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Posted: 1/10/2021 6:30:32 PM EDT
[#1]
Not really all that uncommon. Our local EOD guys have recovered modern frags from gangbangers. Officer Albenedo was killed by a Vietnam bring back AK and the murderer threw a grenade in his car too. . (did not explode)
Then there are the scrappers picking UXO off of Ft Hood . Nothing like having some guy want to turn in a 105mm recoiless rifle round at your substation. 
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Posted: 1/10/2021 6:34:51 PM EDT
[#2]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I was EOD in the Army so let me throw a few things out there: - Inert grenades can be made nert if you have a few things that are easily obtained legally. I've recovered several. - Reloaded grenades have a bad habit of killing or injuring the reloader because they don't really know what they are doing.Most graphic I came across was a guy who filled the body with smokeless and put a shotgun primer in the fuze essentially making it no delay. In addition to a lot of blood and disassembled hand parts we found two others rigged this way. - I can't count the number of practice grenades repainted to look live I've come across. - Warzone bring backs are a real thing. I pulled a British Mills grenade out of an attic where someone replaced the pull ring with a small nail. - The Mk 2 grenade was usually filled with flaked TNT but one variant used EC Blank powder for the main charge. Yes, the one with the EC Blank was designed to explode....think pipe bomb. Neither filler gets more sensitive over time. Off the top of my head I can't think of a WWII and after main charge filler or fuze component that gets more sensitive over time. - Idiots have a bad habit of entering active or former ranges and taking live dud ordnance home as souvenirs. I can answer more if anyone is interested. I spent my career mostly in EOD/munitions and the last 22 in the UXO industry. Interesting. You should do a "Former EOD. Ask me anything" thread. When you say you recovered a lot of illicit explosives was that in the army or a police agency or in the army assisting the police? |
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Posted: 1/10/2021 6:47:26 PM EDT
[#3]
Damn what a tragedy.
 Absolutely terrible waste of life. |
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Posted: 1/10/2021 7:18:07 PM EDT
[#4]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I was EOD in the Army so let me throw a few things out there: - Inert grenades can be made nert if you have a few things that are easily obtained legally. I've recovered several. - Reloaded grenades have a bad habit of killing or injuring the reloader because they don't really know what they are doing.Most graphic I came across was a guy who filled the body with smokeless and put a shotgun primer in the fuze essentially making it no delay. In addition to a lot of blood and disassembled hand parts we found two others rigged this way. - I can't count the number of practice grenades repainted to look live I've come across. - Warzone bring backs are a real thing. I pulled a British Mills grenade out of an attic where someone replaced the pull ring with a small nail. - The Mk 2 grenade was usually filled with flaked TNT but one variant used EC Blank powder for the main charge. Yes, the one with the EC Blank was designed to explode....think pipe bomb. Neither filler gets more sensitive over time. Off the top of my head I can't think of a WWII and after main charge filler or fuze component that gets more sensitive over time. - Idiots have a bad habit of entering active or former ranges and taking live dud ordnance home as souvenirs. I can answer more if anyone is interested. I spent my career mostly in EOD/munitions and the last 22 in the UXO industry. Thanks for this post. I found useful information here. |
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Posted: 1/10/2021 7:35:36 PM EDT
[#5]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I had a similar experience last year with a Type 89 grenade from another firearms instructor's estate. I actually got some knowledgeable answers after a few hours, and the answer was "Just unscrew the detonator and remove all its primary explosives." But by the time I got that info they had already freaked out and called EOD, who took it and blew it up with C4. I was planning to rig tools to unscrew the detonator remotely in an open field, but apparently many WWII vets just unscrewed them by hand and it's NBD. I just didn't want to take any chances. Seems a shame to freak out and destroy something a museum could display when it's been sitting around for decades (or rolling around in the son's truck for a few days  ) harmlessly.Was the picric acid in the filler, or just the detonator assembly? I didn't see a way to remove the main fill either (since it's cast into the main body), but how dangerous is that without a live detonator? With an inert detonator in its place, should be pretty safe just displayed on a museum shelf, no? Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: We had an elderly woman bring three Jap WWII UXO to our military museum last year after her husband passed away (obviously a pacific theater vet): 1 ea Type 97 and 1 ea Type 99 frag grenades, and a 50mm Type 89 "knee mortar" grenade (Imperial Naval Landing Forces issue from the paint markings). I texted my EOD contacts on the east and west coasts for their opinion on if they could possibly be rendered safe for display as they were in pristine condition. The consensus was "FUCK NO!". Ok, no problem. After contacting the EOD guys we work with, they x-rayed all three and found them to have fill. Thing is with WWII Jap ordnance, they used picric acid which (from my understanding) becomes very unstable when it "crystalizes" due to age, and there really isn't any safe way to remove the fill. Off to the rock quarry they went for disposal. The ISP EOD tech that was there to observe told me that people turn in live frags throughout the year after some vet dies and the house of the deceased gets cleared out by the family. I was planning to rig tools to unscrew the detonator remotely in an open field, but apparently many WWII vets just unscrewed them by hand and it's NBD. I just didn't want to take any chances. Seems a shame to freak out and destroy something a museum could display when it's been sitting around for decades (or rolling around in the son's truck for a few days ) harmlessly.Was the picric acid in the filler, or just the detonator assembly? I didn't see a way to remove the main fill either (since it's cast into the main body), but how dangerous is that without a live detonator? With an inert detonator in its place, should be pretty safe just displayed on a museum shelf, no? I'd assume picric acid was used in the detonator, as noted above, it gets REALLY unstable when it dries out/crystallizes, I think most chemistry labs have removed it for that reason. Of course, if you've got access to a full chemistry lab and know what you're doing, you can recreate it :-) Or make other interesting compounds. There's a reason one of my old instructors freaked out when he looked at the original design for the combined chemistry and computing building at Georgia Tech, it originally had the chemistry magazine in the middle of the basement... After he made his objections clear, things were redesigned so the magazine was attached to the side of the building... |
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Posted: 1/10/2021 7:36:38 PM EDT
[#6]
RIP kid.
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Posted: 1/10/2021 7:38:10 PM EDT
[#7]
That is wholly fucked.
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Posted: 1/10/2021 9:04:05 PM EDT
[#8]
Quote HistoryQuoted: When I was 11 or 12, a few years after my dad died, I took one of the .50 cal MG cartridges we had been told by him and others were dummies and put it in a vise. Then I hit the primer with a nail. It took a couple hits, then a loud crack and a blinding flash. My fingers were torn up, my ears ringing and my face peppered with primer frags. The primer cup came out of the base of the cartridge and was skewered by the nail. Fortunately there was no powder in the case. My Dad had several old bring backs, including 20mm and 37mm (which I still have btw). I treated them with great respect after that. My fingers healed up. The Navy doc at the dispensary I went to just shook his head when I told him what I was doing. I shot one with a BB gun from a safe distance |
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Posted: 1/10/2021 9:08:24 PM EDT
[#9]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I wouldn't expect the average person to know what to look for too show a properly demilled grenade, much less a teenager. If I saw a grenade at a flea market I sure wouldn't expect it to be live, I mean I wouldn't pull the pin and hold it to find out for sure but I wouldn't expect it was live. A deactivated grenade it going to have a hole in it. A grenade that was never active will have a huge hole in the base where the explosives would have been placed. In the .mil we had (imagine this is still how they do it) we had replacement fuses that would only make a bang, and reuse the body. |
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Posted: 1/10/2021 9:10:58 PM EDT
[#10]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Yeah, because some kid that bought what he had every reason to believe was a dummy grenade at a flea market had bad genes. It's not like you at that age might have easily done the same thing. Yeah but back then the only strangers who would be worked up about it would be little old ladies in a church knitting circle.
