I was quite surprised when I cut through this piece of oak while making a window frame, at first I thought I had gone through a bolt and was cursing thinking I had ruined a good saw blade, then on inspection I released it was a bullet, I had gone through near the end leaving the point in one piece and the rest in this piece, there is no sign of entry so I can only presume it hes been there for donkeys years and the entry hole has grown over. The bullet is 10mm in diameter brass case and lead inside. Steve
Even the tip is coated in brass, I don't want to dig it out as it's quite a curiosity as it is, I have prized the tip out though. Could it be a special type of bullet, the brass cannot be the casing.
The brass would the jacket around the lead core of the bullet. Parabolica's photo is of a round without a jacket.
Brass jacketing is quite common, just like copper jacketing (Full Metal Jacket, anyone?). Cool to find that, do you know where the oak originated? I suppose it's probably a stray hunting round.
Only a guess, French oak is used quite a lot as its cheaper than English, so I am thinking its a bullet from one of the world wars , it must have been ther a very long time for the entry hole to have grown over. Steve
This looks more like it. Thanks to Rob 998 I Google d Full Metal Jacket and there are quite a few with the tip encased in brass or copper. Steve
For the Stanley Kubrick film, see Full Metal Jacket. An example of FMJ bullets in their usual shapes: pointed ("spitzer") for the 7.62x39mm rifle and round-nosed for the 7.62x25mm pistol cartridges. A full metal jacket (or FMJ) is a bullet consisting of a soft core (usually made of lead) encased in a shell of harder metal, such as gilding metal, cupronickel or less commonly a steel alloy. This shell can extend around all of the bullet (alternatively termed a total metal jacket round) or, more often, just around the front and sides with the rear lead part left exposed. The jacket allows for higher muzzle velocities than bare lead without depositing significant amounts of metal in the bore. It also prevents damage to bores from steel or armor-piercing core materials. The appearance of FMJ ammunition is highly distinctive when compared to hollow-point or soft point bullets. Historically, the first successful full metal jacket rifle bullets were invented by Lt. Col. Eduard Rubin of the Swiss Army in 1882.[SUP][1][/SUP][SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][3][/SUP][SUP][4][/SUP] Full metal jacket bullets were first used as standard ammunition in 1886, for the French Mle 1886
It would be really interesting to find out where the wood came from to possibly find out more about how the bullet got there. I remember being told about a similar story here, The battle of Marston Moor during the English civil war saw the massacre of the Royalist northern army commended by the Marquis of Newcastle, his 'whitecoat' regiment made a famous last stand and were slaughtered around an area that was later to grow into a proper mature wood. When this area was harvested apparantly there were so many bullets lodged in the wood the sawmills had big problems cutting the stuff, with many broken blades and shattered bits of wood as a result of the embedded shot within the trees.
Forget the tip.....where's the base and the primer and charge? If the brass case is still there, it probably hasn't been fired. I found a few live 0.5" rounds when clearing my garden fallen from Liberators during WW2......still capable of being fired after being tested so Plod told me when I handed them over to the Firearms Licensing Unit.... ......that's even though they had been buried in wet soil since 1945 at least... If yours is 10mm diameter across the case, it will be a 9mm round......That means it could anything from Sten machine gun, Luger or Mauser pistols, Thompson Sub-Machine gun, Browning pistol.......If the tip is rounded rather than pointed and relatively short, it won't be a rifle type round. AL.
It all happens to you Al. I remember as a kid after the local fair had been we used to search around the 22 rifle range and usual found some unused shells, we thought it was great putting one on a stone and the dropping another stone on top, a bit foolish when I look back, but good at the time. Steve
Striking the wood the round would deform so more likely from a .303 or german 7.92mm rather than a pistol/submachine-gun calibre. More so if the penetration in to the wood was quite deep All depends on the age of the wood and where it was sourced of course
I live right next to a WW2 bomber airfield.....you can walk across the fields here and pick up the 05" calibre live rounds and empty cases laying on top particularly just after they have ploughed... Have even picked up a pair of dogtags from a WW2 US airman laying under the scrub in my garden when I first moved in. AL.
'Kin hell.....It hasn't been fired so it wouldn't have deformed would it?....the brass in the pic appears to be the case.....the round itself wouldn't have a brass jacket.....and as I said, if the diameter across the case is 10mm as Birdie appears to say, then the round is a 9mm. A jacketed round is copper, not brass.....You won't find the same metal used for the jacket and the round, IE; not both brass. AL.
