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Good or Bad advice....opinions?

V40

V40

Well-Known Member
Found this just today. Another collector of "INERT" Ordnance. Is he just trying to capatalize on the INERT Ordnance himself while providing sound advice. Or...is there another way to look at this statment?
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I HAVE COLLECTED AMMUNITION AND EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE FOR OVER 50 YEARS AND I HAVE ADVICE FOR NEW COLLECTORS ; COLLECT SOMETHING ELSE.
These items are designed to break things and to hurt people and far more of them can be found still in live , loaded condition than you would think.
As a young man I wanted everything to be live and it seemed logical at the time. Today with more experience with the good and bad of this hobby the last thing I want to be near is LIVE EXPLOSIVES.
LIVE AMMUNITION IS DANGEROUS. That seems pretty obvious but it takes real experience to drive that point home. In 50 years in the field I have seen too many collectors set off explosions with collector ammunition specimens which cost them fingers , eyes and even their lives.
The rule of thumb for EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) folks is ; " IF YOU CAN'T SEE INTO IT, IT IS LIVE ".
That seemed excessive to me in the past especially when I saw rare projectiles which I knew to be just a slab of metal blown apart just to make sure. Today I think better of it.
ALL THE RARE AMMUNITION SPECIMENS IN THE WORLD ARE NOT WORTH ANY INJURY TO AN EOD , BOMB SQUAD , FIRE , EMT , POLICEMAN OR YOU OR YOUR LOVED ONES.
It is often difficult to determine if an item is live. I have seen many unCivil War cartridges up for sale on Ebay and elsewhere which were claimed to be "inert" because of age. This is a foolish idea.
My family made much of the ammunition used in that war and I have fired many shells made in the 1860s as well as having set off cartridge powder from that time with no problems.
AGE DOES NOT INERT ANYTHING.
Sometimes age makes the shell content more unstable and dangerous. This has been noted well in WW2 Japanese items especially. EOD teams in Europe regularly recover WW2 and even WW1 ordnance which is still live after nearly a century in the ground.
If you insist on collecting this kind of thing collect items which are obviously inert. These include items which have been "cut away" or sectioned to show the working. These usually have simulants in place of the propellants although I have seen nonprofessional specimens in which the original powder was replaced and glued in. This is never done in official factory or government sectioning.
Factory inert loads are also desireable but again HOW DO YOU KNOW ?
Some years ago a popular California dealer in military ordnance who was a retired military EOD man sold a US "inert" marked projectile to a collector who was later killed when it blew up. The dealer lost his business , home and family in the following law suits.
A collector who I have known for years worked at the US ARMY proving grounds at YUMA Arizona. His job was to recover fired weapons for study and disposal. On one trip to the field he was recoving the payload of "inert" submunitions from a missile warhead when one exploded. "Inert"? I guess not.
So, around the block and back again.

IF YOU CAN'T SEE INTO IT - IT IS LIVE !
If you have not been dissuaded please keep in mind that souvenirs which you find at yard sales and collector shows can kill you. People bring home dangerous items from their service and what you don't know CAN HURT YOU.
A few words about grenades. Ebay no longer allows grenades and for good reasons. They are dangerous and difficult to determine if they are live or not. Some years ago specimens of US grenades were found in Florida which had the safety pin detents filled away so that they fired when removed from their cartons . It is far too easy to reload practice grenades and it is a felony to do so. It is best to leave grenades alone. If you can NOT see into it IT IS LIVE!
There is plenty of reference material available to identify these items. if you must collect it buy the books first and KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
EXPLOSIONS ARE NO JOKE.
A pistol cartridge not much bigger than a pencil eraser can kill you.
LIFE IS NOT A VIDEO GAME . YOU ONLY GET ONE PLAY !
We provide FREE reference materials to EOD , BOMB SQUADS ,POLICE , FIRE and EMT units.


Guide created: 05/19/08 (updated 09/11/12)
 
Hi Mark,As an amateur collector with some understanding of weapons and ammunition to me this seems sound advice,if a little over cautious,having said that,how many "doorstops"have been found to be live "bring backs",in some cases "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing",caution and research go a long way to making the inert ordnance collecting an enjoyable passtime,
Cheers,
Don,
 
Great advice. One cannot be too safe.
Besides the safety aspect I admit also to having no need for anymore competition and price uprunning.
Selfish? Sure. Honest? Absolutely.
 
As a retired EOD Tech and now a UXO Tech, that advice is very good advice. I can cite numerous times where I have disassembled "Inerted" rounds and fuzes and found them to still contain energetics. Say what you will of Dr. Schmitt, who I believe is the author of that piece, his advice is sound. Cheers, Bruce.
 