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Posted: 1/10/2021 9:11:13 PM EDT
[#11]
Quote HistoryQuoted: This site deserves to be taken down. Too many ppl like you here that think you’re funny. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: LOL What the fuck do you find funny about this? Teh gene pool needs chlorination from time to time.  This site deserves to be taken down. Too many ppl like you here that think you’re funny. I agree. WTF |
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Posted: 1/10/2021 9:11:21 PM EDT
[#12]
Quote HistoryQuoted: This site deserves to be taken down. Too many ppl like you here that think you're funny. WHAT THE FUCK You actually think a whole site should be taken down because some of the opines expressed offend you? No wonder were in the mess we're in. There used to be a whole thing about people who died in funny/unusual ways. |
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Posted: 1/10/2021 9:45:30 PM EDT
[#13]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I had a similar experience last year with a Type 89 grenade from another firearms instructor's estate. I actually got some knowledgeable answers after a few hours, and the answer was "Just unscrew the detonator and remove all its primary explosives." But by the time I got that info they had already freaked out and called EOD, who took it and blew it up with C4. I was planning to rig tools to unscrew the detonator remotely in an open field, but apparently many WWII vets just unscrewed them by hand and it's NBD. I just didn't want to take any chances. Seems a shame to freak out and destroy something a museum could display when it's been sitting around for decades (or rolling around in the son's truck for a few days ) harmlessly.Was the picric acid in the filler, or just the detonator assembly? I didn't see a way to remove the main fill either (since it's cast into the main body), but how dangerous is that without a live detonator? With an inert detonator in its place, should be pretty safe just displayed on a museum shelf, no? Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: We had an elderly woman bring three Jap WWII UXO to our military museum last year after her husband passed away (obviously a pacific theater vet): 1 ea Type 97 and 1 ea Type 99 frag grenades, and a 50mm Type 89 "knee mortar" grenade (Imperial Naval Landing Forces issue from the paint markings). I texted my EOD contacts on the east and west coasts for their opinion on if they could possibly be rendered safe for display as they were in pristine condition. The consensus was "FUCK NO!". Ok, no problem. After contacting the EOD guys we work with, they x-rayed all three and found them to have fill. Thing is with WWII Jap ordnance, they used picric acid which (from my understanding) becomes very unstable when it "crystalizes" due to age, and there really isn't any safe way to remove the fill. Off to the rock quarry they went for disposal. The ISP EOD tech that was there to observe told me that people turn in live frags throughout the year after some vet dies and the house of the deceased gets cleared out by the family. I was planning to rig tools to unscrew the detonator remotely in an open field, but apparently many WWII vets just unscrewed them by hand and it's NBD. I just didn't want to take any chances. Seems a shame to freak out and destroy something a museum could display when it's been sitting around for decades (or rolling around in the son's truck for a few days ) harmlessly.Was the picric acid in the filler, or just the detonator assembly? I didn't see a way to remove the main fill either (since it's cast into the main body), but how dangerous is that without a live detonator? With an inert detonator in its place, should be pretty safe just displayed on a museum shelf, no? Really, your question is best answered by a qualified EOD tech like the retired fellow that already posted in this thread. In his absence, here it goes... Inerting a Jap frag grenade relatively soon after leaving the factory and before the picric acid crystalizes is a bit different than attempting to do so seven decades later. Maybe it was dangerous then too; I have no idea. For example, you can (theoretically) inert an M67 frag without melting the fill out of it by removing the striker or filing down the striker pin, but having a frag with Comp B sitting around on display tends to violate all sorts of ARs and other established policies no matter how stable Comp B is. Es ist verboten. I doubt wartime Imperial Japanese HE fill could be trusted to be as stable as Comp B or even flaked TNT. I was under the impression that the picric acid was in the filler, but again I don't know. Wartime Japan was in a suicidal state of desperation as soon as they saw the writing on the wall and I don't believe they were taking into consideration how unstable HE fill would be in a few years when they approved picric acid-based HE for use during the war. The general consensus from the EOD techs I have worked with on multiple occasions throughout my time at my current job-and who have dealt with Jap ordnance from that era on Okinawa-was that it was too dangerous to attempt to inert because unscrewing the fuse assembly might create the conditions that cause a detonation. It just wasn't and isn't worth the risk, in other words. I hate it because I love history and that ordnance had a lot of history behind it, but human life and limb are more valuable. "When in doubt, don't fuck with it" are words to live by. |
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Posted: 1/10/2021 10:43:00 PM EDT
[#14]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Yeah, because some kid that bought what he had every reason to believe was a dummy grenade at a flea market had bad genes. It's not like you at that age might have easily done the same thing. Heck, judging from some of the idiotic posts about this, I'd bet that a 10 year old kid is much smarter than some here. Anyone that thinks this is funny is an asshole. I'm sure everyone here did equally stupid things at that age, heck I did much worse, but got lucky. Think of his parents, they must be going through hell right now, and I don't find the suffering of anyone funny. |
