• Forum server maintanace Friday night.(around 7PM Centeral time)
    Website will be off line for a short while.

    You may need to log out, log back in after we're back online.

"Un-exploded ordnance" - updated with origin/conclusion

Tom_in_CA

Elite Member
Joined
Dec 23, 2013
Messages
20,637
Hey gang, a certain closed military base, in CA (that shall remain anonymous) has just issued an edict, that metal detectors are not allowed. Apparently, prior to this recent edict, it wasn't *specifically* disallowed. But the article that outlined it *did* say that the activity fell afoul of "alter and deface" and "remove", blah blah verbiage. And I have a sneaking suspicion of why they *now* need to make something specific (since, even they admitted they could have scrammed someone *already*, with existing verbiage).

But the reason for this post, is to bring up their rationale for their new official rule : "Unexploded ordnance". The cover story to the article, which talked about the new rule, said that the persons who were making this new rule, were concerned that someone using a "shovel or a pick" could "inadvertently strike a grenade or unexploded military ordnance and injure themselves".

What is odd, is that this base has been detected for DECADES. And ... no ... no one has "injured themselves".

In fact, humorously, one part of the base (that had been decommissioned) was an old artillery practice range. And ... there was fear years ago, that there "might be dangerous live rounds". So the govt. ponied up MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of dollars to clear out all the rounds (whether live, or spent), "lest someone get hurt". And I know the detector dealer who sold them the metal detectors. And the dealer asked one of the operators "How many live rounds have you actually found there ?" Turns out, that in all the years they'd been working thus far, they found something like a grand total of 3. That could be considered "live" (un-spent). And oddly, were found in a field that had also doubled as tank practice grounds. So that these heavy lumbering tanks, with the track-cleats that chew up and tear up the ground, had been also driving all over the place. Yet. No danger. None ever exploded, etc.... :roll:

Ok, now, pray-tell, HOW IN THE NAME OF PETE is a guy with a metal detector going to injure himself on a live round , of any type ? We have found plenty of live rounds (soldiers who ditch entire clips, so they can tell the drill-sergeant that they're done with range-practice for the day, I suppose). And trust me; Even if you banged on them with a hammer, you'd be hard-pressed to get any reaction. Nor could there be "artillery shells" around barracks and locations that had nothing at all to do with artillery.
 
Last edited:
So do tell: Does anyone here know of an md'r who got exploded, by digging up a bullet or artillery round ? And if this is an "all-fired problem and risk", then why are md'rs in Europe and England detecting ALL THE TIME without problem ? Heck, over there, they went through two world wars EVERYWHERE (and not just military on bases). So since when has this become an imminent risk ? :?:

The only case I can think of, here in the USA, was I *did* hear of a guy who found 5 or 6 CW landmines, in a CW site. He brought them all home in his truck. And while un-loading one of them , it went off and killed him. But gee, wasn't that the *express purpose* of land-mines, to exploded when fiddled with ? Versus an un-spent artillery round, that you have to specifically and arduously *try* activate it ? So .... any examples of live ordnance killing an md'r, who was out doing hobbyist md'ing ?
 
I have dug all sorts of live ammo at the beach. Luckily nothing has happened when I think about thrusting a fast scoop in the sand not knowing. Down near Camp Pendleton I have dug many 50 cals. Most were spent , but a few have been "live".💣
 
I have dug all sorts of live ammo at the beach. Luckily nothing has happened when I think about thrusting a fast scoop in the sand not knowing. Down near Camp Pendleton I have dug many 50 cals. Most were spent , but a few have been "live".💣

And so too have I dug endless THOUSANDS of those 50 cal's. On the beach and on land. I would assume that the ones on the beach would be ruined d/t salt-water, eh ? So .... seriously .... do you think you could have EVER got one to go off, with your sand-scoop, even if you tried ? And if so, do you know of ANYONE who ever got injured, while md'ing, via an un-spent bullet on the beach ?

And the 50 cal's we dig on the military bases (on land) have never been a problem. Heck, I've dug live bullets at municipal parks before (as have all of us here). Ok, when was that ever a problem ??

