How are cannon balls made you read in the paper that a man was killed when an old cannon ball blew up?

Answer 1

Cannon balls would not blow up. The newspaper must have gotten something wrong - maybe they meant to say a mine blew up. Cannon balls are solid metal - they do damage when the cannon blows them out at high speed like a bullet. Cannon balls can explode, during the civil war era cannon balls were in use that were just a hallow shell of metal and had gun powder and pieces of metal on the inside an di fuse was placed in the cannon ball and when fired the fuse would ignite and then would burn the fuse and ignite the gun powder inside the cannon ball. There were also some cannon balls that would explode on impact using friction strips on the inside that would create a spark and ignite the gun powder on the inside. So yes cannon balls can explode, the type of cannon ball the person above me is referring to is called solid shot, there are a lot other types out there like cannister, and grape shot, and connical shaped rounds and even hexagonal shaped rounds just to name a few, but yes cannon balls can explode