I met Sam years ago..he was a Civil War relic dealer and disarmed CW shells to sell them.
It appears he was drilling though the iron case of a shell when the drill bit got too hot and set of the black powder.
Sam had disarmed 100s of shells over the years..just goes to show that if you don't remember everything that has to be done..it can get bad.
I found a 20 lbs Parrott shell 8 years ago in NC...I drilled through the pewter fuse with water running on it, to keep it cool, then I washed out the very small black powder charge ( in a shrapnel shell the powder charge is very small..only a 2 1/2 inches by 3/4 of an inch).
The shell sits 8 feet from me on a shelf, along with a few differant cannonball I have.
heres the newspaper article
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Dean
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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,2506.msg19789.html#msg19789
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