In my opinion he wrote nothing wrong...

but..., doesn't nearly everything we do in our lifes (drinking, smoke, driving, working, sports, woman ;-) ) contain some risk? Even doing nothing will be very risky. I guess there are many things in the normal life which are much more dangerous than collecting inert ordnance and nobody is talking about. Applying his strict philosophy of "COLLECT SOMETHING ELSE" to all the other things we do, it would be better to stop life - because it's to risky :)
 
I'm sure you're far more likely to be killed in a car crash on your way to or from collecting the item.
 
Yes, it is a good write up. I guess I am very biased against him bacarnal since I haven't had a great track record with him and his wrong-doings to me in the past.
 
Alpini and Falcon,
with all due respect - Bullshit.

I spend a significant amount of time hunting for and purchasing ordnance for my collection. I visit collectors nearly every week, as I have for years, looking at their items, buying, trading, etc. I am known to many of the collectors on this forum and have visited many of their collections.

On the average I would estimate that one piece in 20 that I look at is either live or has live components. They may be minor components or it may be the entire munition, the fact remains that the owner is either unaware or misunderstood the seriousness of what he had. Most recently this week it was a 90mm tank projo with fuze. Last week it was a 75mm HE, with the fuze still pinned in place and powder still in the cartridge case. They had been told it was inert by someone who used to be in the army. One of the most common pieces I've seen over the past year is the M407 40mm practice grenade. This grenade contains around 3 grams of RDX as a spotting charge, I would guess that I have found over 20 live ones in collections since July. I would remind you that a blasting cap contains around a half gram or less. This last weekend I was at a show where someone was selling M25 CS grenades, identifying them as harmless. I watched as he sold four of them. Look up the charge in that grenade.

This is not limited to any country, I've seen the same throughout Europe, Australia and South America and Africa. Collectors are everrywhere and they make the same mistakes.

A great many collectors collect the ordnance while having no idea of the potential hazards. You see it frequently on our own forum. The risk is there, the risk is real. If you think you are more likely to be injured in a car crash then someone should pull your license, you are not fit to drive. Ridiculing the potential risk is the first step to an accident.

I would be the last person to tell someone to not collect. But I am also one of the first advocating that the books are as important as the ordnance. Learn what you are collecting and respect it, or quit collecting before someone gets hurt. The risk is real, the risk is present. Treat it as such, manage it, and move on.
 
I'm entirely with US-Subs on this one.
For me knowledge is the key. I only collect things I understand and know about. That way I can be absolutely sure if its got live components before I decide to buy/trade it (NOT if there's anything live in there).
Dave.
 
My statement was slightly misunderstood here. I'm not denying that these things can and do kill. My statement was more aimed at the original paragraph that advised completely giving up collecting because you may come across a live item.

No one suggests completely giving up driving because you could possibly have a fatal accident.

I was not referring to driving out to pick up a known live item, but anything that you may have newly acquired.

I should have written more than two lines there.
 
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My advice to collectors is to never purchase anything unless it can be shown completely dis-assembled. If the seller can't or won't take it apart, DO NOT BUY IT. If buying through the mail, make sure the seller can take it apart an photograph the component pieces. It should be sent dis-assembled also, projectiles separated from the case, fuzes off the projectile and should be packed very well, the box wrapped in fiber strapping tape. Bomb squads and EOD teams do not and will not take anything apart to see if it is empty. They will and do blow it in place. For me, over the years, mills bombs have been the worst offenders. The fill plug is often frozen in place and the grenade still filled with HE. I have had to inert three over the last 30 years. If you do get something in the mail that you sespect is live, you CANNOT send it back, now you are responsible for it. As collectors, it is our responsibility to insure the safety of our hobby.
 
Hello


I am a bomb technician in the Polish Police. We work with IED and UXO. In my experience, that in Poland the most popular auction site Allegro.pl 30 % 30% of the offered collectibles contain dangerous substances. Greetings to all. Tomek from Poland
 
All very wise advice. I agree whole heartily that one can never have enough written material. It goes hand in hand that one must have an in depth understanding of what one collects. I'm also not contented with just having an item of ordnance, I must be able to disassemble it and show the workings. To me that is the most interesting part and educational.

Also when shipping the only sensible way is to have the item disassembled as far as practical so as not to cause undue alarm within the postal system and to show that no explosives are present. x-rays show shapes and some shapes such as grenades can cause panic with or without explosives. So to maintain what freedoms we do have, to collect what we collect, we must play it safe and not to cause undue alarm. If we do otherwise we only invite unwanted attention from the law makers which results in the roping in of the freedoms of all of us collectors.
 
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