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Old August 5, 2010, 09:15 PM   #25
Mike Irwin
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Join Date: April 13, 2000
Location: Northern Virginia
Posts: 41,374
"Imagine a pin holding a striker rusting through, let's say."

As far as I know, no civil war munitions used a spring-loaded striker.

Even if they did, and corrosion were a factor, it's far more likely that the spring would have corroded to uselessness long before any safety pin would have corroded through.

The most typical civil war era mechanical fuse would have been inertial, firing upon impact with the target, which would mean a rifled gun and oblong shell, not a roundball.
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