It looked just like this picture from e-bay, except that as I recall the grooves were closer together, so it would produce smaller fragments.
Great toy for a kid!
Posted on 04/04/2006 3:45:50 PM PDT by Trueblackman
Paperweight Explodes, Severs Teacher's Hand Tuesday , April 04, 2006 VENTURA, Calif. — A teacher who kept a 40 mm shell on his desk as a paperweight blew off part of his hand when he apparently used the object to try to squash a bug, authorities say. The 5-inch-long shell exploded Monday while Robert Colla was teaching 20 to 25 students at an adult education class. Part of Colla's right hand was severed and he suffered severe burns and minor shrapnel wounds to his forearms and torso, fire Capt. Tom Weinell said. No one else was injured. He was reported in stable condition at a hospital. The teacher slammed the shell down in an attempt to kill something that was buzzing or crawling across the desk, said Fire Marshal Glen Albright. Colla found the 40 mm round while hunting years ago and "obviously he didn't think the round was live," said Dennis Huston, who teaches computer design alongside Colla.
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It looked just like this picture from e-bay, except that as I recall the grooves were closer together, so it would produce smaller fragments.
Great toy for a kid!
I saw this in a movie Donald Duck cartoon.
Yep.
HAHAHAHAHAahahaha.a.a....
But I got's to know. Did he get 'im?
Ah, yup.
or
Working as a divemaster years ago early 90's), we hobbled onto an undiscovered wreck of a coast gaurd cutter lost during a hurricane in 1943. On it we found racks port and starboard full of still pinned depth charges and cases upon cases of 3" shells from it's deck gun.
Although we left the depth charges well enough alone we did bring back several of the 3" shells and had a munitions expert take them apart to find the primers still working and the cordite still dry and flashed as it should have.
50 years later and 110' under the Atlantic and they still would have worked.
how did he have a live 40mm shell on a desk in a california school without someone saying something? Maybe they all carry one?
His students will never forget that day's lesson!
I'll bet that student who would have been sitting where the shrapnel fell if he hadn't been absent is thanking God he wasn't there.
Not too many people know this, but the oil refinery near Ventura was shelled by a Japanese sub in the early days of WWII. I wonder if this guy found one of the unexploded shells from the attack, only to have it finally go off in his hand 64 years later?
No, the Japanese fired rounds from a 75 mm deck gun, not a 40 mm. The 5" length mentioned says it was a complete round. Had the teacher found an already fired 40 mm round it would be much shorter.
Must have been a center-fire-pede or a rim-fire-roach.
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