Metal detecting kids dig up unexploded Civil War shell in Virginia

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

How deep would a Civil War cannonball, lost and forgotten for 150 years, be buried underground?

For a group of Virginia children with a metal detector, the answer is about two feet, according to the York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office.

Wednesday night, the kid’s detector started beeping and they got to digging, and soon unearthed a spherical piece of American history — a piece no museum in its right mind would have taken.

It’s not clear if the children knew exactly what they had, but they pulled it out of the York County soil and brought it home, according to a sheriff’s office release posted on Facebook.

When their parents saw what the kids had excavated, they dialed 911.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/metal-detecting-kids-dig-cool-235037518.html

[rsdsharp]

1. When I was a kid, a friend's parents had a 60mm mortar round

sitting on the hearth next to the fireplace. His father had somehow managed to bring it home from WW II. I think it was inert, but I’m not 100% sure.

[NutmegYankee]

2. Without a heat source it won't explode.

It's not like a modern fused bomb. The fuse was a slow match trimmed to length to burn precisely long enough to explode the shell over the enemy heads. In this case, the gunner didn't calculate it right or the slow match fuse wasn't facing forward correctly.

Some designs could get fancy for fuses, like the Borman, but all used black powder trains. It's not like there is a spring loaded detonator just waiting to be shaken.

[Irish_Dem]

3. As kids we lived right next to the beaches of Okinawa.

It was one of our postings in Southeast Asia. Okinawa had been the site of ferocious fighting during WWII and the bunkers on the beach were still intact. They made great places to play.
Our parents were quite angry at us for doing so, because there could be unexploded ordinance in the bunkers and beaches. Nothing had been changed since the war. The kids dug up old mess kits, canned food, other artifacts. I think back now and realize it is a miracle no one got blown to bits.

[cemaphonic]

4. When we lived between Centreville and Manassas, my dad dug up a civil war bullet

building a drainage culvert. Looked quite a bit like the ones in this image: