dangerous digging

[charlie dert]

Went to a local park with the stock coil on my Tejon and was going after deep silver. I didn't want to damage any coins so I was starting with the shovel and finishing with my hands and the propointer. Good thing because I dug 5 live rounds. One was a little .22long but 4 were .25-35 rifle rounds. Also got one fired bullet...looks like a .32

Didn't get any silver...but I came home with all my fingers. lol. You just never know what you're gonna find.

Charlie

 

[hunt2day]

You do have to be careful when digging. I can tell you that the chances of the rounds going off are slim and if they did only the shell casing would pop back a little. The projectile being heavier does not shoot out. Remember a bullet shoots out of a firearm due to pressure created during ignition and the round is forced out during this process. A round that ignites outside of a firearm is not under such pressure. Do not ask me how I know but I have seen thousands of rounds go off outside of a firearm and they are less than impressive. I agree it always better to be safe when digging anything as you never know what you may pull out of the ground.

 

[The Magician]

I always leave them, never take them home or put them in my rubbish bag, but that's just me because I don't know much about bullets.

 

[Mike Hillis]

Got a cousin that lost an eye due to a .22 round tossed in a campfire.

HH
Mike

 

[JB(MS)]

Finding unfired bullets around the playgrounds and athletic fields here is common. I picked up over a dozen .22's in a wood chip playground recently, and 7 unfired .243 bullets on one of the soccer fields a couple of days later. With one exception I"ve always took them home, pulled the lead out, poured the powder out and put them in with the garbage. The exception was the harking back redneck moment. After I removed the lead and poured out the powder I decided to shoot the cap on one of the .243 hulls with a pellet gun. I put the cartridge on top of the garbage can, held the end of the gun barrel about a foot from it, aimed and fired. Dead center hit and a loud pop when the cap exploded, but I didn't calculate in the reverse propulsion effect. The hull flew back and hit me on the end of the little finger on my left hand. It felt like I hit it with a sledge hammer. The finger swelled up as big as my thumb, ranged in color from deep purple to black with red streaks for several days and was unusable for almost two weeks.

 

[fowlercharles]

I once dug into a double handful of live shells, maybe 20 -30 of them. All at least 38cal.Scares me to think what may have happened had I set one of them off with them all being so close together.No reason to believe it could not cause a chain reaction. This thread reminds me of my Navy days when I was torching out the gun racks, shelves etc. inside a small arms storage locker(small closet size) so some athletic gear could be stored there. I thought I had cleaned all the live ammo out of the tight spots and lower corners (very hard to see) but I missed one shell. With my head jammed up tightly in that locker and only inches away from that round when it went off, you can believe It was a real deafening surprise for me.Took a while for me to gain my senses/hearing but I realized right off that I had missed a round. Yeah, you better believe I made sure then that was the only one I missed. Scary! HH Charlie

 

[Hank68]

Glad you recovered them so no one could get hurt by them, HH hank