Grandad's Bullets

[Redroger]

I posted the warning as several years ago I was involved with some Live WW1 ammunition, and thought it appropriate to make a warning.

[Papa1]

Somebody I know of a few years back collects items such as these and bought some type of shell from a military collectors fayre.
He took it home and tried to dismantle it and I am told a hammer was one of the tools used.
To his horror he found it was still "live"!!!
Great care should be taken when handling items such as these and I personally wouldn't because I know nothing about them whether they are live, dead or drill rounds.
Another friend of mine when a young teenager (now in his fourties) found a .22 round and tried the old method of sticking it in a hole in piece of wood and hitting it with a hammer.
He was very lucky not to have died as he shot himself in the arm which exited out of his back and spent some time in hospital and answering numerous questions from the police as to where he got the round from.

[scrimnet]

My point was to lower the level of possible problems for a RC member, so as not to induce a panic reaction.

People "fiddling" with any form of ammunition without knowledge is asking for trouble.

I deal with ammo and weapons as part of my job, and therefore can speak from a vantage point.

[Redroger]

At the end of WW2 I was five years old. There was an ammunition store near where we lived, and in 1947 one sunday morning it was blown up. But not before little boys like me had found a way in. I remember holding live bullet cases in a vice, while we extracted the head with pliers in order to obtain the powder to make fireworks. We were lucky.
The incident I referrd to was later in the early 1970s after the death of my father when we opened a tin box he had kept under the bed from at least 1940. Enough WW1 ammo to start WW3. We disposed of it, but I am sure it would be more difficult now.

[Papa1]

People "fiddling" with any form of ammunition without knowledge is asking for trouble.

I totally agree and you don't have to be a weapons expert to understand that.
The only thing I "fiddled" with that some thought was dangerous was hang-gliding and skydiving but always wore the brown trousers!!

[Redroger]

Our daughter took up charity abseiling when she was nearly 40. Swore me to secrecy I didn't tell her mother until after she had completed it.

[scrimnet]

At the end of WW2 I was five years old. There was an ammunition store near where we lived, and in 1947 one sunday morning it was blown up. But not before little boys like me had found a way in. I remember holding live bullet cases in a vice, while we extracted the head with pliers in order to obtain the powder to make fireworks. We were lucky.
The incident I referrd to was later in the early 1970s after the death of my father when we opened a tin box he had kept under the bed from at least 1940. Enough WW1 ammo to start WW3. We disposed of it, but I am sure it would be more difficult now.

No it wouldn't!

I'd sort it for you...

Best story I've heard of around this sort of stuff is the old boy who kept a Vickers gun in his attic with several thousand rounds, pointing down the street, ready for the Russian invasion...He had an axe and a hammer ready to knock out the roof tiles and was going to hold out for as long as possible. They weren't found until after he had died 

[Redroger]

Thanks in the unlikely event of it happening again. At that time I just made sure it went into the local river at an appropriate point to save my newly widowed mother further distress.

[Papa1]

I think local rivers have been the focal point for many disposals such as these in the past and probably a few more in the future.