40mm tracer projectile. 38 qty .50 caliber bullets came out of the beach today.

[Deese]

My tesoro sand shark has found a mother load of 50 cal machine gun bullets,we also found 30 cal and some others as well. one shell casing,the mother of all bolts 4 feet deep. we dug a hole 4 feet deep at least on the beach today. I didn't really want to draw that much attention to us but when you are pulling bullets,and the machine just keeps signaling what do you do? pulled about a ton of lead weights yesterday afternoon as well. I am cleaning up the bullets now and will post pictures shortly.

 

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[Westfront]

Re: Tesoro means treasure. 38 qty .50 caliber bullets came out of the beach today.

bomb practice * as well as strafing -- delayed fuses ---- exploding bombs means shrapnel

Thanks! we had figured that the shrapnel was from some sort of impact detonation shell or timed fuse but what we want to know what particular round left these remnants, and have scoured google trying to find something that looks similar before it was blown to smitherines, because we know exactly how it looks after! haha we have a whole pile of it. The shards are all relatively the same size and broke off in basically the same geometry. Apparently there were indentions in the outer layer of whatever the shell was, and the explosion unseamed fragments at each of the grooves. The pieces all have a common width of about 3/4 inch and a variable width of .5 to 2 centimeters, depending on which fault the separation occurred at. The thickness of these pieces of copper are roughly 3 millimeters. Can anyone find an example of a shell or rifle round that maye have these thatches on the side? I am really interested in finding out what they were! thanks!!!

I made a pic for You. You see a 30mm AA projectile (training/no explosives only tracer) wich uses the same kind of driving band. The bigger the grenade the bigger the driving band as You see on the pic....the fragment on the rigth is from a VERY big one. The width of a driving band on a 155mm Long Tom grenade is one third of this...

 

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[Westfront]

Another one with the colour markings on cal. .50. Black is Armor Piercing, blue is incendiary, red tracer, silver (aluminum) tip armor piercing/incendiary. The aluminum tip is a fuze! Dont try to open these! You can crack the black tip open to get the armor piercing steel inner bullet out. Sorry that most of Yours are in bad shape, they look good on display!

 

[Deese]

Another one with the colour markings on cal. .50. Black is Armor Piercing, blue is incendiary, red tracer, silver (aluminum) tip armor piercing/incendiary. The aluminum tip is a fuze! Dont try to open these! You can crack the black tip open to get the armor piercing steel inner bullet out. Sorry that most of Yours are in bad shape, they look good on display!

They have been in the ocean for 70 years,I cant believe how good they have held up.I havent looked for colors,I dont think any of the ones I found come apart but I will double check.

 

[Sgtrock]

very cool finds !!

You can teel the year and location of manufacture of the casings on the .50 cal the one you show was mad in 1943 at the Salt Lake ammunition depot. The projectile with the silver/white tip is an incindiery (SP) round...it has a pellet in the tip the "Blows Up" if you looked at some of the gun camera footage when a round hit a plane it flashed when it hit...tracer round tip were usually orange and represented every 5th round.. it assisted the pilot/gunner into walking the projectiles into the target.

Did you find any links??

All the best...

 

[tnt-k9]

Very cool digs You must be on the fringe of a target range? Gonna put my skirt on and say be very careful!! Unexploded ordance (UXOs) can be dangerous. I only spent 23 years in the U.S. Army and up until a year ago I handled an explosive detection K-9 (ergo my user name). I now have a safer gig running a narc dog. The older the round the more unstable it is.

 

[Deese]

Very cool digs You must be on the fringe of a target range? Gonna put my skirt on and say be very careful!! Unexploded ordance (UXOs) can be dangerous. I only spent 23 years in the U.S. Army and up until a year ago I handled an explosive detection K-9 (ergo my user name). I now have a safer gig running a narc dog. The older the round the more unstable it is. Where can I get a retired k9 that sniffs out money?

 

[Skelly607]

WOW! These finds rate pretty high on my kewl beans factor scale!!!! All this in a 10x10 area? Wonder if the whole beach is like this?

 

[Deese]

WOW! These finds rate pretty high on my kewl beans factor scale!!!! All this in a 10x10 area? Wonder if the whole beach is like this?

