True story of the possible dangers of old ammo

[RRCo.]

Not that I want to hijack my own thread....

Cordite and warships:
http://www.gwpda.org/naval/thist24.htm

One of the reason why everthing milspec has to be grounded for static electricty.

Well, now you've opened a can of worms!

You see there's a subject for a TV show there: what did cause all those mostly British ships to blow up, from before Jutland to HMS Hood?

There's a pretty good synopsis of the article here: http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/331-loss-of-the-british-battle-cruisers/

Your link to the HMS Bulwark article supports it: overly casual ammunition handling, and in particular the danger created by black powder leaking from the ignitor 'cells' of the silk cordite charge bags.

The Director of Naval Ordnance whose post-Jutland report identified the problem was sent to command the China Station for his troubles!

After all it would have caused a bit of stink for some pretty important people in the RN if it had come out that all those ships and thousands of men had been lost due to sloppy ammo handling caused by a fire doctrine based more on the broadsides of the Napoleonic Wars than modern naval gunnery.

It's been suggested that they buried Admiral Turner and his report so well, that the same error may have been made in HMS Hood in 1941, with similar results!

 

[diopter]

Our friends to the south also:

http://battleshipinfo.########.ca/2...ents.html#!/2013/01/battleship-incidents.html
I'm sure there were others that were 'Hushed-up"

 

[mcpherson284]

With a smooth bore shotgun.... you could probably get away with chancing it because of how low the pressures are in a shotgun..... but good call on your part.

All in all, an interesting story even if there are anomalies in it.

To be taken wisely as a reminder not to feed questionable ammos to your firearms.
Personally, I avoid such risks as I feel it is much safer and cheaper than the contrary.

I have a bucket full of 16 gauge I retrieved for disposal from an old relative recently. The shells have been negligently stored in that bucket in a humid basement for more than 40 years. They are filthy dirty, they reek mold and corrosion is present at the base. Rot is well present on the few with paper tube. A fellow insist at wanting to shoot them anyway. He got upset because I turned him down, not wanting to be related to any possible incident with them.

Maybe overly cautious, but nobody will get hurt and no shotgun will be scrapped.

Thanks for posting. A lot of educated observations & comments came out of it.

 

[vinver]

I remember seeing a video about recent Gallipoli undersea salvaging of battle wrecks and they were bring up heaps of loose cordite sticks from ship artillery that when lit it burned like it was new even after being exposed under the sea for 90 + years.

In WW2 , (March 17, 1942 in fact) the Clare Lilley ran aground off Halifax (at Portuguese Cove). It was a freighter loaded with bombs and ammunition. A lot of ammunition went down with the ship, and for many years washed up on shore. My wife and her friends used to comb the beach (that the were told was nicknamed "Cordyke Cove" and picked up the small tubular pieces from the sand and rocks. They'd pile it up and light it to get a fire started on the beach. Went up pretty good, she said. Later in the 70's or 80's the Canadian Forces spent a lot of time and money to clean up the area and it is nearly impossible to find any trace of the shipwreck on shore now. My dad was a diver at that time out of Shearwater and was involved in the cleanup. But it is still a popular dive site today. .

 

[JimDO]

Interesting theory re the Hood blowing up RRCo. (So we chased down and slautered the Bismarck and her crew un-necessarily?). Jeese that was the era of beautiful battleships!

Back on topic... the oldest shells that I have fired (20 yrs ago) were WW2 Russian Mosin Nagant rounds(readily available at LeBarons Mississauga at that time)

No issues..all fired fine out of my long gone WW2 full sized Nagent