How viable are abandoned bullets? - Always Ants
Join me in a dispersed campsite in the Mount Hood National Forest as I talk about the dangers of leaving live bullets on the ground, in September 2022.
Make no mistake-- I'm experienced with firearms, shooting, bullets, and even reloading ammunition. I've been around guns and shooters since childhood. And far too many shooters I've been around have had a very irresponsible habit of leaving live bullets on the ground if they accidentally drop them. These rounds remain viable and dangerous for sometimes years, even after being buried in the ground.
NEVER attempt to set off any bullet outside of its appropriate firearm! I took these risks to show you how dangerous these years-old, corroded rounds really are. Primarily if there is a wildfire and a firefighter is in the vicinity, they are at risk of being killed or at least injured by your abandoned rounds.
As I mentioned, the the "rear" of a gun's barrel provides the Newtonian physics a way to play out, so unlike here, the casing stays put and the energy it would have expended as it flew away from the lead slug (as happened here), thanks to the rapid expansion of combustion gases, is forced in the opposite direction-- that being out the open end of the barrel. The point I forgot to make was that a bullet with soil and rock under its casing can also be "fired" if it goes off under heat. This would increase the speed of the slug over what I likely was witnessing with these dangerous experiments.
I should definitely note that I was a bit blase about the primer in the rifle round. It's not quite exactly like a capgun cap going off, and it can be dangerous. In this case, even with the casing empty, the primer actually fired itself off the shell and put a tiny hole in my tarp wall. That might have hurt a bit more than a capgun being shot at you... never do this or set off primers in this way, it's not safe and I do not advise it!
It is extremely irresponsible to leave live rounds, or any remnants of your target shooting, anywhere other than a legitimate shooting range. If you care about the water quality, you'll use a lead trap or bullet catch so as to keep your lead out of the soil. If you care about keeping our forests clean, or being considerate toward the next user of your area, you'll recover every bit of your targets, use only standard paper targets -never objects like bottles, cans or clays- and you'll recover every spent shell casing. Do your trap shooting on a range or on private property, never in a natural area. Leave no trace.
It is an offense that can earn you a fine to leave anything in the woods other than footprints. Shooters leaving targets, leaving shell casings, shooting trees, or using exploding targets on our National Forest lands have been, and will continue to be, cited for such offenses. Sadly the National Forest's Law Enforcement Officers openly state they rarely make the effort to issue citations even when the offense is in their direct witness. Hence, almost no one obeys the rules because they know police rarely enforce the law.
That leaves you and I to clean up the mess. Do it. And don't make it a secret. Tell the world about the mess our USFS is aware of but refuses to deal with. Show the world how lax law enforcement really is, as they turn a blind eye to almost every broken law they are direct witness to.
Someone has to finally take action. I am, and I want YOU to start doing it as well.
If not you, who? If not now, when?