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Posted: 1/10/2021 10:44:19 PM EDT
[#15]
Quote HistoryQuoted: What the fuck do you find funny about this? Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: LOL What the fuck do you find funny about this? |
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Posted: 1/11/2021 1:45:02 AM EDT
[#16]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I'd assume picric acid was used in the detonator, as noted above, it gets REALLY unstable when it dries out/crystallizes, I think most chemistry labs have removed it for that reason. Of course, if you've got access to a full chemistry lab and know what you're doing, you can recreate it :-) Or make other interesting compounds. There's a reason one of my old instructors freaked out when he looked at the original design for the combined chemistry and computing building at Georgia Tech, it originally had the chemistry magazine in the middle of the basement... After he made his objections clear, things were redesigned so the magazine was attached to the side of the building... Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: We had an elderly woman bring three Jap WWII UXO to our military museum last year after her husband passed away (obviously a pacific theater vet): 1 ea Type 97 and 1 ea Type 99 frag grenades, and a 50mm Type 89 "knee mortar" grenade (Imperial Naval Landing Forces issue from the paint markings). I texted my EOD contacts on the east and west coasts for their opinion on if they could possibly be rendered safe for display as they were in pristine condition. The consensus was "FUCK NO!". Ok, no problem. After contacting the EOD guys we work with, they x-rayed all three and found them to have fill. Thing is with WWII Jap ordnance, they used picric acid which (from my understanding) becomes very unstable when it "crystalizes" due to age, and there really isn't any safe way to remove the fill. Off to the rock quarry they went for disposal. The ISP EOD tech that was there to observe told me that people turn in live frags throughout the year after some vet dies and the house of the deceased gets cleared out by the family. I was planning to rig tools to unscrew the detonator remotely in an open field, but apparently many WWII vets just unscrewed them by hand and it's NBD. I just didn't want to take any chances. Seems a shame to freak out and destroy something a museum could display when it's been sitting around for decades (or rolling around in the son's truck for a few days ) harmlessly.Was the picric acid in the filler, or just the detonator assembly? I didn't see a way to remove the main fill either (since it's cast into the main body), but how dangerous is that without a live detonator? With an inert detonator in its place, should be pretty safe just displayed on a museum shelf, no? I'd assume picric acid was used in the detonator, as noted above, it gets REALLY unstable when it dries out/crystallizes, I think most chemistry labs have removed it for that reason. Of course, if you've got access to a full chemistry lab and know what you're doing, you can recreate it :-) Or make other interesting compounds. There's a reason one of my old instructors freaked out when he looked at the original design for the combined chemistry and computing building at Georgia Tech, it originally had the chemistry magazine in the middle of the basement... After he made his objections clear, things were redesigned so the magazine was attached to the side of the building... The Japs used picric as the main charge, not the detonator. Picric acid crystallizes as it ages and gets MUCH more hazardous when that happens. No, it is not safe on a museum shelf not is it safe to unscrew the fuze in case some of the main filler migrated into the threads. On the other hand, picric acid is water soluble and I once on Rota I came across a pile of one horn beach mines in a cave where the filler had dissolved out and there was this bright orange stain in a 20 foot diameter around the pile. |
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Posted: 1/11/2021 7:34:36 AM EDT
[#17]
Quoted: Quoted: Dumbass probably took the instructions literally: "Pull pin, throw it." Sounds more like he ignored the instructions and didn't throw it. The pin. He threw the pin. Old joke.... |
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Posted: 1/11/2021 7:43:09 AM EDT
[#18]
Quote HistoryQuoted: A cousin told me years back you could go to the knob creek shoot and this vendor would have grenade bodies, another table would have the powder, another would have the fuse. He said you could gather the components and build a functional grenade. ~20 years ago, you could get the same stuff at gunshows around here. |
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Posted: 1/11/2021 7:43:38 AM EDT
[#19]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Would an ignition of only the primer and detonator be enough to rupture the frag casing and kill a kid? Just curious. First thing I’d have done as a kid would be to unscrew the thing and see what was inside. Quote HistoryQuoted: Would an ignition of only the primer and detonator be enough to rupture the frag casing and kill a kid? Just curious. First thing I’d have done as a kid would be to unscrew the thing and see what was inside. Quoted: Would an ignition of only the primer and detonator be enough to rupture the frag casing and kill a kid? Just curious. First thing I’d have done as a kid would be to unscrew the thing and see what was inside. This was my first thought. No way it was working properly and kid just got around to messing with it 6 months later. I would have completely messed with every part of it long before that |
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Posted: 1/11/2021 7:48:28 AM EDT
[#20]
Damn. Was this the one they were trying to hunt down after the fact?
