Booby-Trapped Surplus Ammo?!?!?

[MagKnightX]

Those who said that a primer would not detonate plastique are probably right. However, it is easy enough to have a striker-fired blasting cap of the same diameter as a normal primer inserted into the cartridge. You just need to modify the case a little. That would REALLY ruin someone's day.

 

[TheSniper999]

Looking for a clean Romanian PSL

Hi, guys and girls,

I am looking to buy a really clean original Romanian PSL with matched numbers and a load of decent 7.62 x 54R ammo cheap. Who knows of what?

Dennis

 

[TheSniper999]

The "boob" is the soldier!

Just being logical now, I say, any soldier who would bother with booby trapping a few cartridges to get mild, if any injury, would be better off to put a real mine under an ammo can and kill the person who moves it. Don't you think? Booby trapped cartridges seem like an unreliable method at best .

 

[Lonestar.45]

I believe that it's possible. Not likely, but possible. The booby trapped ammo stories can definitely be true. The reason I say this is dad did one and a half tours in the 3rd Battalion 5th Marines in Vietnam from 66-67 when he was finally wounded. On patrols, there was one guy in his platoon who carried pliers, and after a successful ambush many times they'd take a round out of an AK mag, pull the bullet, put in a small amount of C-4, put the bullet back in, put the bullet about round 2-3 back in the mag, and leave it lying there with a weapon. Maybe it wasn't a reliable method of booby trapping, maybe it was, he never saw the results personally and did not know.

That's why I was really surprised to read that currently in Iraq, the Iraqi police will often times used captured AK ammo for their weapons and training (along with some US trainers). I would not want to be doing that personally.

 

[Car Knocker]

TheSniper999,

I think you will get a lot more response for your "Want to buy" ad if you put down in the Trading Post section instead of the middle of a 3-year-old thread on booby-trapped ammo.

 

[boilingleadbath]

C-4? I'm pretty sure it won't work all alone, but puting some primary in the case closer to the primer would probably work.
However, detcord is typicaly made of petn - which (IIRC) is a primary, and will detonate from flame.

 

[B4Ctom1]

http://www.conjay.com/Ammunition for Armor Testing East 7.62mm x 54R.htm

shows a PZ round, so I went to do more research on this PZ round and found this post.

Before I got here I found this:

http://p102.ezboard.com/762x54r-gun...rmsforumsfrm61.showMessage?topicID=3306.topic

a primer, a firingpin, and PETN inside the bullet? aged to perfection? sounds like a Kb in the making.

 

[Jeremy2171]

The PZ round is safe for rifles, no such animal as an MG only round.

As for booby trapped ammo, dunno about VN or other wars but it's here in Iraq. I won't go into details but it's NOT C4.

 

[B4Ctom1]

I agree that there is no such thing as a MG round.

I think that due to the instability and the power of having PETN blow your rifle up and the story told in the OP that PZ ammo could be of concern. Hell pulling projectiles or reloading it could be of concern.

 

[MrDig]

45R "One of the guys was telling me about an incident that happened not too long ago were a Molsin Nagont (SP) exploded."

A freind of your Cousins Brothers ex-wife?
This is purely anecdotal and lacking even an ID of the injured party it smacks of the myth that Surplus Ammo and Guns aren't safe to fire.
All Myth/Legend tells a tale with a moral or a lesson telling a society how to behave. Modern Society has generated these stories to maintain a sense of order and moral compass in an increasingly permissive world. The preversion of these is the use of them to support a mistaken and or incorrect point of view.
The moral of the Urban Legend you are telling is that you just can't trust those Surplus Arms or Ammo, as I stated earlier.

 

[gezzer]

The reason to booby trap the cartridges are psychological. It will deny the use of whole ammo catch after the first cartridge blows.

 

[Don't Tread On Me]

I've heard the ammo sabotage stories. The version I heard was US special forces would place kaboom loads in enemy (Vietnam) ammo caches when they would come across vacant tunnels.


Who knows. I think the fact that the idea exists, must dictate that it has happened or it's been done. I don't think on a widespread scale or even in an organized way. But I'm sure someone did it.


I think this is just a bad kaboom that's a result of either a bad round or a bad rifle - or maybe a combination of both, and that people are looking for bigger and grander things to blame than the obvious.

 

[270Win]

Almost certainly a Tall Tale.

 

[Mannix]

Why would anyone resurrect a 4 year old thread?

 

[4fingermick]

Any milsup ammo is a bit of a crap shoot, especially when it is 50 years old and stored amy old how.

I don't touch the stuff. When I buy a milsup, I buy 200 cases, dies and reload. There is nothing more satisfying than getting an old war horse to shoot lead boolits