I have a sneaking suspicion of how this got on the radar of the powers-that-be, that all of the sudden decided this was somehow now a "pressing issue". :roll:
 
I've dug a few WW2 mortars in my time, you can tell straight away from the tail fins, then you stop digging lol
I dug the last one around a year ago and got the bomb disposal unit out to detonate it.
 
I have seen plenty of unexploded mortar rounds and artillery shells in the mountains near me and never wanted to be "that guy" who blew himself up.
 
The only times I've heard of unexploded ordnance exploding is when it is being fooled with, like using civil war era cannonballs (not solid, but they couldn't be bothered to look) as fireplace andirons. Or, an idiot sawing what he thought was a solid cannonball in half.

Unfortunately, the laws protecting the stupid only preserve them to reproduce, IMHO. This is compounded by the fact that you may have to defend yourself from a lawsuit if the stupid get hurt on your land.

-- Tom not in CA
 
...and never wanted to be "that guy" who blew himself up.

"That guy" ? Ok, great ! Then this must mean you know someone who has met my challenge : Someone who "blew himself up" while casual hobbyist md'ing. Right ? Then.... please provide the links. Or describe this person(s)/events. Me thinks we will hear the sound of crickets.

The only times I've heard of unexploded ordnance exploding is when it is being fooled with,....

Ok. And then you go on to list extreme stupid moves. None of which can be compared to my challenge of normal hobbyist md'ing. And simply having dug the thing up. So my question remains: Do you know of any md'r who has exploded himself, simply by digging up a live round ?


... I dug the last one around a year ago and got the bomb disposal unit out to detonate it.

Ok. And had you "failed to get the bomb disposal unit" there, and either A) just left it there (since you now knew it was junk), or B) simply continued to extract it from the ground, then promptly threw it away.

In your opinion, would you, or anyone, have "been in danger", if you'd just chucked it, or just left it ? Because we're not talking land-mines (where the express purpose it to explode with a certain touch). We're not talking hand-grenades (which explode with one simple movement). We talking about shells that have to be *specifically arduously intentionally* worked on.

And all of this even assumes a shell (that's been 'in the elements for decades') is even still "live", in the first place.
 
my find this morning.... unfired 9mm... funny how many people I have hunted with over the years freak out about finding such a thing .. I have even seen them afraid to handle a rusty toy gun that has been in the ground for 50 years, afraid it may "go off" or something.
8iH9WT3.jpg
 
Oh no... That round copper thing that sounds just like a quarter is a bullet? What happened here?

:rifle::gunbandanna:

I've found tonnes... I thought they were just junk. Oops. Maybe the trashcan will explode? :lol:
 
there was a guy a few years back, collector, trying to defuse a Civil War cannonball, and it was ugly. blew him and relative up. i think they lived with severe damage. so the goobermint took his whole collection, inert ones too, and blew them up.

My guru was beating on a chunk of iron in a bank, at first looked like an iron pot,as it was in dry red clay. was a 10lb exploding Confederate shell. no issue. he had it diffused properly with remote tool. preserved and eventually sold.. just put it in his truck and hauled it to antiquities dealer in that kind of stuff. i would not have hauled it away but he was rather knowledgeable in them, said took "x" to make it go off.

a local area, 35,000 acres was a WW1 and WW2 training camp for army. the land was returned twice to original owners. full of !!!!. every few years someone finds something and the army sends out engineers to check. laughable really. they were talking about anomalies in hunters camp to land owner. duhhh was underground electrical wires they use when they set up campers. there has been phosphorus WW1 mortors found that were duds, live but duds, so stuff is there. our local Sheriffs team of vets took care of them on site.

a bullet? naaaa we find handfuls. the most harmful thing is the thugs intown shooting the things in the park at night. thats a danger.

we had an old man bring us a gift at police dept one night . an FOA.. fell off airplane. found by kids in woods behind his house and in line with base runway. that property is now bought out and is a crash zone. the local base came and got the missle....... anti tank one... without much detail whether it was live or not. i know it takes a trigger of some type. over 200 houses etc were bought out in that crash zone and land cleared. lease to farmers as fields only. but no houses.
 
