On Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:31:03 -0500, Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:
"Stormin Mormon" ... [wrote]
[re Gunner's "And what happened to the explosive filler?"]
Mighta been reinstalled in other shells. Or, who knows.....

Could have been dumped in a pile, and burned off.

A lot of those have TNT as the main bursting charge. TNT is readily re-
processed. It can be melted out with steam, and re-cast. There are a
number of outfits in the U.S. that will "de-mil" munitions.

I'd be more concerned with the fuze than the main charge. That's
usually a sensitive primary explosive, and not readily made inert ('cept
by 'splodin' it).

The http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=1620194 projectiles
appear to be already defused.

If the ring of yellow diamonds on the nose cone is per table in
http://www.bravecannons.org/the_gun/munitions.html then these could
have been M449 ICM's, which "dropped sixty bomblets that bounced up
five feet in the air before going off."

Regarding some earlier comments about using bandsaws to demilitarize
these, I'd instead expect a 318-ton-force shear like the one at
http://www.enterpriseco.com/enterprise/shear400.html to be used
instead. For cutting the nose cone, a smaller shear like the little
ones at http://www.americanrecycler.com/nov03/spotlight.html probably
could be used.

According to auction, each shell has 45 pounds of steel, 2.75 pounds
of aluminum, and the other 2+ pounds is the copper band and fibreglas
so the scrap value of this stuff may be somewhere beyond $400000.
(30 tons aluminum, say $75000; 10-20 tons copper, $70000-140000;
steel, http://www.grede.com/customer_servic...teelPrices.jsp
says $600/ton is current scrap price, or about $250000 for 495 tons.)

-jiw