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Posted: 1/12/2021 1:06:28 AM EDT
[#21]
Quote HistoryQuoted: A deactivated grenade it going to have a hole in it. A grenade that was never active will have a huge hole in the base where the explosives would have been placed. In the .mil we had (imagine this is still how they do it) we had replacement fuses that would only make a bang, and reuse the body. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: I wouldn't expect the average person to know what to look for too show a properly demilled grenade, much less a teenager. If I saw a grenade at a flea market I sure wouldn't expect it to be live, I mean I wouldn't pull the pin and hold it to find out for sure but I wouldn't expect it was live. A deactivated grenade it going to have a hole in it. A grenade that was never active will have a huge hole in the base where the explosives would have been placed. In the .mil we had (imagine this is still how they do it) we had replacement fuses that would only make a bang, and reuse the body. The training grenades I saw them using at the Best Ranger Competition less than a decade ago were exactly the same type we used in ROTC thirty years ago and are just as you described them. |
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Posted: 1/12/2021 1:15:50 AM EDT
[#22]
Quote HistoryQuoted: The Japs used picric as the main charge, not the detonator. Picric acid crystallizes as it ages and gets MUCH more hazardous when that happens. No, it is not safe on a museum shelf not is it safe to unscrew the fuze in case some of the main filler migrated into the threads. On the other hand, picric acid is water soluble and I once on Rota I came across a pile of one horn beach mines in a cave where the filler had dissolved out and there was this bright orange stain in a 20 foot diameter around the pile. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: We had an elderly woman bring three Jap WWII UXO to our military museum last year after her husband passed away (obviously a pacific theater vet): 1 ea Type 97 and 1 ea Type 99 frag grenades, and a 50mm Type 89 "knee mortar" grenade (Imperial Naval Landing Forces issue from the paint markings). I texted my EOD contacts on the east and west coasts for their opinion on if they could possibly be rendered safe for display as they were in pristine condition. The consensus was "FUCK NO!". Ok, no problem. After contacting the EOD guys we work with, they x-rayed all three and found them to have fill. Thing is with WWII Jap ordnance, they used picric acid which (from my understanding) becomes very unstable when it "crystalizes" due to age, and there really isn't any safe way to remove the fill. Off to the rock quarry they went for disposal. The ISP EOD tech that was there to observe told me that people turn in live frags throughout the year after some vet dies and the house of the deceased gets cleared out by the family. I was planning to rig tools to unscrew the detonator remotely in an open field, but apparently many WWII vets just unscrewed them by hand and it's NBD. I just didn't want to take any chances. Seems a shame to freak out and destroy something a museum could display when it's been sitting around for decades (or rolling around in the son's truck for a few days ) harmlessly.Was the picric acid in the filler, or just the detonator assembly? I didn't see a way to remove the main fill either (since it's cast into the main body), but how dangerous is that without a live detonator? With an inert detonator in its place, should be pretty safe just displayed on a museum shelf, no? I'd assume picric acid was used in the detonator, as noted above, it gets REALLY unstable when it dries out/crystallizes, I think most chemistry labs have removed it for that reason. Of course, if you've got access to a full chemistry lab and know what you're doing, you can recreate it :-) Or make other interesting compounds. There's a reason one of my old instructors freaked out when he looked at the original design for the combined chemistry and computing building at Georgia Tech, it originally had the chemistry magazine in the middle of the basement... After he made his objections clear, things were redesigned so the magazine was attached to the side of the building... The Japs used picric as the main charge, not the detonator. Picric acid crystallizes as it ages and gets MUCH more hazardous when that happens. No, it is not safe on a museum shelf not is it safe to unscrew the fuze in case some of the main filler migrated into the threads. On the other hand, picric acid is water soluble and I once on Rota I came across a pile of one horn beach mines in a cave where the filler had dissolved out and there was this bright orange stain in a 20 foot diameter around the pile. OUCH. I've always encountered references to picric acid in regards to detonators, not fillers, but I was going from memory, I see picric acid can be used in producing other compounds to use in detonators, or as a primary explosive itself. I'll gladly defer to those who have substantially more experience than I do, I've still got all my fingers and would like to keep it that way :-) (and my chemistry skills are very rusty, I can remember certain things are possible to do, but haven't done them in enough years that I would need a complete refresher on lab procedures before attempting to do them :) ) |
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Posted: 1/12/2021 1:22:14 AM EDT
[#23]
A friend of mine who has been a long time collector of militaria told me to beware of grenades decades ago. I’ve seen some I was very suspicious of. A damned shame we’ve had a young person killed by one.
