good day range mining some strange finds does anyone know what these are?

[acguy45]

I was out in the back 40 yesterday an I came across a range that hasnt been used in a while I came across these the skinny ones have a lead jacket over a blasting cap looking deal (sim round maybe) the one on the left in the pic has a mushroomed nose and the cap tip is exposed. some of them have faint remmnants of orange/ red paint on themat first I was thinking .50 bmg but theres no rifling grooves.
the other odd find look like a large hollow base slugs just alot bigger they weigh about a pound each and they show clearly defined rifling marks. has anyone seen these before or know what they are. my pliers make marks in them fairly easy and there were hundreds of them I thinkI hit the jack pot! now I just have to find time to melt. l know its not the best picture but I used the leatherman as a rough size indicator.

[Seeker]

Boolits...and a slug?

[Rooster]

Jumpin' herds o' turtles! How big are the deer out there?

[altheating]

I think the big slug was used for T-Rex. That's one big slug! Well, if your mining a berm finding a Boolit that weighs one pound at a time is great. Keep digging!

[Budzilla 19]

A little research about that range might be in order,(unless you know the range personally), to find out what might have been fired there in the past! That is a HUGE slug, maybe a WW2 cannon slug? I would approach those smaller ones carefully.if all is good to go, you hit the fabled mother lode! Good luck to you.

[clodhopper]

Ft Lewis WA. Should be a hint.
Be careful, there may be some unexploded ordinance in your berm.

[Bigslug]

I'm going to watch the replies on this one with great interest. I would hazard a guess and say that the big guy is a contemporary of the early rotary machine gun cannon predecessors like the Hotchkiss, that tended to run in the high 30mm to low 40mm diameter range.

The "little" guys are REALLY odd! Any chance that the lack of rifling marks (or really obvious rifling marks) is due to that they might have been paper-patched through something? The Brits played around with explosive bullets in the black-to-smokeless transitional era, and they also had some large bore Maxim family machine guns lobbing incendiary packages for taking down Zeppelins. Gotta guess they're no earlier than 1880, and no later than 1920. Be darn careful melting those! Never mind the Fairy - that could summon the Tinsel Goddess!

[acguy45]

interesting theory, I knever thought about paper patch,they have a museum on post maybe I can take them over there sometime and see if anyone can id them

thank you for the sound advice ,the caps inside have already been expended and are empty metal tubes also l pulled the outer jacket off of some of them fairly easily with pliars Im probably going to go that route with all of them as I will have time while the big ones melt. Im going to keep a few of them intact for curiosity sake

[Budzilla 19]

+1 on the Tinsel Goddess!!! Be careful.Good luck.

[acguy45]

140629

I went back yesterday to look around some more and stumbled on this little "gem" needless to say my exploration of this area is done.

[Pb Burner]

Uugghhh, I wouldn't melt that one!

[lightman]

That is a very interesting place! You are probably making a good decision to not go back. I know it would be a hard one for me.

[GoodOlBoy]

If that is on your property I would send a copy of the pic to the military and get them to come double check the place. If it isn't then yeah I would say don't go back.

GoodOlBoy

[Ballistics in Scotland]

140629

I went back yesterday to look around some more and stumbled on this little "gem" needless to say my exploration of this area is done.

Yes, if the striker seized through rust but the spring is still intact, that is a seriously antisocial situation. I think the military would clear it no matter on whose property it is on nowadays, and would sweep for any more. After all, the odds are strongly against anyone else having put it there.

The Hotchkiss revolving cannon normally fired an explosive or solid steel shell, or canister with a load of round balls. I never heard of a lead projectile being used, and a picture of the muzzles in this website doesn't show the rather deep, narrow lands which marked the bullet in your picture.

http://oldbritishguns.com/the-37mm-hotchkiss-revolving-cannon

On the smaller bullets there is a groove rather like the one sometimes used to tie a combustible case to the bullet of a capping breech-loader or needle gun. Neither of these were common in America, but it may be that some foreign weapons underwent trials there. The copper cap is puzzling. Was there any indication that a striker had hit it? It might have had a paper cap on the outside.

[jonp]

You might contact the local sheriff. Their bomb squad may look at this as a perfect training opportunity.

[acguy45]

its in a known and placarded impact area on post that doesnt look like it has been used in god knows when. so I doubt anyone would be to concerned cosidering how many other things are probably out there.

[acguy45]

[QUOTE=Ballistics in Scotland


On the smaller bullets there is a groove rather like the one sometimes used to tie a combustible case to the bullet of a capping breech-loader or needle gun. Neither of these were common in America, but it may be that some foreign weapons underwent trials there. The copper cap is puzzling. Was there any indication that a striker had hit it? It might have had a paper cap on the outside.[/QUOTE]

the tubes inside the shells are totally hollow with the openig facing to the rear so l'm guessing the were loaded into a cartridge of some sort

[Ballistics in Scotland]

If it was a range with jacketed bullets present, is there any indication that the corrosion on the tube is different from other items buried under the same conditions? It might have been some kind of tracer or smoke-trail device. It is clearly a lot more primitive than tracers when they came into common use. I thin the .303 in 1915 was the first. But that is the sort of thing someone might have tried long before.

[Littlewolf]

the long skinny ones with the "blasting cap" type thingy in them sound to me like the spotting rounds from a S.M.A.W. missle launcher the spotting rounds are 9mm dia weighing a bit over 300gr of lead with a red phosphorus capsule in the aft section with a copper jacket over the ojibe.
my $0.02

[Bigslug]

Yeah. . .spotting round or incendiary, but the goofy thing is the lack of any kind of jacket, which is what had me thinking it was cooked up by some 19th century brain.

But what's a few rusty grenades when there's 1-pound slugs laying all over the place?:kidding:

I'd probably ask the bomb disposal guys nicely: "As long as y'all are training out there looking for old UXB's, if you just happen to turn up any more of these, please stack them in the little Radio Flyer wagon sitting right over there. . ."

[acguy45]

l looked up the smaw rounds that were mentioned similar concept but these projectiles I found definately appear to predate those paticular rounds. I took another picture of a couple more at various angles with a .50 bmg round (3rd from left in pic) Ifound at the same location. all of these were found on the surface I didnt have to dig.

thanks for all th replies, ideas, and input

[Geezer in NH]

its in a known and placarded impact area on post that doesnt look like it has been used in god knows when. so I doubt anyone would be to concerned cosidering how many other things are probably out there.
Then get out of it you knew it was bad to be there. Age don't matter. Gheesh!

[SOFMatchstaff]

You need to dispose of those ASAP !!! the small projectiles are the UN-Detonated 14.5 mm training round from a Type M 183 artillery trainer round, they are most likely Point Detonating fuzed, FED # 1305-915-8593-A367 made by Dynamit Nobel. they also made an air burst round. DO NOT try to melt them down they are UXB ordnance from the 50's and 60's

I wish I'd seen this when first posted, that Chit is Dangerous , I have access to the firing mechanism that fires this stuff and it is really special handling stuff..

[acguy45]

I did dispose of them, I got about 30 lyman gnots out of them. the caps on all of them were already popped but I peeled the lead outer shell off them with dykes anyway just to be onthe safe side it wasnt that much of a chore. thank you for that information though.