Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire "Live" cannon ball.

I helped my brother clear a estate once. All i ever wanted to do. The .old guy had died and the wife moved into a assisted living. His garden was a rock collection. Geodes and even some opal. In one corner was a 12 lb cannon ball. Sans primer/ timer but you can still see the giant powder grains inside. It lives stuck into the v of two spokes of a wagon wheel on our drive way. 50 yards from the house.
When found my brother wanted to try shooting it with a 44special we found in the basement. I gently told him NO!

An aging relative gave me a "sawed off shotgun" that according to him, could be used for parts. It had been in the pay window of a dog track for years. To keep it from falling over, some genius screwed a pair of vise grips to the edge of a table and then used them to hold onto the barrel. When he drug it out from under his bed the parts gun turned out to be an original 1897 Winchester solid frame 20" riot gun in very good condition with the exception of plyer marks on the barrel.

I was a kid in Atlanta in 1963. I still vividly remember, a story on Channel 2 News at 6 PM, they were building I 20 downtown near Moreland Avenue. The bulldozers dug up a Confederate munitions wagon. Horse and wagon type deal. There were hundreds of cannonballs and some daggers and swords on the wagon.

It was during rush hour. Businessmen were down there on their hands and knees and pulling out Civil War cannonballs and taking them home. I have always been fascinated by the Civil War. This location was about 12 miles from my house, no way I could get down there on a bicycle and of course, my Mom would not take me down there. I was dying to get in that mud and dig up some Civil War cannonballs, and maybe a sword, and take them home.

At the time I had no idea that a Civil War cannonball could still explode.

I found a 13" Civil War mortar at the confluence of the Necked and Sabine rivers while metal detecting. It's still there. I doubt it would be dangerous, but figured I would look awfully stupid if it blew up, rolling around in the truck bed.

Oh Lort

You had the chance to save some magnet fishing fool from disaster. 😧

Years ago a buddy picked up a beautiful Parker Bros. double from a co-worker who had inherited it. Forgot the exact model but it was a beauty; and we even busted a few clay birds with it and it was superb. The guy who inherited it didn't want it, didn't want it around, and didn't want to know anything about it. He threw some ridiculous price at my buddy and my buddy just said "O.K." and bought it. He had it for a short time and sold it for a good buck. Forgot the price but back then I couldn't afford it but I was in love with it after putting a few rounds through it.

I recall a few stories of folks that blew themselves up with civil war ordinance. Might of been urban legend, I dunno. Have heard a couple media reports that were likely accurate.


I found some minie balls when I was a kid. They didn’t kersplode.

I remember a story from when I was in school. A family in South Carolina found an unexploded cannonball and thought it would make a nice decoration for their hearth. First cold spell they started a fire in the fireplace and KABOOM.

I studied up on demiling that ball i have. One report i found was about a guy in michigan that had a business de milling them. It was about his funeral. One too many. They buried pieces of him. Left a crater in his drive way where he worked. Pictures were graphic.

I left mine alone.

Technically isn't a cannon ball solid and a shell is hollow and filled with explosives?
Same difference with bolts and shells for rifles.
I will have to start a thread on 16 inch naval guns, and maybe on picric acid and other explosives. Read the stuff and found out a lot I believed was wrong.