The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Dark Skies wrote:Looks like .50 cal as fired from a turret gun or similar. Are you anywhere near RAF Duxford? That was a USAF airbase during WWII. might have been the result of a test fire that fell to earth.

Must have been a smooth bore .50 cal - no rifling visible

I remember going to a friends house as a kid in the 50's where they had heavy velvet curtains with .50 cal bullets sown into the hems to weight them down - my friend didn't know about where they came from, but we opened a hem and nicked a few anyway.

ColinR wrote:

Dark Skies wrote:Looks like .50 cal as fired from a turret gun or similar. Are you anywhere near RAF Duxford? That was a USAF airbase during WWII. might have been the result of a test fire that fell to earth.

Must have been a smooth bore .50 cal - no rifling visible

I remember going to a friends house as a kid in the 50's where they had heavy velvet curtains with .50 cal bullets sown into the hems to weight them down - my friend didn't know about where they came from, but we opened a hem and nicked a few anyway.

I thought that

Cartridge is probably rotting nearby

Thanks all for input. I have already found a live 303 in my residence, so I wouldn't bet against finding part of another live round. There looks like remains of black paint at the tip (could be dirt).

Its surprising how long that paint lasts.

Presuming that it is black paint, and the current system was in place back then, and looking at the shape of it, I reckon you have an AP bullet.

Tracers, AP etc were often a different shape, firstly to do with the payload, but also to get the balance and ballistics right to match the rest of the load/belt.

Not much point using tracer if whatever you are "Tracing" buggers of somewhere else is it

ColinR wrote:

Dark Skies wrote:Looks like .50 cal as fired from a turret gun or similar. Are you anywhere near RAF Duxford? That was a USAF airbase during WWII. might have been the result of a test fire that fell to earth.

Must have been a smooth bore .50 cal - no rifling visible

Gunners carried rubber hammers specifically to clear jams. B-17 (and similar) side gunners would just toss crap overboard (open windows, remember) out of their way. It seems obvious to me that if you got a stoppage when test firing you'd probably want to do something about that before engaging.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi4jL6NVXeM

Dark Skies wrote:

ColinR wrote:

Dark Skies wrote:Looks like .50 cal as fired from a turret gun or similar. Are you anywhere near RAF Duxford? That was a USAF airbase during WWII. might have been the result of a test fire that fell to earth.

Must have been a smooth bore .50 cal - no rifling visible

Gunners carried rubber hammers specifically to clear jams. B-17 (and similar) side gunners would just toss crap overboard (open windows, remember) out of their way. It seems obvious to me that if you got a stoppage when test firing you'd probably want to do something about that before engaging.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi4jL6NVXeM

Good point. They used to get an odd brassy sheen top their skin & kit as well with all the brass dust created with firing shed loads of .50

You may well find a rotted case nearby that has been struck or damaged, or it just got in the way and got binned.

Where I used to live in Shrewsbury the estate was built on what used to be a RAF MU base (RAF Monkmoor, some of the original Belfast hangars etc are still there and used as industrial units) and loads of aircraft parts etc used to be buried down the bottom of "The Lane" as it is known locally, an uncle of mine remembered whole Lancaster fuselages going down on low-loaders, and allsorts of stuff used to be dug up.At the bottom of "The Lane" is the River Severn and a Ford that the one army used on their way to the battle of Shrewbury in 1403.....so a mate of mine bought a very expensive, at the time, metal detector to see if he could find anything in the area but gave up after finding four bucketfuls of live .50BMG rounds.They all looked pretty much like new and if I remember right had a mix of red, blue and black tips as well as uncoloured.Years later when the new A49 was being put through down there they had to put in two bridges and when they dug out the holes for the foundations they pulled out a lot of bombs and shells etc and the RLC bomb disposal unit was on site for months.The farmer at Monkmoor Farm used to have the armour plate that was fitted behind the seat in a Spitfire (with the Supermarine serial number etc still on it) and cockpit canopies etc that his Father salvaged from down there just after the end of the war.