.50 BMG found in strange place.. once upon a time

[Dutchman]

Once upon a time I was taking a little walk at a place called Hunter Mountain on the western rim of Death Valley. So named for Lyle Hunter who was one of Mosby's Raiders during the Civil War. Lyle Hunter built a cabin and ran it as a wrangler's camp for mules and horses going into Death Valley.

So I was out and about strolling along among the pinion pines and picking up pottery shards and arrow heads and what do I see but these .50 BMG and a few links laying on the ground. Mind you it's 7,000 feet up and thickly forested.

The headstamp is SL4 which is St. Louis 1944. The spent shell obviously suffered some ejection damage. I expect that's how the unfired one came to be laying there as well. Seems the area overhead was used for aerial practice towards the end of WW2 with P51 Mustangs and the like.

http://images52.fotki.com/v1566/photos/2/28344/3886627/50bmg_tif7513076638271867581-vi.jpg

Bet I wore 34" jeans back then :). Probably 1981.

http://images20.fotki.com/v218/photos/2/28344/2623014/HunterMt-vi.jpg

Lot of people have stayed in that cabin. If it's empty you can move in.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&gbv=2&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=B0u1TfKNE7TciAKW0LCwBg&ved=0CDQQBSgA&q=hunter+cabin+death+valley&spell=1&biw=1106&bih=509

I had a full size male bighorn sheep jump up 20 feet in front of me and stroll across my trail close to this cabin. Like he didn't have a care in the world.

Dutch

[NickSS]

I was out tundra stomping on Adak Alaska which was occupied by the US during WWII and continued as a Naval Station through the early 90s. This was in the early 70s. Well I fell through a hole in the tundra and found myself in the entrance way to a WW II pill box and setup in the firing slit which overlooked a beach was a 50 cal M2 MG complete with tripod and a belt of ammo in the breach. There were five or six extra cans of ammo and a case of pinaple grenades in the place along with a GI helmet. It looked like someone came in at the end of the war and told the guy on watch that the war was over and they were leaving. I tried to get that gun to work for several days but it was too badly rusted so I turned it all into ordinance. When I was there there were still areas marked as mined and do not walk and there were still barb wire entaglements in areas in the tundra that you could not see untilll they bit you.

[gnoahhh]

I doubt that loaded round was ejected from a fighter machine gun. Those guns were inaccessible to the pilot who had no way to clear a jam. Perhaps it was shucked out by an aerial gunner in a bomber or reconnaissance plane. More likely scenario would be a ground or vehicle mounted .50 on maneuvers. Or a kid dropped them!

[Arisaka99]

Nick, so you blew them up?

[madsenshooter]

I found one in my grandma's knick knack cabinet where it had sat for over 60 years. Her son, my uncle, was a belly turret gunner in a B24J (he was a little guy), and had brought it home from gunnery school. Grandma put it in her knick knack cabinet, and there it sat live for all those years. When I pulled it down the inside of the case was green, the powder was bone dry. It was some big stick powder, and some of it had crumbled to dust.

[Superfly]

Damn i cant wait till i fall into a bunker with grenades And you Damn right i will keep em Man whata find I am still Dumbfounded PLEASE let me find a stash like that

[gnoahhh]

One of my boyhood pals was an army brat who had lived in West Germany for a good while. He stumbled onto an old German bunker that still had an MG-42 set up in it, with another one still sealed up in it's aluminum shipping container. He said he and his buddies played "army" all summer with the stuff, and caught righteous hell when found out.

I was told recently where an MG-42 lies buried in it's hermetically sealed aluminum shipping container, by the guy who buried it in April, 1945 when he was a 14 year old unwilling participant in the Volksturm. At least he's pretty sure. It's under the Berlin Zoo, but I doubt it can be found.

[Dutchman]

I doubt that loaded round was ejected from a fighter machine gun. Those guns were inaccessible to the pilot who had no way to clear a jam. Perhaps it was shucked out by an aerial gunner in a bomber or reconnaissance plane. More likely scenario would be a ground or vehicle mounted .50 on maneuvers. Or a kid dropped them!

Guess you didn't get the part about 7,000 feet in wilderness with nothing but foot access.

Dutch

[Longwood]

Guess you didn't get the part about 7,000 feet in wilderness with nothing but foot access.

Dutch
I found a 50 cal case stamped 42, way up on a mountain in the chocolate mountains where it was plenty obvious no vehicle had ever been when Patton trained his troops nearby. On the same day, I found a live 50 stamped 43 about 1/2 mile away but It could have came from a ground vehicle since tank tracks are still there in many places. Funny thing, some of the tracks had, very slow growing,15+ ft tall ocotilla's, in between them.
In the 70's, we were on a Jeep trip close to the Salton sea and one of the people found a land mine left there by Patton's guys. It exploded when the sheriffs came out to detonate it.

[waksupi]

Things turn up in strange places. On separate occasions, I have found a roll of electricians tape, and a new dish scrubber far back in the Great Bear Wilderness. Far from any trail, in thick jungle. Always figured they had to fall out of, or off of, the small planes that flew over.

[Jack Stanley]

Damn i cant wait till i fall into a bunker with grenades And you Damn right i will keep em Man whata find I am still Dumbfounded PLEASE let me find a stash like that

Use 'em fer fishin' sinkers huh? :p

Jack

[gnoahhh]

"Well Sheriff, you gonna stand there with that lit grenade or are you gonna fish?!"

[KCSO]

On old grenades. Found one in the trash a couple years ago and helped dispose of it. Wrapped the body with det cord and boom no more grenade. But the detonator we set off by pulling the pin with a long cord. I don't know as I would keep any grenades from WWII, it popped in about 1 second and I cant thow that fast any more! Had a call last night and an elderly lady is bringing me a 60MM mortar round her hubby brought back. Wonder if this one is loaded?