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Posted: 1/12/2021 1:37:25 AM EDT
[#24]
Ain’t that some shit.
Sucks all around, but you gotta wonderhow the hell a grenade from WWII era manages to be rolling around for ~80 fuckin years just to have it end like that. That’s some wild stuff. |
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Posted: 1/12/2021 1:40:21 AM EDT
[#25]
Quote HistoryQuoted: LOL A kid is dead...and you think it's funny? |
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Posted: 1/12/2021 1:46:07 AM EDT
[#26]
Quote HistoryQuoted: If this story had happened when I was a teen, the real truth would've been that it was quite inert and safe when sold, but later had been adapted. Surplus store sold the cast iron inert pineapples and lemons, Even decades before google, it wasnt hard to reverse engineer a way to make them energetic. RIP to the kid and family. There but for the grace of God would I have gone. I was under the impression the ATF demands the spring loaded firing pin 'flipper' be pulled out to qualify as demilled. 20 years ago you could find them with the flippers and they only required a primer, a fuse, and black powder to make them viable. |
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Posted: 1/12/2021 1:50:51 AM EDT
[#27]
Quote HistoryQuoted: The fuses in those were black powder right? Ancient grenades are pretty high up on my don't fuck with it list. The glue (epoxy, jb weld, etc.) keeps the sparks from the burning fuse from jumping ahead and causing a premature detonation.  |
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Posted: 1/12/2021 1:53:43 AM EDT
[#28]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Would an ignition of only the primer and detonator be enough to rupture the frag casing and kill a kid? Just curious. First thing I'd have done as a kid would be to unscrew the thing and see what was inside. |
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Posted: 1/12/2021 1:54:35 AM EDT
[#29]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Ain't that some shit. Sucks all around, but you gotta wonderhow the hell a grenade from WWII era manages to be rolling around for ~80 fuckin years just to have it end like that. That's some wild stuff. Somebody brought it back and had it in a shoebox. They eventually died and their heirs didn't know it was live and sold it to a seller who didn't know it was live, who eventually sold it to a kid who didn't know it was live, and he paid for it with his life. I don't recall ever having a class on unexploded ordnance when I was a kid in Germany in the mid-70's, and one of the girls our age found one in the woods and gave it to the group I was in, we didn't know what it was so we were just walking along with the biggest kid throwing it up in the air and catching it, until we walked up to a Colonel (or Lieutenant Colonel, it's been over forty years) and asked him what it was. Learned some new words that day before he had us all hustled well away from it until the MP's and EOD could get there. |
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Posted: 1/12/2021 1:55:26 AM EDT
[#30]
We've been getting 3-4 of these events the last few years as WWII vets pass away and their families clean out the garages, etc. It always drives me nuts when patrol officers say, "Hey, Sarge, come take a look at this thing!" I'm always, "No, I'll go out on the street and direct traffic while you stay in here with a possible live grenade, or we could both GTFO and let the guys in bomb suits deal with it." The worst is when they drive it to the station and your whole station has to get evacuated until the Bomb Squad can come cart them off.
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Posted: 1/12/2021 2:01:48 AM EDT
[#31]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Screwing the ignitor assembly into/out of the case can cause black powder to detonate if it gets in the threads, or so I've been told. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Would an ignition of only the primer and detonator be enough to rupture the frag casing and kill a kid? Just curious. First thing I'd have done as a kid would be to unscrew the thing and see what was inside. I'm sure one of the EOD guys will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think black powder was ever officially used in the US Mk2 grenade, some DID use a smokeless powder variant, but most used one of several high explosive fillers (TNT or others). |
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Posted: 1/12/2021 2:04:17 AM EDT
[#32]
If grenades were legal it would be a fine sport. We'd have a grenade forum.
