From ordnance ammunition

Unloading and Recovery of Ammunition Contents. See in Vol 9 under Reclamation of Energetic Material Components from Ordnance Ammunition (R146-R) and "Renovation of Ammunition (R156-R)... 

Reclamation of Energetic Material Components from Ordnance Ammunition... 

Maintenance of bombs(maintaining them in serv-icable condition for immediate use) includes derusting, repainting and removal of exudate from the bombs and the floor of magazines. Removal of exudate from the floor is done by pouring hot water over it and scrubbing. When a comparatively small amt of exudate is present on the exterior of bombs, it can be removed with acetone and the bombs considered suitable for issue. Where ex-cessibe exudate is present on the exterior of bombs, the lots involved should be reported to the Ordnance Ammunition Command, Joliet, 111 and held for disposition... 

History. The US Army organization that formerly, for over 100 years, had responsibility for the design, manufacture and procurement from private industry of weapons, ammunition and vehicles, for the training of personnel in their use, and for their storage, issue and maintenance. The Ordnance Department also served both the Navy and Air Force as directed by higher authority... 

Explosive and Incendiary Ammunition. Accdg to reprint available in PicArsnLibraiy, Vol 2 of "Small Arms and Small Arms Ammunition obtained from the Office of Chief of Ordnance, Jan 1946, reported ... 

Up until 1950 it was known as Army Ordnance Department. The Dept was created by an Act of Congress. 14 May 1812. Prior to this, in colonial days, the colonists used ammunition and weapons seized from the British either on land or seas and originally the Quartermasters Corps handled supply problems. Some muskets were produced by locksmiths imported from France and West... 

Corrosion of ammunition, weapons other items of ordnance is prevented by some type of treatment (such as painting, plating or other surface treatment) of many components, in addn to proper packing sealing to protect the components. The usual rust preventative lubricating oil preservative compds are not used on ammo components because they might prevent proper functioning, and also because ammo components contain many inaccesible cavities from which these materials cannot easily be removed (Ref 12a)... 

The end of the war in Europe saw vast surpluses of ammunition accumulated by all three services. By May, 1945, Maintenance Command estimated that it would have to find storage for 15,000 tons of new bombs every week for the next three months, emanating from existing contracts with the Ordnance Factories. TTie Command also faced the tasks of de-stocking operational airfields of redundant explosives and absorbing the estimated 100,000 tons of bombs in unprotected roadside storage. 

One program is the ongoing effort by the Department of Defense (DOD) to demilitarize unneeded portions of its massive stockpile of ammunition and explosives. The trend is away from open buming/open detonation (OB/OD) and toward new demilitarization technologies allowing resource recovery and recycling. The second program is the remediation of ordnance and explosives waste (OEW) from both active and formerly used defense sites (FUDS). 

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