inert ordnance SME?

A

AG

Regular
Rating - 100%
57   0   0
So I've decided to go down the path of starting another "useless collection of crap" for the ultra cool man cave. I've taken an interest in large caliber/inert ordnance and would like to start collecting some of these items (to the hissing of the wife) ;)
I'd like someone who is a SME or has very good knowledge, to get in touch with me to help explain if there is a relatively simple way that I can confirm things are in fact safe and inert as I come across items for sale in this new collecting venture.
In my quick googling on the subject, I found mentions of in rare cases items being sold as inert, when in fact they were not. I don't want to go down that road,
Thanks for the help.
 
one way is to know your projectiles, early war AP rounds will mostly be solid steel, perhaps with a tracer component, the tracer part wont go boom, it just burns, another way is to look for drilled ammo, it will have a hole drilled into the explosive cavity of the projectile, another way is to buy practice rounds, they are typically blue.

simply knowing what you want before you buy will help you greatly, i buy ww2 commonwealth tank gun ammo, i know what the types of projectiles look like, i know what the cases look like, etc. if i came across anything that looked like it was HE or HEAT or anything that involved a fuse, i would want to see it taken apart first before it came home with me, i would also accept a cutaway version, if it was anymore than a fired case and it wasn't my main interest of collecting, i would probably not touch it
 
as long as you don't go picking though dump sites(these are all over Canada they thought it was a good idea to dump unused ordnance and that dose not account for the stuff used in training that did not go off) you should be good to go
 
Grizzly Adams said:
Blue seems to be the universal color for inert.

Grizz
Click to expand...

Incorrect.
Blue is the NATO collour to denote PRACTICE munitions.
Practice munitions can and usually do still contain plenty of live explosive substances albeit at a much reduced power and quantity than the live counterparts they emulate.
Case in point the M228 Practice fuze is blue in colour with a brown band. Blue indicating practice and the brown band being a low explosive (blackpowder encased in an aluminum tube).
Some items like the practice C19 claymore mine are blue in colour (the body/mine actual) and contain no live materials, the practice charges in that case which attach into the mine come separate and are then assembled together with the blue mine body for training/simulation.
Most practice items though (which would be blue in colour as per modern NATO marking standards) can contain a little or even a lot of any number of pyrotechnic compositions.

Inert items are completely void of any and all reactive or explosive compositions either directly produced that way from the manufacturer or having the live/energetic materials removed from them by qualified persons and holes drilled through where they used to be to ensure positive physical verification of the inert nature of the item. Usually they are then engraved, painted or stenciled with "INERT" in a number of places and usually assigned a locally produced serial number for inventory/tracking purposes.

All this for actual new/older military items. There are people who will take a live munitions at their home and attempt to remove all energetic material as well. These will obviously not follow any standard system and must be assessed visually or by x-ray by someone who knows what they are looking for to confirm 100% INERT or not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom