old black powder

[sheriff john]

All my old black powder works ok. One can is marked $2.79. State agency guys opened a powder magazine at a prison farm that used to have a rock quarry. All that was left of black powder cans were the rims. Dynamite had sorta "melted" into clumps with boxes only in fragments. No one who worked at the facility could remember the last time the steel door was opened - some had worked there for decades.

I was told the nitro from the sticks had soaked into the concrete but don't know if that was true. Decision was to burn or blow it up. Whatever they did, the result was awesome. Steel door was airborne, concrete floor was left but little else. It was a weekend, so inmates who had visitors were outside at picnic tables. My boss, the Sheriff at the time, decided to take a photo from behind his car. Bent over to pick up his pipe, chunks the size of coconuts flew past - some overhead, others bouncing on the ground.

Inmates ran for the buildings, visitors beside them. I wasn't there for the fireworks, but I saw the result and of course graphic accounts of witnesses. Patrol car got some dents. Old explosives sometimes still pack a whollop.

 

[user 31296]

Hi got a few ponds of GOEX Ive had since 1990 still goes bang shoot tight groups with it when i do my part great powder shame its no more

 

[hrt4me]

All my old black powder works ok. One can is marked $2.79. State agency guys opened a powder magazine at a prison farm that used to have a rock quarry. All that was left of black powder cans were the rims. Dynamite had sorta "melted" into clumps with boxes only in fragments. No one who worked at the facility could remember the last time the steel door was opened - some had worked there for decades.

I was told the nitro from the sticks had soaked into the concrete but don't know if that was true. Decision was to burn or blow it up. Whatever they did, the result was awesome. Steel door was airborne, concrete floor was left but little else. It was a weekend, so inmates who had visitors were outside at picnic tables. My boss, the Sheriff at the time, decided to take a photo from behind his car. Bent over to pick up his pipe, chunks the size of coconuts flew past - some overhead, others bouncing on the ground.

Inmates ran for the buildings, visitors beside them. I wasn't there for the fireworks, but I saw the result and of course graphic accounts of witnesses. Patrol car got some dents. Old explosives sometimes still pack a whollop.

where in The Show Me State was that ?

 

[rp77469]

Visited with my wife's family over Thanksgiving and they of course discussed the story of their Dad and the cannon ball. They had a farm just outside of Vicksburg, Mississippi that was occupied by both sides during the conflict. One day their father came in from the field with a large cannonball, shell actually, with the fuse still in it and had been buried on the property for the last 100 years or more. My wife said it lived on the porch and was sometimes used for a doorstop for a couple years.

Apparently the Mother unit finally got a bit upset about sharing the house with a cannon ball and demanded it be removed. To show his wife she was fussing about nothing, Dad cut the fuse out with a pocket knife and shook some powder out onto a plate. He said something to the equivalent of "See? Nothing is going to happen.", then stuck a lit cigar stub into the powder. He burnt off all the hair on his hand and forearm and the right eyebrow along with the hair that used to hang over his forehead according to my wife.

The cannon ball still exists, though the innards have been thoroughly flushed and even soaked in a goldfish pond for several weeks shortly after this event. Old powder still burns quite readily apparently.

 

[leadhoarder]

Austin powder company still exists. A truck goes by my house every workday and I usually pass it on the way to work.

https://www.austinpowder.com/unitedstates/home/

 

[sheriff john]

where in The Show Me State was that ?

Church Farm - medium security prison farm on Hwy 179 in Cole County. Once famous for Dairy Herd. Now closed. Highway Patrol Bomb Squad. 1970's. We had fun in those days. Today we'd have been sued by some inmate.

 

[flntlokr]

It says 'pistol' on the label. probably equivalent to fff. compare it to a known granulation to be sure, and as mentioned above, beware of smokeless powder, somebody could have mixed some in. if it checks out, use it and have fun. If not, perhaps you could use it ti create 'gunpowder art', or lay it out in a long trail and burn it safely.