eyeball find sitting on the woods floor

[pinebarrens1]

anybody know how old it is

 

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[Angelo]

Looks WWI to me.

Tony

 

[Montana Jim]

Length?

Diameter?

Location?

 

[Ken from Atlanta]

Looks like an old mortar round. Need to see pics of the base.

 

[trusty]

Kind of looks like the little blue practice bombs we used to hang on airplanes.

 

[Don in SJ]

Kind of looks like the little blue practice bombs we used to hang on airplanes.

I agree, and probably since WW2.

 

[prolab69]

i have one of those, its buried in a box in my basement, its about maybe 8-10 inches long, never knew what the heck the thing was, morter shell of some sort. mine has no rust, its a grey color w/ an inch-inch and a half hole going all the way thru it.
cool little find

 

[Monty]

I spent a year and a half stationed on an Air Force bombing range. If it's cast iron it's a practice bomb. It is designed to have the same inflight characteristics as a 500 lb "dumb" bomb. The hole in the middle would ordinarily contain a silver tube about 8" long that is actually a smoke charge fused to go off on impact That way ordinance can be delivered in practic a lot less expensively than dropping 500 lb bombs. There is a pair of spotters that spot and plot the smoke discharge and score the distance the bomb lands from the target by triangulation. Every USAF pilot was required to score a minimum score to qualify to drop bombs. Only after they qualify are they were allowed to drop live ordinance. Then they were shipped out to a live combat unit. That's the way it worked during the 'Nam war at least. Monty

 

[Bridge End Farm]

in the navy I think they were called MK -58, made a great ashtray or butt catcher

 

[Rob66]

Yikes!!!!!!!! I'm sure you recovered it careful and slowly right??

 

[Monty]

They didn't explode, just went pfffft and shot out some smoke. Less than a big firecracker really. Monty

 

[boomer46901]

Monty,

I seen tons of those too at AP AFR in FL. What range were you on?

 

[imafishingnutt]

i have one of those, its buried in a box in my basement, its about maybe 8-10 inches long, never knew what the heck the thing was, morter shell of some sort. mine has no rust, its a grey color w/ an inch-inch and a half hole going all the way thru it.
cool little find

I believe practice round and they were filled with a white powder so you could see them hit.

 

[Monty]

Boomer I was overseas in Libya, 80 miles out in the desert from Wheelus AFB. Wheelus was just outside Tripoli. The bombing range was named El Uotia.That was before Kadafe in '64 and '65. Kadafe was a Major in the Libyan military at the time and I saw him a time or two. The USAF pulled out of Libya in '68 I think and Wheelus is now the international airport for Tripoli. I sat in a tower all day scoring bomb impacts and controling range traffic. Monty
Oh, and in yesterday and today's paper there was a story about one of those cast iron practice bombs that went through the roof of a garage in Tulsa. They think it came off one of the F15s from the Air National Guard. They couldn't figure how in the world it came off over the City. That's no secret to me, I saw what they called " inadvertant releases" all the time. Pilots were always pushing the wrong buttons and static electricity set them off a lot of times. Monty

 

[boomer46901]

Yep...I saw plenty of accidental releases too...LOL