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.

 

[ctalmadg]

Haha.. A "Metal Marlboro" ;-D

 

[curbdiggercarl57]

People aren't focusing on the real find,
that dugout doesn't look like it got wet at all!
Carl

 

[oldsalty19]

 

[FoundInNC]

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

Wow are you serious?? When we dug that thing up we thought it was a dummy and didnt think it was an "incindiary" round. Are you sure it is explosive? We have it just sitting out on the counter! Would be nice to know if it is explosive, not that we were going to mess with it anyway, it is a really cool relic. I cant believe that it has taken 2 years for someone to notice that it is a live round! And yes the "cigarette" was in dry sand, some doper got so blazed that he couldnt find it when he went back to class(found on wrightsville beach, nc)

 

[EODsmitty]

A good rule to follow is the size of the base fuze. On APHE ( armor piercing high explosive) rounds if it was only a tracer the insert would be about the size of a dime. If the insert is only a few mm smaller than the diameter of the round, it's a fuze. Most likely an impact inertia type fuze. Some of the old fuzes use a lead washer as a positive block to the firing pin. The lead is overcome by impact sending the firing pin home to ignite the delay element. It's only a millisecond delay, but that's all that's needed to penetrate before it detonates. Have you looked in the hole in the rear to see how far it goes?