You couldn't make it up!!

[Vincent]

When I was child, 6 or 7, I used dig up artillery rounds in Normandy. I would beat the projectiles on the bunker steps until I could remove them and get the powder.

[Gil Boyd]

Vincent,
Good to have you on the site mate at your tender age, some you win and many you lose, you were lucky, as various shells have tolerances built into them to allow such brutal handling, not all though

[Gun Surfer]

Once visited a demolition range with a National Guard unit. The officers were big city police in real life. When I got there, they had a collection of C4 tied in with det cord the most horrific and convoluted ways. They didn't much care for my advice, and just as I was starting to point out that their rig was not smartly set up, the LT ignited the fuse with not much length on it.

So we retired quickly to a safe area, the crap went off half assed, then started a range fire. (There was a strong chance with what I had seen that not all of the C4 had detonated.) The boys promptly ran back down range with shovels and began beating on the fire. I promptly left the range, not wanting to be the senior officer present if one of them blow'd up.

[30Three]

It appears that stupidity is one thing that is common to all cultures!

A French guy living near Chartres nearly killed himself and upset a few of his neighbours a few months ago when one of his collection of artillery shells exploded in his house.
The neighbours were evacuated while the bomb squad took charge of the remaining collection of around 70 unexploded shells.
Apparently he had been metal detecting the WWI battle fields for souvenirs; which is illegal in France.

[wjthompson]

A few years ago there was this guy in or near Petersburg, Virginia that collected civil war era shells he would make the exploding shells safe by drilling into them and draining out the powder and apparently offered to do this for others as he had done for years. I think they said the shell that killed him in his driveway was a fused shell.

[Paul S.]

There is a housing estate near where I currently live that was built on ground that was part of a large WWII training camp. It was an area that was used for live fire exercises and infantry weapons training. Imagine everyone's surprise when two boys 'exploring' some of the adjacent bush land blew themselves up with an unexploded mortar round. A year or so later another pair did the same thing, and then three more . . . Suddenly, Army EOD was called in AND NOT at the land developer's expense either.