... a bullet? naaaa we find handfuls. ....

thanx Dixie. Exactly as I suspected. And even a larger shell (mortar round) , it would assume 1) that it's even alive in the first place, and 2) that you could even do the exact correct maneuvers to ignite it. Very very unlikely.

But I notice a few persons have given examples of CW stuff. Is that more unstable ? D/t the primitive manufacturing of that era ? I mean, is there ANY comparison between that stuff (and nuts that "try to defuse them"), and WWII artillery piece ?

Or put another way: Does anyone here know of ANYONE , who found a WWII ammunition, of any sort, that maimed him via casual hobbyist digging it-from-the-ground ? So if we remove CW stuff from the question, is there anyone with an example from more recent types ?
 
The only guy I ever heard of blowing himself up while metal detecting was Terry, the president of the Danbury Metal Detecting Club ( DMDC). And he was told not to dig in that paddock.
 
What's going on with people blowing themselves up? Say, where is that emoji, again? Here it is, this is the closest to exploding I can get.

:chemist::chemist::chemist::chemist:

Anyway, hope you have a fun time talking about explosives!

Found a bullet :shock: in my trash pouch. What do I do, what do I do?

:nono: :shock: :chemist:
 
What's going on with people blowing themselves up?...

It never ceases to amaze me, the things that people can conjur up to "worry about", in regards to the supposed ramifications of this hobby.

a) blowing themselves up d/t live ammo

b) causing a million dollars damage because they hit a buried electrical fiber-optic cable.

c) Having their machine "confiscated" by some archie

d) Being singled out for a home invasion robbery, because someone saw your show & tell, and will think "aha, this guy must be rich with gold by now".

And they run around like chickens with their heads cut off, worrying and fretting about every bit of minutia, thinking that somehow "everyone hates us" and "our hobby is dangerous and horrible".

Honestly, it comes to the point where I even wonder why these folks got into this hobby in the first place ? With some caution levels I've seen in this hobby, it's a wonder some people can even step out their own front door in the morning, "lest they be attacked by a lion". Sheesh
 
a loaded cartridge needs to be contained in a chamber of some sort to force the pressure of the cartridge ignition in one direct, out the barrel, to do harm. Powder does not really explode, it burns. Black powder will "explode", as they say, actually burn, at a different rate and way than smokeless powder. about early 90's a girl i worked with and her family bought a farmhouse and barn in the county. her son and another kid were playing in the old barn and found a one pound can of old BLACK POWDER. ONE KID SAYS MY DAD EMPTIES 22 BULLETS AND LIGHTS THE POWDER AND THEY FIZZLE. thats smokeless powder in a .22 . different animal. they poured out some of the black powder and lit it. can blew up too. Burn hospital for both and nearly died. blew door off barn. kids had to have marathon fundraisers. Civil war was black powder. i shoot muskets and use black powder and synthetic replacement powder. black powders burns different than the synthetic black powder. yeh black powder is more explosive as they say, like thermite that is so popular on TV. but it takes a certain way to do it still. firecracker factories notoriously blow up. so it is explosive /burning at different pressure and rate and can cause a lot of harm, like fireworks going astray at july 4th.

I have found live rim fire Spencer 54 caliber cartridges from a Civil War site in my area, and some intown due to occupation. they are rim fire, and contain black powder. Black powder becomes unstable over the years with concentration of Nitro or the formula. they could still go off if found stored in dry place. if the cartridge was in ground and water kept out maybe go off too. But then again without a barrel to squeeze it in one direction, the lethality of it probably negligible under most circumstances but sharpnel could result. a lawnmower hit can set off a rimfire, but still no containment to force the lead in one direction. black powder or smokeless. not enough in most shells to do too much.

it containment mainly that causes harm when ignited substance has to force its way out.
 
It never ceases to amaze me, the things that people can conjur up to "worry about", in regards to the supposed ramifications of this hobby.

a) blowing themselves up d/t live ammo

b) causing a million dollars damage because they hit a buried electrical fiber-optic cable.

c) Having their machine "confiscated" by some archie

d) Being singled out for a home invasion robbery, because someone saw your show & tell, and will think "aha, this guy must be rich with gold by now".

