Mrs found this bullet in the garden circa .50 cal

[dirtbag]

We live in a house dated 1906.

5 years ago I was digging up the front garden and found a live 303 blank dated 1927 in the mud.
Today the Mrs was cutting the hedge in the back garden and found this bullet (I got the blame by the way)

I've cleaned it up, measures 61mm in length and approx 13mm in width,weight is 428gr. No clue about this so hoping someone in the know may know ! Not sure on age, but certainly not mine

Thanks in advance.

I am wondering what else is in my garden (buried artillery Luger in a metal case?) I wish

[Dark Skies]

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.

[Mgi]

As above - looks like .50 tracer


Sent from my boing using "An application"

[dirtbag]

Hi Thanks lads.

I am near Duxford but around 10 miles.
Temped to borrow relatives metal detector

[Dark Skies]

http://www.metaldetectingforum.co.uk/vi ... 61&t=66329

[ovenpaa]

If you can put your hands on a metal detector get it done!. There is loads of WWII stuff still being found in our part of the Lincolnshire Wolds and we were looking at a collection of items very recently. Everything from .303 Ball to Roman broaches and silver coins, incredible to be able to hold the things in your own hands and I have some MkVII ball and .50BMG here that came out of a local field.

[meles meles]

We understand that spent rounds and cases from .303 and 7.92 machine guns are quite common over the Weald and South Downs, relics of the Battle of Britain...

[Mattnall]

End of last year we found a .50cal round behind the plough that had the bullet and a small bit of the top of the case broken off.
I cleaned the mud out of the case and found the powder still in it and the primer unstruck. The powder burnt nicely when lit.

As found with the mud mostly wiped off and the powder found in it.

After SS tumbling and next to a fired .50BMG case

The case head with primer.


We didn't have a detector around so haven't found the bullet yet.
An old family friend used to walk the fields with his detector for a few years and found countless musket balls, several silver coins and many other bits of old 'stuff' including AA fuses. On one farm we had the runway lights of a major intl. airport that used to be a USAF base (before the airport expanded and bought up the land), we would find dozens of live rounds of all sizes along with other bits but very few fired cases, every now and then they would be taken away and disposed of.

[ovenpaa]

Matt, DM was the Des Moines Ordnance Plant so almost certainly USAF. I have the remains of a case in virtually the same state here and will give it a scrub and see where it came from.

[Maggot]

Looking at the shape of it it might also be AP or API.

Try scraping the base and see if it yields much lead or you can see an aperture. If its very hard to even scratch, it could be Tungsten/AP or API

.50 is 12.7mm