Not technically a "fireworks" question but about the legality of explosive

[dirtysouthpyro]

I heard of a friend of a friend (and this story might not even be true), I haven't seen what he found. Anyway, His father recently died and when he was going through the basement he found some dynamite from back in the 50s in its original packaging. I assume there it no grandfather clause for dynamite but figured I may as well ask; could this possibly be legal or is this guy sitting on a giant felony?

[PyroJoeNEPA]

Felony===also, if it is that old it is probably "sweating"-- leeching nitroglycerine out of it---or so I am told by a friend that is a blaster here in the coal region. Only my humble "opinion". Will be interesting to see what others have to say about it,

[dirtysouthpyro]

Felony,


Yeah, I was 99.9% sure about the felony thing but figured it was worth asking.


if it is that old it is probably "sweating"-- leeching nitroglycerine out of it---or so I am told by a friend that is a blaster here in the coal region. Only my humble "opinion". Will be interesting to see what others have to say about it,

Does that make it inert or simply less safe to handle when moving around? He wishes it was inert because it would be an awesome collectors item but obviously staying out of jail is the priority. I assume in situations like this you call the police to come remove the material?

[Arclight]

1. You need a federal explosives license (FEL) and a magazine (i.e. not your basement) to keep high explosives now. The SAFE Explosives Act (2002 I believe) required everyone to get an FEL or get rid of their explosives. Most states have laws on this as well.

2. Your local police department, military base or the ATF will get rid of it if you call them and I have never heard of anyone being charged with anything that called. They WANT you to call them before some kid finds it and gets hurt.

3. Old dynamite is bad news. As others have said, it often leaks NG and is not safe to handle. The Nitroglycerine will also cause one hell of a headache if you get the oil on your hands. When new, it's normal shelf life is only a couple of years.

4. If there is old dynamite around, there are probably old caps too. Those can be bad, as some of them contained explosives that weren't all that stable and reacted with the Copper casing. Those can blow up from being dropped/etc. Someone just lost a bunch of fingers from this in CA:

https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2020/06/08/alpine-county-silver-boom-old-blasting-cap-injury/

Arclight

[jknepp1954]

My opinion would be to call the police. They would probably call in the BOMB SQUAD or ATF or Both. I think if your friend would tell them what you told us should be ok.
The old timers back in the day just simply went to the local hardware store and bought. Didn't have to prove anything - and probably either forgot they were there or really didn't know the proper way later.
But that is just my opinion - not an expert on the subject

[Arclight]

And to add: You can get a dynamite box on eBay. Don't dump it out or try to salvage the box.

[displayfireworks1]

Get a picture and post it. The guys can ID it. It may or may not be what you think. Then we will go from there