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Posted: 1/14/2021 10:41:49 AM EDT
[#33]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Yeah, that's just sick. Some of them post here in ARFCOM. |
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Posted: 1/17/2021 11:32:46 PM EDT
[#34]
Quote HistoryQuoted: If grenades were legal it would be a fine sport. We'd have a grenade forum. They are perfectly legal! Just shell out the $200 for a destructive device tax stamp and Robert is your mother's brother. Of course, that'd be a Form 1 because you're not likely to find a grenade manufacturer willing to sell you one on a Form 4. Then there's the storage requirements for real explosives. Then the paperwork to show it's gone for reals if you use it. Assuming you can find someplace to let you use it. But it's legal! Kinda... |
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Posted: 1/17/2021 11:49:33 PM EDT
[#35]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Then the paperwork to show it's gone for reals if you use it. What is that? I don't think there's a form for that. They just want a note or something.  Attached File |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 12:01:24 AM EDT
[#36]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Would an ignition of only the primer and detonator be enough to rupture the frag casing and kill a kid? Just curious. First thing I’d have done as a kid would be to unscrew the thing and see what was inside. No, it wouldn't be enough to cause the cast case to frag. Blasting caps are unimpressive when they go off. You can set a cinder block on top of a cap, blast the cap and the cinder block will show little damage. They are basically like a giant primer, only blow things up if they are inserted in something that has higher energy capability. I say this based on the 30 or so electric blasting caps I discovered as a kid at an old mine building in Western PA. The ones that still had good leads went off with less energy than an M80, more like a thunderbomb on steroids. , |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 12:29:16 AM EDT
[#37]
Quote HistoryQuoted: They are perfectly legal! Just shell out the $200 for a destructive device tax stamp and Robert is your mother's brother. Of course, that'd be a Form 1 because you're not likely to find a grenade manufacturer willing to sell you one on a Form 4. Then there's the storage requirements for real explosives. Then the paperwork to show it's gone for reals if you use it. Assuming you can find someplace to let you use it. But it's legal! Kinda... Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: If grenades were legal it would be a fine sport. We'd have a grenade forum. They are perfectly legal! Just shell out the $200 for a destructive device tax stamp and Robert is your mother's brother. Of course, that'd be a Form 1 because you're not likely to find a grenade manufacturer willing to sell you one on a Form 4. Then there's the storage requirements for real explosives. Then the paperwork to show it's gone for reals if you use it. Assuming you can find someplace to let you use it. But it's legal! Kinda... At least one person here has done it, uses binary explosives to avoid the storage magazine requirements. Think he put the serial number on the spoon, so it's technically reloadable without a new stamp :-) |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 3:17:33 AM EDT
[#38]
Quote HistoryQuoted: No, it wouldn't be enough to cause the cast case to frag. Blasting caps are unimpressive when they go off. You can set a cinder block on top of a cap, blast the cap and the cinder block will show little damage. They are basically like a giant primer, only blow things up if they are inserted in something that has higher energy capability. I say this based on the 30 or so electric blasting caps I discovered as a kid at an old mine building in Western PA. The ones that still had good leads went off with less energy than an M80, more like a thunderbomb on steroids. , This is incorrect. You are forgetting the effects of confinement. Confine that cap in the body of a grenade and there is a very high likelihood that the rapidly expanding gases will rupture the casing to cause possible injury or death. Your highly scientific experiment with the cider block did not sufficiently confine the explosive force to do much damage and the results you got are what I would expect.. One of the explosive demonstrations I used to do was to put a blasting cap in a hole drilled in a 4x4 and set it off causing the 4x4 to shatter in a remarkable fashion. Your trivialization of the destructive power of blasting caps is wrong and dangerous. |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 3:22:13 AM EDT
[#39]
Quote HistoryQuoted: At least one person here has done it, uses binary explosives to avoid the storage magazine requirements. Think he put the serial number on the spoon, so it's technically reloadable without a new stamp :-) Binary explosives still require detonators (blasting caps) to set them off so there is still a storage magazine requirement...just more manageable than storing bulk HE. Also, if you frequently use binary explosives, particularly commercially, the ATF may decide you are a "Manufacturer of Explosives" and require that class of license. |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 4:37:17 AM EDT
[#40]
Quote HistoryQuoted: There's a lot of live ordnance out there in the U.S. (to say nothing of places like Guam, the PI or Okinawa), and the death of that teenager is tragic. Who amongst us didn't act carelessly in our youth? It's a damn near daily event to get called for found ordnance here. Biggest I've seen out here is a 500lbs bomb that had to be detonated in place, thankfully was in the country side. |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 5:09:36 AM EDT
[#41]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Wouldn't be surprised if there are live ones still floating around out there. My old partner, was former SF, and told me a story about getting home from a training mission, once, and finding a live grenade in his ruck sack. Another guy I worked with, had a father who was Vietnam era SF, and he told me of borowring his father's old ruck sack out of his closet, when he in Boy Scouts to go on a camping trip, and his father was home between tours, and finding what looked like big sticks of butter in it. He showed it to his father, who said, "You'd better give that to me, that's C-4". His father had a few other unauthorized souvenirs from Vietnam as well that he showed us when I was over at his house in the 80's. Most of my friend's fathers (as well as my father) were in WW2 and a lot of them brought back their issued weapons with them. My father brought his .45 back with him. Apparently, inventory and accounting was a little weaker in days past. |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 5:39:20 AM EDT
[#42]
When I was a kid, some friends and I bought a hand grenade at a gun show. We figured it was inert, but we weren't completely sure.
