Relic Find inside "Aluminum Mistress" !

[noizeedave]

This round was found in the belly of our aircraft today. We finished the bead blasting inside for the restoration and to our surprise, below the Navigators Area, in the lip of an rib was tucked away a wartime souvenir!

Any one have any thoughts or Ideas to throw into our brainstorm on how it got there, you can play along too!

Last edited by noizeedave on Sun Jan 18, 2009 2:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

[The Inspector]

The Navigator Instructors were really tough and graded directly instead of on a curve?
The Quartermaster told the guy "H3LL NO, I can't 'take this one back and restock it"

[DoraNineFan]

I don't have any expertise in ballistics, but that slug doesn't show any damage or deformity from high energy impact.

It could be a bullet that was removed from the casing and lost or dropped at some point. It is about .50 caliber size?

[TonyM]

An enemy round? I'd bet that it is.
Looks too small to be an errant .50 that struck the a/c by accident or a round that came off of the shell.
Or that dude has really big hands.
I have several .50 slugs (minus the shell) that I salvaged from a B-24 wreck site in California; the .50 slug is about two and three-eighths of an inch long. But the one in the post looks to be the exact shape of the .50 slug that I have here at home.

TM

Last edited by TonyM on Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Mudge]

You've probably already thought about this but...Put a micrometer on it and see what the caliber is.

Mudge the calibrated

[gary1954]

You've probably already thought about this but...Put a micrometer on it and see what the caliber is.

Mudge the calibrated

Right on Mudge, that is the best method if figuring the caliber out....but to
me, it looks like a 7.62 Full Metal Jacket, commonly reffered to as a 30.06 round.

[Mudge]

You've probably already thought about this but...Put a micrometer on it and see what the caliber is.

Mudge the calibrated

Right on Mudge, that is the best method if figuring the caliber out....but to
me, it looks like a 7.62 Full Metal Jacket, commonly reffered to as a 30.06 round.

I don't know Gary. The cannelure doesn't look like any 7.62 (or .308) bullet I've ever seen. I could be wrong. I was once. (I believe it was in 1953.)

Mudge the ballistician

[gary1954]

You've probably already thought about this but...Put a micrometer on it and see what the caliber is.

Mudge the calibrated

Right on Mudge, that is the best method if figuring the caliber out....but to
me, it looks like a 7.62 Full Metal Jacket, commonly reffered to as a 30.06 round.

I don't know Gary. The cannelure doesn't look like any 7.62 (or .308) bullet I've ever seen. I could be wrong. I was once. (I believe it was in 1953.)

Mudge the ballistician

1953....yer funny mudge yer funny....the bull-let, i am no expert in the field of Ba-listics, so I will leave that to ya'll. Looked like a .06 round to me though

[Forgotten Field]

Bullets don't all deform signifigantly upon impact, expecially if they are not full of energy or are close to the end of their travel. It is conceivable that a round was fired, lost its energy, had enough to penetrate aluminum skin, and was found like that.

I would guess German mauser due to the possible composition, but am not sure about the boat tail shape. I did not think they put boat tails in 8 mm or 7.92 X 57 mm but cannot confirm by a quick web search. I don't see any signs of copper (green) so I don't think it was copper jacketed. US ammunition has traditionally been copper jacketed lead core. I'm not sure about Japanese ammunition.

Also, for Gary 1954, the 7.62 mm designation was not used commonly until the advent of the 7.62 X 51 mm also known as 7.62 NATO or .308. 30-06 stands for .30 caliber, model of 1906. That's just the way I learned it.

Neat find. I have a bullet hole in my WWII jeep that intrigues me, but you can do some real ballistics research on this one- I hope you find a real expert (that is, a archaelogical ballistics forensics expert who knows about this era).

[Jerry O'Neill]

Having found many different types of spent ammo in old gun firing butts, I've found many .50 Cal. that looked just like that because the copper jacket had been pulled off on impact, leaving the steel center.
The Steel cores of those 50's look a lot smaller.
Jerry

[noizeedave]

i can tell you the core is steel and its still in there. remember this aircraft also fought with the isrealis from 48's war of independance until 1999. so many arab conflicts involved her. the state of corrosion leads me to believe that its atleast 40 years in the belly. it is not a .50, but almost .30 more likely.

[Stoney]

copper doesn't rust, so it probably is the stell core of a .50 AP round.

[noizeedave]

Here ya go everyone, a close up of the core. You can see there is a core inside still.

[Canso42]

Any warbird has an interesting past. Where has the a/c been in its life, has it sat on the ramp anywhere for a long period, how many different places has it been with possible armed conflict? Has some goob been taking pot shots at a ramp sitter at some small rural airfield?

[valdez25]

Sorry, but what's "Aluminum Mistress"?