Shells found in cannons aboard USS Cairo exhibit (anti-gun hysteria alert)

Vicksburg Post ^ | 11/20/03 | Knowlton

[pabianice]

Ban all black power cannons submerged for over 100 years! This menace must be ended!

[Hodar]

Note to self.... when on sinking battle ship; make sure you unload the cannons before seeking the life boats.

[BBell]

I just can't get used to Black Barets on everyone.

[FreePaul]

It was sunk by a mine during an expedition up the Yazoo...

I always wondered where that expression came from.

[You Gotta Be Kidding Me]

I know of a man in the Corps of Engineers who foolishly used a burner to burn moss off of a solid shot from the C.S.S. Georgia wreck. The "shot" turned out to be a shell (whoops!) and he blew up his storage shed in his backyard, when it detonated. Luckily for him, he had gone inside for a beer, when it blew. Nobody got hurt, but he sure would have been a Darwin Award nominee, if he had been killed. He had to "explain" why he swiped an historical artifact, however.

[Jonah Hex]

When I was in college (years and years ago in that far-off era known today as the hedonistic '70s), a handyman in Kinston, NC blew himself up with a Civil War shell. Apparently he assumed it was a solid shot cannonball and began drilling a hole in it to make a lamp out of it.

Oops. Bad move, Otis.

It was an explosive shell. The resultant heat and sparks ignited the dried and unstable powder, blew the back wall off the shop, and killed him dead.

[Wonder Warthog]

Geez--why not run a fiber optic image probe down the bore?? Who needs X-rays??

[Lockbar]

Black powder, even once wet, will ignite if now dry and sparked. 140 years doesn't really make a difference unless their has been some kind of degeneration of the composition. I've been shooting like crazy for 30 years, been reloading cartridges most of that time, and have never heard of black powder going "dead". I don't suggest over reaction, but it might be smart to figure out how to safely "unload" those guns before some "Bart Simpson" type idiot kid throws a lit M-80 down one of those cannon barrels.

[Lee Heggy]

Yankee cannons...let the yanks unload em....I'll stand over here.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Our high school ROTC arranged a visit from a US Navy EOD Charleston SC unit. One of the EOD men told us that they used to drill out old canonballs and remove the powder. This made them inert so the finder could safely keep the cannonball. They said that some EOD people were killed doing that so they stopped. He said that now ( this was back in the 1970's ) they just destroy them like any other explosive. I don't think policy this had changed since then so it looks like they may end up blowing these up.

[holdmuhbeer]

where is the anti gun hysteria in this article? This is a safety issue here. Black powder can remain active as long as its dry for a very long time as illustrated in some other posts above me.

[Last Dakotan]

Why is a women (who is supposed to be relegated by law to a non-combat role) trained to handle unexploded ordinance?

[jjm2111]

You sank my battleship!

[Robe]

About 11 years back a fellow with a backhoe was excavating a foundation for a new fellowship hall at a near by church. He came across what he thought was some old sewer
lines. He thought there was something strange about ‘em and called the cops.
The cops determined that they were civil war cannon and called the EOD team at Ft.Jackson, fortunately a police Lt. who was a reenactor called a local historian. He
contacted the State museum in Columbia and got a hands off order.
The museum didn’t have the funds to do anything about the guns and when we convinced the curator we were competent he allow us to take possession.
To make a long story short, all four guns had been booby trapped via multiple shells (they were 3’ confederate rifles) placed nose to nose in the tubes, it took ten years, countless hours of volunteer labor and donations to finally to ‘em where they belong.
Two were placed on steel carriages obtained from the Parks Service(Fredricksburg) by the good graces of Strum Thurman.
They are currently on public display in the town square in Chester SC, at the Chester County courthouse, one at the State museum in Columbia and the last was sleeved,placed on a period wooden carriage, and is the only original 3” Confederate Parrot gun inthe reenactment community.
And..... I was honored with being on the cannon crew when she was fired for the first time in 137 years... an’ that baby still has quite a bark!!!!
BTW....And YES.. the powder in the interior shells was as good as the day it came from the powder factory!!!

[Fudd]

She said she had never been called to handle any similar material. “I would think very few people have,” she said.

My dad would be one of those people. He led a clean-up project in an East Coast city Army arsenal some time ago. He kept one Civil War cannonball as a souvenier. I've always been very careful in handling it, though.

[Constitution Day]

You're 100% correct.

[El Gato]

Why is a women (who is supposed to be relegated by law to a non-combat role) trained to handle unexploded ordinance?

Handling unexploded ordinance, while dangerous, isn't combat. That's why.

Besides which, "non-combat" isn't the law, only certain specialties, basically those involved in close combat. We have female A-10 pilots. Ask the Saddamites how combat capable they are. (F-16,F-15, B-52, F-14, F/A-18, etc, etc as well of course, but the A-10s get down and dirty, and often come back full of holes, but still flying) We have females crewing Patriot batteries, and flying helicopters. My favorite story concerns a female Air Force type on an AC-130, or maybe it was on an AWACS that was "working" AC-130s, I'm having a senior moment I guess, who would get on the radio and taunt the AlQaida and Talibunnies in Afghanistan. She'd tell them what we were going to do to them, and afterwards asked them how they liked it, assuming there was anyone left with a working radio to hear her. The Northern Alliance guys would get on the same freq and translate. :)

[AnAmericanMother]

Yep, ya gotta watch that stuff.

A friend of mine growing up lived in a house that was around when the Battle of Atlanta was fought (more accurately, it was in the middle of the advance from Kennesaw Mt. and Marietta to Atlanta - just south of the major river crossing - and somebody used it for a headquarters.) The yard was FULL of artifacts, including a lot of unexploded ordnance.

When we played in her yard, we had a standing "Eddie Eagle" type order if we found anything that looked "old" - stop, go inside and get one of the grownups. Her parents had a couple of big books with pictures and sketches to aid in identification of shells, and they were on a first name basis with the EOD types at Fort McPherson and the Atlanta Historical Society.

Nothing ever went "boom", though. :-)

[Britton J Wingfield]

I heard of one on an AC-130, who would yell, "You just got killed by a GIRL!" at the talibunnies :)

[Last Dakotan]

I'm thrilled that she had such a positive and cheerful experience, and came back with cute story to tell.

I have to suppose, given recent experience, that had her aircraft been downed and she had been captured her experience would have been a little less "cute".