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.

 

[Deese]

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

Here are the pics,anybody know what the huge bolt might have been for?

 

[bootybay]

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

that is alotta bullets.. curious what the two round tags are too.

 

[Deese]

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

that is alotta bullets.. curious what the two round tags are too.

Got 10 Sec stamped on them like maybe ten second fuse or something. By the way all this ordinance came out of about a 10'x10' square about 6 hours in the same spot today.

 

[Slabman]

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

The bolt appears to be for the construction of a 1950's era troop transport barge. There were alot of things that used these pins. Baily bridges, pontoon transports, etc. We put them together in the guards back in the 70's, and floated some
duece and a halfs, and jeeps around on our local reservoir. We were dismantling one of these contraptions, and that same type of pin was binding up when
we were trying to remove it. I was on one side of a girder, and a guy with a hammer on the other. He was pounding away, and it was stuck fast, and all of a
sudden it shot out right into my right cheek. I woke up with a circle of guys standing over me... Luckily I was young, and healed up quickly.
Slab

 

[Deese]

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

The bolt appears to be for the construction of a 1950's era troop transport barge. There were alot of things that used these pins. Baily bridges, pontoon transports, etc. We put them together in the guards back in the 70's, and floated some
duece and a halfs, and jeeps around on our local reservoir. We were dismantling one of these contraptions, and that same type of pin was binding up when
we were trying to remove it. I was on one side of a girder, and a guy with a hammer on the other. He was pounding away, and it was stuck fast, and all of a
sudden it shot out right into my right cheek. I woke up with a circle of guys standing over me... Luckily I was young, and healed up quickly.
Slab

Hey, thanks. wow that was a fantastic reply! Was thinking it was some sort of military bolt given the surrounding findings. Was also hoping it was earlier possibly world war 2 era bolt. Thanks again

 

[NHBandit]

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

I'm guessing the bullets with the hollow base are tracers. Lots of fun shooting them off on the 4th of July.. Cool find.

 

[Gunny71]

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

Be carefull with the little wooden box with the fake metal cig, its called a dugout, and not made for smoking tobaccy.

Don't ask how I know...

 

[Ron P]

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

Great collection of finds. We were firing 1943 made 50 cal in the mid 1980's in germany and had it as part of our basic load. It was packed in ether as a preservative. Excellent reliability.

 

[daroofa]

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

Be carefull with the little wooden box with the fake metal cig, its called a dugout, and not made for smoking tobaccy.

Don't ask how I know...

Looks like a brand new bat as well...someone was bummin.

 

[ivan salis]

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

1943 made - st louis SL---------- navy air planes "practiced" beach strafing and bombing preparing for pacific WW2 "beach" landings -- "enemy targets" were put on the beaches and shot up and bombed -- the 10 sec "tags" are most likely time delay fuses of some sort the bolt might be from a "pulled / towed on a long wire target" set up

 

[Deese]

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

1943 made - st louis SL---------- navy air planes "practiced" beach strafing and bombing preparing for pacific WW2 "beach" landings -- "enemy targets" were put on the beaches and shot up and bombed -- the 10 sec "tags" are most likely time delay fuses of some sort the bolt might be from a "pulled / towed on a long wire target" set up

Got any ideas about the shrapnel? There was always about 4 pieces in the hole near the bullets.

 

[ivan salis]

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

 

[Deese]

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!!!

 

[ivan salis]

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

air plane bombs most likely --outer casings were scored to make them break up into a lot of even sized chunks when they blew up to get as many folks as possible --anti personnel type bombs ( they come in various sizes / weights) they often had a time delay to allow low flying planes a few seconds to get away before the bomb exploded to prevent the bomb blast / shrapnel from damaging the plane dropping it ===thus the 10 sec time delay tags you found

 

[TiredIron]

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

Great collection of finds. We were firing 1943 made 50 cal in the mid 1980's in germany and had it as part of our basic load. It was packed in ether as a preservative. Excellent reliability.

I still find good buys on original WWII & Korea era linked .50 ammo in their airtight cans and when opened....sniffffffffff....yes Ron....it still smells the same as 31 years ago if the can had a good seal.
Solvents are used in production of extruded Nitro Cellulose based powders as as a wash agent. These solvents give off an oder that might smell like ether after a while, but its not. I buy bulk powder in #150lb containers and they give off this same oder. Using a low flash point flammable gas as an ammo can preservative would be like washing down the floor of a fireworks factory with gasoline.

Deese- Your finds remind me of when I live on Okinawa in 1959-1962 as a 10-12 year old. Every day I would comb the beach after the tide went out and could easily fill a five gallon bucket with .30 & .50 projectiles. It drove our parents crazy with the stuff we would bring home...and usually resulted in a visit from the Base EOD when we found something bigger. Nice finds....

 

[Deese]

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

I went back today and found a 40mm tracer projectile. Scared me a little.

 

[Deese]

here are some pics after cleaning.

 

[ivan salis]

humm 40 mm were normally rapid fire anti aircraft type rounds used onboard ships as their anti aircraft guns -- bofors 40 mm gun twins (2) or (4) quad mounts

-- towed targets -- pulled by a plane on a long wire lead were shot at for "practice"--- your shells were from ships offshore shooting shoreward at those towed targets---- the tracers were every 5th round to adjust your fire with visually

 

[Westfront]

Thats a lot of them... i dig only about 10-20 each hunt on a battlefield wich was strafed very much...and very much tracers. I think thats because of these are used for practice training. Take care if You find some silver tipped ones. These are phosphoric ones.... I hope that this ones are NOT used for training-but who knows...
The shrapnel is from driving bands of the 40mm. They are copper? Compare the shrapnel with the band on the 40mm, looks to me the same size.