Which is more disturbing.......

[Prop Joe]

Ianr33, this might make some sense to how cannonballs can explode. Cross sections with shot and explosive charge inside. Set off by a fuse to explode at a certain timed delay or on impact.

Very interesting. I guess I never thought about the potential of there being a charge of propellant/powder in a cannon ball. I'll never touch one again unless I can be sure there is not a propellant charge in the ball. I guess the only way to tell would be if there is some kind of evidence of a primer and at that point of getting the ball clean enough to see it.... Boom!

FWIW Col. Boxer also invented the Boxer primer which is the primer used the most in most modern metallic cartridge loading/reloading:
Centerfire ammunition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Psode27]

Great thread! Learned quite a bit! Very interesting about the name associations!

 

[Rich Keller]

Okay, I am struggling with this one. I am not sure which is more disturbing, a criminal mastermind wreck diver who believes it is okay to loot protected shipwrecks and then gets caught by the the TSA.......... or a genius who thinks it is okay to put old ordinance in his checked luggage and then get on the plane???? Either way, I am sure the people who were evacuated now think very highly of divers.

If I have to pick just one, putting live ordinance on the plain YOU are flying in has got to be first. This is not even a manufactured product, it is just stuffed with whatever they had laying around that they thought might work, so there is no way to even guess how unstable this thing might have been. Just that act of drying out the powder, accelerated at altitude in a very dry environment, could have set it off.

---------- Post Merged at 06:12 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 05:57 PM ----------

Very interesting. I guess I never thought about the potential of there being a charge of propellant/powder in a cannon ball.

Cannon balls did not have a propellant charge, only an explosive charge. Propellants came in later when the ball shape changed to the shell shape similar to what is used today and the canon barrels were rifled.

 

[AfterDark]

yep. you learn something every day.


notice the other improved shell was made by Boxer. makes you wonder when one of those shells went off, you had to go "change your boxers" was coined?

Boxer primers. Still used today on modern bullets.

 

[vladimir]

What's wrong with putting old local laws on a plane?

I don't think everybody "got" that.

ordnance: military weapons with their equipment, ammunition, etc.

ordinance: an authoritative rule or law.

Great thread! Learned quite a bit! Very interesting about the name associations!

Yes, thanks for resurrecting it. I missed it six months ago.