Expanding Missiles

[Maggot]

My shooting buddy found a load of insendry 303 on link from a crash site
Which we fired off we only found out what it was when a club member looked up
The head stamp.
The ammo had laid out in the open on the fell for over 60 years and most still
Went bang!!
Still have a empty case somewhere with a link on it.

Its funny stuff.

I have had cordite from a 303 round that was sticking out of the deck in a carpark. Head and shoulders rotted away and the strands of cordite the only real give away (Actually the head, still in the neck of the round, was nearby), the cordite still burned.

The stuff does last as long as the seals are intact and the primers still viable.

This is why I fail to see why, (and this is not aimed at you matey) when the odd idiot fills his garden with ordnance and it ends up on here as a "Oh no, another dig at a poor gun/ammo fan", people are

A. Sympathetic

Or

B. Dont see why rusty old ammo is likely to be more dangerous than the shiny new stuff.

Ordnance can do 4 things over time.

Remain nasty as the day it was built, ready to do its job when disturbed and its priming train kick into life.

Stay blind (but still potentially dangerous if mishandled).

Its contents break down to something nastier and become unstable.

Become benign (I would never bet on this one).

When it is crusty and rusty the fuses (that were often made of brass and well sealed) can still remain viable and are not always where you may expect (some are base or internally fuzed), so if you cannot properly ID the round (even if you know what it might be, and are supposed to be there) you might end up red mist.

Some of the fillings can also be really nasty, red foaming nitric, WP, Chemical, and weeping nitro.

If I thought for one minute a neighbour of mine was up to this sort of thing I would deal accordingly

Seen the results of idiots messing with FFARs on an old airbase in Kenya.....not good

[mowdy]

Maggot

The ammo that we had was all clean just tarnished with the weather which maybe due to it laying in the Heather on the fell.
It was kynock ammo loaded with ball powder and not cordite.
probably due to a shortage of cordite at the time?
Another pal found over 200live rounds of 20 mm cannon on his land that had being used as a dispersal airfield in the ww2 back in the late 1980 s
There is a lot of luck in life some good and some just rotten.

[Maggot]

Maggot

The ammo that we had was all clean just tarnished with the weather which maybe due to it laying in the Heather on the fell.
It was kynock ammo loaded with ball powder and not cordite.
probably due to a shortage of cordite at the time?
Another pal found over 200live rounds of 20 mm cannon on his land that had being used as a dispersal airfield in the ww2 back in the late 1980 s
There is a lot of luck in life some good and some just rotten.

Sounds really interesting, dont worry I was not having a go. There's still a lot of stuff knocking about M, its odd where it turns up as well. Its just that some fools cant help themselves. We used to find stuff on the surface in Germany and Holland as well.

At the end of the war, ships moored in the Solent just bunged loads over the side (and after the Falklands but that was contraband ).

There are local gravel dredgers that pull the stuff up to either keep the shipping channels clear and apparently a lot (and I mean a lot) of 2pdr and 40mm ammo went over the side.

It keeps getting dragged up in the dredgers. They used to call the Police but apparently now they have armoured bins and the stuff waits there for collection/destruction by the EOD.

Another local fool was gnashing and wailing about the EOD lads sweeping and clearing (then blowing in place some finds) on the forest. The whole area was one big training area and there were also trials on the grand slam and upkeep bombs up on Ashley walk, so its bound to be out there and possibly a bit moody.

So what do the locals do when the boys and girls clear it...a bit loudly ?

Moan (can we have a tosser smiley please? ).