I'm trying to figure out how far it goes but keep digging bullets .Going back this weekend and dig some more.

 

[Deepdiger60]

Nice bullets those .50 cal,s do some evil damage ,over in the Nam 1968 we had 1 quad .50 in our company we used nothing less then armor penetrating rounds with explosive casing,s that quad blew a Russian made tank into tiny little pieces i love firing that gun it gave you a full sense of power .Dd60

 

[Sgtrock]

Nice bullets those .50 cal,s do some evil damage ,over in the Nam 1968 we had 1 quad .50 in our company we used nothing less then armor penetrating rounds with explosive casing,s that quad blew a Russian made tank into tiny little pieces i love firing that gun it gave you a full sense of power .Dd60

Well first of all Dd60...welcome back...and Thank you for your service.

Second...WOW what a piece of machinery....I bet it was difficult keeping that hungry thing fed...

Regarding the finds though I am curious why no links and casings?

 

[{Sentinel}]

Nice bullets those .50 cal,s do some evil damage ,over in the Nam 1968 we had 1 quad .50 in our company we used nothing less then armor penetrating rounds with explosive casing,s that quad blew a Russian made tank into tiny little pieces i love firing that gun it gave you a full sense of power .Dd60

Hail yeah, I bet you tore some "Egg Beaters" up with that sucker DD! That sure is alot

of bullets. They used the outer banks for target practice alot in the old days. There's a place North

of Nags Head between the road and the beach that is marked with a Warning that says: Military target

area, unexploded artillery and ordinance.

 

[Westfront]

Regarding the finds though I am curious why no links and casings?

When we dig a hot spot on a battlefield we have lots of bullets but only a few casings(cal. .50). Think the casings are miles away from the place the bullets hit. Our bullets are mostly from aircraft fire, never dug a spot where a AA gun left hundreds of them...
What do You mean with links?

 

[Monty]

Looks like you happened upon an old gun range or one hell of a firefight!. Monty

 

[Westfront]

I disbelieve there was a firefight in Wilmington,NC....but who knows...

 

[daroofa]

Re: 40mm tracer projectile. 38 qty .50 caliber bullets came out of the beach tod

Regarding the finds though I am curious why no links and casings?

When we dig a hot spot on a battlefield we have lots of bullets but only a few casings(cal. .50). Think the casings are miles away from the place the bullets hit. Our bullets are mostly from aircraft fire, never dug a spot where a AA gun left hundreds of them...
What do You mean with links?

Probably talking about the steel clips that hold them together. They are wherever you find the casings usually.

 

[Westfront]

Re: 40mm tracer projectile. 38 qty .50 caliber bullets came out of the beach tod

Probably talking about the steel clips that hold them together. They are wherever you find the casings usually.

Oh! Now i know. Im MDing european battlefields for a long time. I live in an area where the bomber came over from GB to bomb targets in western/south Germany. We have about 400 known crashsites in a 70 mile circle around my home. You can imagine how many rounds where shot here.... I never dug this clips! I have very few of them similar to Yours in the pic, together with the casings. I think the clips are rusted to nearly nothing so i dont get them because of the discrimination i use. (We have millions of shrapnel here in the soil....)

 

[Stand Watie]

I think most of the gunships like the Spectre and Spooky had the 40mm Bofors on them, along with the 30 cal electric mini-gun, too.

 

[SneadsFerryMD]

Thats a ton of sinkers!!! Im from Sneads Ferry, I hunt Topsail mainly, but venture to Onslow, Emerald Isle and Wirghtsville ocassionally. We should try to meet up some time.

 

[EODsmitty]

The rotating bands are brass and so is the base fuze. It looks like a 37mm Hotchkiss round. This one looks to be a "steel shot" round. They were used to penetrate armor on hardened vehicles and vessels. I would be carefully with that round. It has a small cavity with explosives in it. It is designed to penetrate and the detonate for max damage. I also wouldn't try to remove the fuze. If there is explosives or even residue, it can become more sensitive with age. By unscrewing the fuze there is a possibility of detonation from heat, shock, and friction if there is any explosives in the threads. I am an EOD guy on active duty, even though I did sleep in a holiday inn express last night! Lol

Smitty

 

[NolanTheExplorer]

Nice left handed cigarette