A heavily corroded artillery shell dating before World War One turned up amongst scrap metal pieces in the Trossachs dump on Thursday, and was subsequently detonated by Armed Forces personnel at the Radville dump.

Garry Moore and Brad Tindall were using a payloader to gather up old fridges and stoves to recycle the scrap metal, when Moore spotted the cylindrical steel object about the size of a large pop bottle.

"It was about eight inches tall and it had a screw-in top, and two holes on each side with lead plugs. It was solid steel and really heavy, about eight to 10 pounds," said Moore, adding it was badly corroded, to the point that half of the screw-in top was eaten away.

He phoned the Radville RCMP and they came out right away, taking many pictures of it to send to Armed Forces personnel in Suffield, Alta., to determine what type of shell it was.

According to the RCMP, the device was a high-energy artillery shell designed for a muzzle-loading artillery gun, and appeared to predate the First World War.

Personnel came from CFB Dundurn and transported the device to the Radville dump, where it was detonated at about 9:30 p.m.

Moore said this dump had been cleaned some three to five years ago, and guessed that someone might have been cleaning up some old scrap items from a farm yard.

"Maybe somebody's grandfather was in the war," he said, adding he was glad the device was found before it did any damage.

"If that had gone through a shredder, it might have set it off," said Moore. "It could've been terrible."

Moore had suggested to the police that they disarm it so he could keep it, but was told they wouldn't be able to do that.