So, we went out front of the building, hid behind a big oak tree, pulled the pin and threw it. It was inert. |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 6:54:40 AM EDT
[#43]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Dumbass probably took the instructions literally: "Pull pin, throw it." I think that was pull pin and watch it. |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 9:17:59 AM EDT
[#44]
Several years ago, some genius was messing around with a 40mm grenade and it “just went off!” Lodging the warhead in the dipshits thigh. An ambulance took him to the local hospital where it was xrayed. A local hospital allowed someone with live UXB into their hospital!!! No one knew if I t was HE, HEDP, smoke, or chalk. Then they load him up in an ambulance and tries to send him, live ord and all, to another hospital to remove it.
If it wasn’t for one of our guys sitting in the radio room when the ambulance was in rout, he may have made it inside, thankfully he didn’t. None of the local or state eod people would touch it. EOD out of Georgia were convoy d in to remove it from his leg, while he was in the ambulance outside the hospital. It turned out to be red smoke (red phosphorus). Also civil war uxb is still killing people. |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 9:20:04 AM EDT
[#45]
That sucks. If I had bought it I guarantee I would be dead also. Probably anyone near me at the flea market would be gone also. I would have pulled the pin and let the spoon fly right there.
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Posted: 1/18/2021 9:38:34 AM EDT
[#46]
Quote HistoryQuoted: If I bought an inert grenade that wasn't hollow in the bottom or something, I'd probably pull the pin and toss it once just to make sure.... But then I'm a pessimist. I did see some pineapple bodies there one year that were undrilled. Unscrew the fuse and there was a pamphlet for how to make the fuse accept a rifle primer and go bang. I always thought that make a funny joke, but decided against it. |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 9:43:13 AM EDT
[#47]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Also, old explosives can become extremely sensitive when they get old. It's possible he simply dropped it on the floor and it went off. Or even just tried to take it apart. Old explosives can literally detonate just sitting on a shelf. I used to work with explosives at the Army base in Savanna, in a lab, there is a reason why they are constantly blowing stuff up. It's just too dangerous to keep that old stuff laying around, when the slightest defect/impurity can make it blow up while just sitting there, much less actually handling it. |
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Posted: 1/18/2021 11:57:44 AM EDT
[#48]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Several years ago, some genius was messing around with a 40mm grenade and it "just went off!" Lodging the warhead in the dipshits thigh. An ambulance took him to the local hospital where it was xrayed. A local hospital allowed someone with live UXB into their hospital!!! No one knew if I t was HE, HEDP, smoke, or chalk. Quote HistoryQuoted: Several years ago, some genius was messing around with a 40mm grenade and it "just went off!" Lodging the warhead in the dipshits thigh. An ambulance took him to the local hospital where it was xrayed. A local hospital allowed someone with live UXB into their hospital!!! No one knew if I t was HE, HEDP, smoke, or chalk. If it wasn't for one of our guys sitting in the radio room when the ambulance was in rout, he may have made it inside, thankfully he didn't. None of the local or state eod people would touch it. 
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Posted: 1/18/2021 12:17:59 PM EDT
[#49]
Don't those smoke a bit before detonation?
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Posted: 1/18/2021 12:45:34 PM EDT
[#50]
Tragic.
Hell, someone could have been using it as a paperweight for the last 30 years and had no idea it was live. |
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