Reenactors: avoid doing this!

[BoldHighlander]

As I recall we had several "messy" accidents with cannons during the Bicenntennial. Most involved the loss of a hand due to not sponging the barrel properly between shots.

There's also been a few of those within the ACW community in the last 10 years too (& I believe a death or two as well).

I do remember someone either blasting their neighbor's (or their own) house by accident about 2 or 3 years ago though. I'll have to check the BAR list & see if I can locate it

[BoldHighlander]

There's also been a few of those within the ACW community in the last 10 years too (& I believe a death or two as well).

I do remember someone either blasting their neighbor's (or their own) house by accident about 2 or 3 years ago though. I'll have to check the BAR list & see if I can locate it

I haven't located the incident I was thinking about & in truth might have confused it with a collector who was killed in his garage back in May 2008 when he attempted to disarm an ACW naval round that went off. It broke house windows up to 9 miles away!

I did run across some accidental ACW cannon deaths from about 2000 on back however (& quite a number of accidents).

I'm not sure why there seems to be more accidental deaths & injuries amongst Ame. Civil War cannon operators than 18th century?
IMHO (& this is strictly from my own observation/participation) it's perhaps because from what I've observed, there are stricter safety guidelines in Rev War? Some ACW events I participated in the 1990s almost turned into free-for-alls during the battles. Is this still true?