Tom, Glad it didn't go off. Lesson #1 never ever ever trust what someone tells you regarding munitions or firearms. Way too many have been killed by deactivated explosives or unloaded firearms.
Stu

Tom, does this person owe you money?

You got lucky. I'd need more than a sip of cognac.

Happy Birthday!!--i hope you have lots-lots-lots more..

Well, at least you have a dinner party anecdote that no-one can top. Happy many-more birthdays!

Always trust your spidey-sense. If something 'feels' wrong, it quite often is.

You were |-| this close to being a Darwin award! Hmm... now, does posession of that much high explosive make you a "person of interest" to the government?

Sounds like clean shorts were in order. One of my soldiers brought me a dummy TOW rocket warhead. Carried it up to my HMMWV, whereupon I informed him it was a 4.2 inch mortar round UXO. I then helped him to calm down while waiting for EOD to show up.

About a week later we were driving down an EOD "cleared" road thru an artillery impact zone. Got out to answer nature's call and discovered I was "watering" a UXO 8 inch artillery round. That was the day clean boxers almost became EDC. EOD said I was lucky. Fuse was already removed, but the filler was decomposing and leaking out. I guess it decomp's to something close to nitroglycerin. EOD tech said that was one burning feeling while uriniating that penicillian would not have fixed.

My dad had a similar experience about 25 years ago. Was going through a firing range, stumbled upon an UXO 500-lbs bomb. Anyway, EOD made them keep back 1/2 mile when it went off. And then my dad had some of the shrapnel in the house for a few years, until mom worried that my brother or I would cut ourselves on it. Probably had a valid point.

When I was in grad school back in the '80's I got a job at the local county museum - it helped being a history major and willing to work weekends! They had me cleaning out the basement and some old storage which included a box of stuff from a local that was from WWII. Neat photos, uniforms, some small arms and...

You guessed it - there were some old artillery shells in a big box and they were all fused and at least 35 years old. We closed early that day... I got a friend from the local guard unit with EOD training and some cops he knew in town that had EOD backgrounds to get the stuff out. They took it to the dump and blew the box which went up very well. Our guess is it would have taken out most of the block had it ever gone off in the museum basement.

The boss reimbursed me for the drinks I bought one and all that night for 'helping' out and he never did tell the county board and I had a great easy job the rest of grad school!

Paul -

LOL yeah, that Bugs Bunny episode sums it up pretty well. "These blockbuster bombs don't blow up unless you hit them just right."

It's all just an amusing story now and I actually got a good laugh reading all the responses and personal anecdotes. I guess nobody is immune to at least an occasional lapse of judgement.

Technically, the situation may not have been THAT critical. I don't know much about Baratol but TNT is very insensitive to shock and friction and basically a pain to detonate. I think it only ignites at something like 780°F if my old manual was right. Of course, that does not make me any less of an idiot!

The bottom line is, I'm really mad at myself. I should've known better. I've always been very careful around firearms and explosives but this time, I made a big mistake. I assumed the grenade was empty and I assumed the previous owner had made sure it was deactivated. Never again!

A bit belated, but Happy Birthday!

Had a not so different, but somewhat less hazardous thing like this myself. Very glad I will never have to explain how I removed a finger through pure stupidity while changing blades on a circular saw.