Old bullet dangerous?

[Brig]

Had a M79 practice round on a shelf after I had a bit of water in my basement.Should have known better.One of the "kids" got up there and knocked it off over night.

 

She greeted me in the morning covered in pink powder.When I went to the basement the round had hit the floor and the plastic tip had shattered spewing the pink powder all over.Looked like pink flower every where.Not sure what the material is but it was like fine baby powder.

 

The primer was intact but the plastic nose was not meant to take a 5 foot drop on concrete.

 

Not sure about then, but now the TP rounds are an orange, detergeant based fine powder. It tends to clump up with age and more often than not we find the projectile of these rounds intact down range when we conduct police call. I'd say for every one that actually 'poofs' 2 do not, it seems the ground is rarely dense enough in N Carolina to shatter the plastic shell

 

There is a well documented incident of a school teacher who kept what he believed to be a dummy or inert 40mm on his desk, and picked it up to kill a fly that had landed, and it went off after striking the flat surface. It happens. I had a buddy who, like a boot, kicked a piece of UXO in Iraq and it went off, sending shrapnel into his inner thighs. Stuff happens, I don't mess with it. It takes minimal work and is nothing more than a Gerber or empty shell casing to field strip a round...why risk it?

[Chris_B]

I certainly never called anybody's word into question. I asked a question about what was it that "went off", the primer and powder or just the primer.

 

In fact reading this again I see one solitary occurence of anyone stating that the event was doubtful, and that was the entirety of thing: he felt is was doubtful. Let's not start assuming that there's a crowd of people picking on a member here or a group of people attacking his word.

[MWalsh]

Whatever.

 

I think the intent of some in this thread was pretty clear, seemed like a lot piling on after the first poor comment was made, only not quite as overt.

[bellasilva]

Oh lord.

[El Bibliotecario]

The late MG Julian Hatcher related a story about a fellow arming a plane in the Pacific. It was hot, he was shirtless, and carrying belts of .50 ammunition draped over his shoulders. A fluke accident--the bullet on one belt impacted the primer on another belt, 'firing' the round. The only damage was a red welt on the guys chest from the hot brass.

[oldabewla]

The late MG Julian Hatcher related a story about a fellow arming a plane in the Pacific. It was hot, he was shirtless, and carrying belts of .50 ammunition draped over his shoulders. A fluke accident--the bullet on one belt impacted the primer on another belt, 'firing' the round. The only damage was a red welt on the guys chest from the hot brass.

For those who don't know him!

 

Julian Sommerville Hatcher

 

Chief of the Small Arms Division in the Ordnance Department and the Assistant Commandant of the Ordnance School before and at the beginning of World War II, he worked closely with Springfield Armory as an engineering trouble-shooter in resolving early production issues associated with the early iterations of the M1 Garand Rifle

 

The Major General knew his stuff thanks for the story.

 

Craig

[jgawne]

With billions and billions of rounds made over the years, Weird stuff is gonna happen.

 

To 'legalize' ammo found in France its pretty common to drill hole in the side and pout the powder out. I spent a night doing this with some, then the next day was the 4th of July and we celebrated by throwing 1944 bullet powder on the fire.

[AAF_Collection]

Looking at the round which started this thread, it's not just the primer or anything in the cartridge case which would bother me, if as already mentioned the round is an AP or Incendiary the projectile could be an issue.

[pzjgr]

Looking at the round which started this thread, it's not just the primer or anything in the cartridge case which would bother me, if as already mentioned the round is an AP or Incendiary the projectile could be an issue.

 

Really??? What exactly is worrisome about an AP projectile?

[Garandomatic]

I think he means API, which would have some incendiary material in it.

[pzjgr]

I think he means API, which would have some incendiary material in it.

 

Well, that would be different if that's what he meant, even though I don't see API as dangerous either...or rather, any more dangerous than any other sort of live ammo.

 

Anything could be dangerous...hammers, baseball bats, golf clubs, if misused or handled stupidly. Yet I have all these things in my basement or garage....

 

[lovnik]

I've got tons of live ammo sitting in my closet.

 

I think you'll be alright.

-Brian

 

I had the exact same thought as I read the initial post.