Kid’s Stuff
Many moons ago I was young and foolish, now I’m old and foolish. Not far from where I lived was an area of the shore where the Royal Air Force practiced live firing. They would tie half a dozen empty oil drums together and anchor them. When the tide came in the thing would float. This was the target that fighter planes would attack with live ammunition. Being children, inquisitive and daring we often cycled to this forbidden place and when the tide was out collected unspent ammunition.
Airplanes have electric guns and to prevent awkward jams whilst in combat the gun loads a shell and fires it then ejects it whether it fired or failed. Walking over the sands we found dozens of 50-calibre cannon rounds, complete and un-fired. Without getting deep into the science of ammunition, the 50-cal, is literally huge and has three explosive regions in the cartridge alone. The percussion cap when struck by the firing pin would discharge into the primary, which is Mercuric Fulminate. The fulminate then sets off the main charge, which in our cases was some black crystal stuff that looked like black sugar. As ingenious kids we had a use for all the components of the cartridge including the missile. The percussion cap was fun to place under someone’s chair leg, which resulted in a large bang when some poor unsuspecting individual sat on the chair. On hitting the ground, it would explode most violently. The black crystal was neat stuff for making homemade fireworks, just add iron filings or magnesium, or copper and you could create a marvellous display. All sounds simple enough, but the problem was dismantling the weapon to extract its glorious parts. On this particular occasion I was with a friend who will remain nameless. We were in my father’s workshop where I had a 50-cal neatly restrained in a metal vice in order to perform the usual operation of extracting the goodies. To start with a very special flattened and sharpened nail was used to ease off the brass cover and expose the percussion cap. I remember suddenly finding myself on the floor, my hands and chest felt as though a million bees had stung them. The room was filled with smoke and all the windows had vanished. Somehow, I managed to walk out of the building though I don’t remember it. I looked at my hands and found that a stream of blood poured from each finger like a miniature tap. My next recollection was the grinning face of the doctor who removed some three hundred pieces of brass shrapnel from my arms and hands. The only lasting damage from the explosion was a fractured eardrum. I did however learn one lasting lesson. Never tamper with explosives.
