (pun intended) to shoot black powder arms. I've had 'em, all single shot flintlocks, percussion riles, pistols and revolvers. Build it and have a blast. If you need helpful hints about their firing and care, send me a FreepMail. Although I had three great-grandfathers in the conflict, I don't know of a Civil War ping list. Does anyone else?
Thanks. I will.
Did you do the match lock at all? A guy posted a deer kill on youtube with one, gun looked 5 feet long.
Cannonballs don’t explode.
Shells do.
I fired a matchlock once. Kinda fun. I have a custom built replica of an 1790s flintlock with a four foot barrel and with the stock, it comes out to over five feet in length.
Reading a period (~1875) sea story novel, there's a passage describing the powder crew on a US frigate. Nailess felt shoes, garb with no buttons, etc., and they'd march in to the copper lined magazine turn the powder kegs every so often to help keep the powder from separating.
But, this unfortunate occurrence makes the passage a description of busy work, or an exercise in safety handling the stuff in such. (Probably beat the grunt work on a wooden ship of the era)
This article is from the U.S. Civil War FAQ, by Justin M. Sanders jsanders@jaguar1.usouthal.edu with numerous contributions by others.
Here is a list of the various ammunitions used in the war. The main
division is between shot (did not carry its own explosive charge) and
shell (carried an explosive charge).
For shot:
1. solid shot-- the standard cannon ball (or bullet shape in the in case
of a rifled gun)
2. canister-- smaller shot placed in a sheet iron cylinder. The
cylinder disintegrated when the gun was fired.
3. grape-- smaller shot layered between iron plates and held together by
a central bolt. Presumably the bolt broke when the gun fired allowing the
shot to scatter. Examples of grape shot can be seen in [2] pp. 76, 76,
and 191.
4. quilted grapeshot-- small shot covered in canvass and tied up with
rope which a gave it a quilted look. An example of quilted shot can be
seen in [2], p. 177.
5. chain shot-- two shot joined by a chain. Used to destroy rigging of
sailing ships.
6. bar shot-- two shot joined by a solid bar (like a dumbbell). Used to
destroy rigging to sailing ships.
7. red hot shot-- shot heated before firing. Used to start fires on
ships.
For shell:
1. standard shell-- hollow iron projectile filled with explosive
2. shrapnel shell-- hollow iron projectile filled with explosive and with
small solid shot which scattered upon explosion. The spherical version of
this was called "spherical case" or simply "case." The term "case" was
also used for the name of the class of rounds which scattered small shot,
thus canister, grape, and spherical case were all classified together as
"case shot." (confusing, isn't it?)
Shell was fitted with either a timed fuse (which ignited the charge
after some fixed delay) or a percussion fuse (which ignited the charge
upon impact).
Standard solid shot and standard shell were primarily for destruction
of materiel (viz. fortifications or ships). Canister, grape, quilted shot
and shrapnel were used against personnel. However, there were also
varieties of (non-shrapnel) shell designed for use against personnel (the
hollow was shaped so the shell would split into a relatively few large
pieces about the size of small shot).
[1] "Ammunition", in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed (1911).
[2] F.T. Miller, ed., "Photographic History of the Civil War," vol. 5,
"Forts and Artillery" (1957 edition).
[3] "Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War"
Nice.
They did that not to keep the powder from separating, but to keep it from bunching up in into a clogged lump (which would burn too slowly or not at all) in the humid, salty, air at sea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhNTB_4DjDg
Deer taken on the first day of muzzleloading season Oct. 13 in Georgia with my .75 caliber matchlock musket. Shot taken at about 40 yards, ball went straight through it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ynEquVaAA4
Don’t know why he chucks his ram on this one.
Thank you. Very interesting.
I learned something today.
It depends on the metal used to form the “bullets” or “cannon balls”. Lead bullets - no. Cast iron cannon balls - definitely yes.
The fuse was a pewter disk with numbers that gave you the delay. Under the disk was a powder train going to the main charge, wether black powder or lead balls held in place by pine pitch. Sectioned some, and the black powder was still good after all these years.
Not sure about cannon but with mortars they tried it that way at first and had some terrifying results. Someone then thought to load the shell with the fuse facing in toward the lifting charge so the fuse would light on firing. It was soon noticed that method caused the shell to explode immediately as the shell left the muzzle! After a bit of experimentation it was observed that the mortar shell fuse would reliably light from the muzzle blast of the propelling charge if the shell was loaded with the fuse facing out the muzzle.
Regards,
GtG
LOL, that deer is the size of a dog! Is that normal in Georgia?
The ones I worked on did.
That’s a beauty.
That’s not me...I just cut and pasted the text from the description on the right.
I don’t know but I thought the deer was small as well.
.75 cal has to be a big hole in that thing.
The ball was filled with black powder, a fuse was in the ball and was usually lit when the cannon fired(by the firing of the cannon). Some mortars had their fuse lit before the round was fired. They were more or less timed to go off at the range they were being fired at, I believe they were adjustable for time. This is a rough explanation and more detailed info can be obtained by your friendly search engine.
Thank you very much for posting that. Those were fun to watch.
Yes, very small compared to the ones I hunt.
Stuff the potato down the neck with a broom handle, add a little starter spray to the back chamber (2-1/2" ABS), quickly screw the voss plug in, and hit the sparker. It was a good way to get rid of potatoes that were getting too soft to cook.
I believe I know why AndrewB said what he did, but I will have to look it up to be sure.
A bullet is a projectile that is fired from a “rifled” barrel. Since the projectile must be malleable it precludes the use of iron.
Now I’m off to see if I got this one correct.
Yes, I think some other posters got it right. This was a shell, not a cannon ball. Any Civil War experts out there? is the Civil War the first one to use shells?
I can’t recollect but I think I saw a documentary where the French Navy was developing shells just before the civil war.
I may be wrong.
Ok, from reading a couple online definitions of “bullet” it seems that it is possible to shoot one from a non-rifled barrel as long as it is round.
So I guess it is more likely that steel bullets were never used what with the availability of lead and all.
"In addition to solid spheres of stone, lead, or cast iron, bombs or shells could also be fired from mortars, and later became quite popular, especially as an antipersonnel weapon. They were not usually fired from cannon until later. A bomb was a hollow sphere of cast iron with a port into which a fuze could be hammered."
"Shells are said to have been used at the sieges of Naples in 1495 and of Wachtendorf in 1588. Henry VIII is reputed to have had mortars and bombs made by foreigners in 1544, and by 1634 they were in common use by the Dutch and Spanish. Of course, bombs could be as effectively thrown by catapults as by cannon. Incendiary bombs had been known since antiquity." From this site on cannons
Shells do.
Sounds like you are arguing the semantics of "form factor"
Some Civil War cannoballs were hollow and contained an explosive charge.
I once watched (from a distance) a group of excited young men fire a potato into the air-straight up.
The Titan Tuber ascended at tremendous speed to a tremendous height-straight up.
The men hooted and hollered with joy as the potato shrank from view and the starchy projectile flew away -straight up.
Then, there was a moment of silence, as the young men pondered a long forgotten science lesson, the one about gravity. When they realized that their ballistic produce had not only failed to achieve orbit, but was descending at a terrifying rate of speed-STRAIGHT DOWN!
They scattered like startled chickens just in time to avoid injury as Mr. Potato Bomb arrived at its exact point of departure and exploded into a million pieces on the asphalt.
It was quite entertaining.
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