And they run around like chickens with their heads cut off, worrying and fretting about every bit of minutia, thinking that somehow "everyone hates us" and "our hobby is dangerous and horrible".

Honestly, it comes to the point where I even wonder why these folks got into this hobby in the first place ? With some caution levels I've seen in this hobby, it's a wonder some people can even step out their own front door in the morning, "lest they be attacked by a lion". Sheesh

What. People, in this intelligent world, think that you'll hit a fiber obtict cable with a puny shovel? They bury those stuff WAY deep, and why in the smack middle of your park? Think! :laughing::wow: Yeah, there is totally some caution, but "Being singled out for a home invasion robbery, because someone saw your show & tell, and will think "aha, this guy must be rich with gold by now". Nuh uh. You must be the author of Alice in wonderland if you think that. :yes: Like only one of those could even be possible, let alone happen.

Josh :lol:
 
a loaded cartridge needs to be contained in a chamber of some sort to force the pressure of the cartridge ignition in one direct, out the barrel, to do harm. Powder does not really explode, it burns. Black powder will "explode", as they say, actually burn, at a different rate and way than smokeless powder. about early 90's a girl i worked with and her family bought a farmhouse and barn in the county. her son and another kid were playing in the old barn and found a one pound can of BLACK POWDER. ONE KID SAYS MY DAD EMPTIES 22 BULLETS AND LIGHTS THE POWDER AND THEY FIZZLE. thats smokeless powder in a .22 . different animal. they poured out some of the black powder and lit it. Burn hospital for both and nearly died. blew door off barn. kids had to have marathon fundraisers. Civil war was black powder. i shoot muskets and use black powder and synthetic replacement powder. black powders burns different than the synthetic black powder.
I have found live rim fire Spencer 54 caliber cartridges from a Civil War site in my area, and some intown due to occupation. they are rim fire, and contain black powder. Black powder becomes unstable over the years with concentration of Nitro or the formula. they could still go off if found stored in dry place. if the cartridge was in ground and water kept out maybe go off too. But then again without a barrel to squeeze it in one direction, the lethality of it probably negligible under most circumstances but sharpnel could result. a lawnmower hit can set off a rimfire, but still no containment to force the lead in one direction. black powder or smokeless. not enough in most shells to do too much.

Great post. Good info for those of us who are not familiar with this subject of guns, powder, shells, and the way-they-can or can't get triggered.

It sounds like the various examples of injury you gave, were .... like others : Numb-nuts doing stunts. And would not be similar to an md'r hobbyist digging up a bullet or whatever.

thanx again for the great input to the issues involved !
 
a loaded cartridge needs to be contained in a chamber of some sort to force the pressure of the cartridge ignition in one direct, out the barrel, to do harm. Powder does not really explode, it burns. Black powder will "explode", as they say, actually burn, at a different rate and way than smokeless powder. about early 90's a girl i worked with and her family bought a farmhouse and barn in the county. her son and another kid were playing in the old barn and found a one pound can of BLACK POWDER. ONE KID SAYS MY DAD EMPTIES 22 BULLETS AND LIGHTS THE POWDER AND THEY FIZZLE. thats smokeless powder in a .22 . different animal. they poured out some of the black powder and lit it. Burn hospital for both and nearly died. blew door off barn. kids had to have marathon fundraisers. Civil war was black powder. i shoot muskets and use black powder and synthetic replacement powder. black powders burns different than the synthetic black powder.
I have found live rim fire Spencer 54 caliber cartridges from a Civil War site in my area, and some intown due to occupation. they are rim fire, and contain black powder. Black powder becomes unstable over the years with concentration of Nitro or the formula. they could still go off if found stored in dry place. if the cartridge was in ground and water kept out maybe go off too. But then again without a barrel to squeeze it in one direction, the lethality of it probably negligible under most circumstances but sharpnel could result. a lawnmower hit can set off a rimfire, but still no containment to force the lead in one direction. black powder or smokeless. not enough in most shells to do too much.

Why do people have so much access to this stuff anyway? They're only for Pew pew, people!

How to use bullets, ultimate class.

Yes: :rifle: :gunbandanna:

No: :chemist: :chemist:
 
Back
Top Bottom