Found some bullets in a wash, was wondering what they are. They are about 2 and a quarter inches long and half inch in dia. I think its 50 cal., It has a magnetic tip and a machined ring about .750 from its base, it is also painted black at the tip with the end of the tip looking straight at it is shiny, also has lines machined on the sides, about 8 of them each going up and around at an angle. Any one know? I can send a pic, not sure how or if possible in this message.
Thankx
From the description, I would say they are military .50 cal BMG AP (armor-piercing) rounds. The "machined" lines are actualy a reverse engraving of the rifling of the barrel they were fired from. When the cartridge fires, the bullet is forced into the rifling which imparts the proper amount of spin needed to stabilize the bullet in flight. I have several black tip AP rounds dated 1943 that were still in the machine gun links when i found them. BTW-Welcome aboard!
So from the discription I gave would you put these from the same Era? Also something else that might be of interest is I also picked one up that looked like it had exploded, kinda like the barrel of a gun after Roadrunner sticks his finger in it and the Whiley is left there standing with his head all burned, you know the barrel is mushroomd out.
Thankx for the welcome and the reply Toolman.
I'm not an expert on these by any means, but I would guess that the "exploded" one might have been a tracer round or incendiary. I don't know about the era-they used the same color codes for decades in some cases.
