Corn field find.

Interesting. I wonder where/how far away they were fired from, and what if anything they were using for targets.

Modern day arrowheads!! A fun find.

Very cool find with a bit of history to go with it!

The deformations are interesting. I wonder what was used as a backstop.

Looks like some have a hollowed out base. Tracer rounds maybe.

Cool find...you can always us the lead to cast bullets.

There's no lead in the 50 bmg projos, all of them are made out of steel. Ball rounds use lead as a plug in the base and that's what cornfuses people.

The ones that have the hollow base are tracers. As big as the base is on them, let's them trace a long way out.

My Dad's cavalry unit spent a lot of time training in the Mojave desert, training for desert war...before they deployed to France.
He told me that one time, they were shooting .50's out into the desert, with a distant mountain for a backstop, and they ignited a forest fire on the mountain, and had to go put it out.

@amd6547

I go by there all the time, the Marines still train out there in the desert between Niland CA and Yuma AZ.

Here's a pic of one of the plaques out there.

My Aunt worked at a munitions plant during WW2 and made 50 caliber ammo day in and day out, I have no idea where
she did it but I remember her giving Dad a 50 cal round when get got out of the Airforce from WW2. I was young
and we moved around a lot. Maybe Ohio, and the sad part is no one is left alive to tell us where she worked but
the good part is she married a well do do fellow and had a very good life after that.
Imagine the constant demand for workers and everyone jumped in, bet these days Rosie The Riveter volunteers are far
and few between. The actual Rosie passed away in 2015 at the age of 92. The same year my Aunt passed away.
I hope some of those were made by her.

Mk-211 said:

@amd6547

I go by there all the time, the Marines still train out there in the desert between Niland CA and Yuma AZ.

Here's a pic of one of the plaques out there.

View attachment 1038376

Click to expand...

Hey, that’s cool! They slept in pup tents, shelter half tents…no floors. He talked about the snakes and scorpions.. He was in Troop A, reconnaissance squadron, 22nd Cavalry.

Mk-211 said:

@amd6547

I go by there all the time, the Marines still train out there in the desert between Niland CA and Yuma AZ.

Here's a pic of one of the plaques out there.

View attachment 1038376

Click to expand...

I think those are all Sonoran desert.

Different sand lol

We have a coupla of major military bases close to where I live. Years ago before all the security because of terrorist attack threats, I used to go out to the small arms impact areas and pick up .45 ball ammo for the lead. Used to pick it up by the 5 gallon bucket. Had a screen made so I could just shovel the sand into it instead of picking thru for individual bullets. Sadly that supply has gone away. The Artillery impact areas were generally off limits(for good reason) but when they would open the base up for deer hunting, it was the only place you could find deer.

SundownRider said:

The deformations are interesting. I wonder what was used as a backstop.

Click to expand...

I was wondering/thinking the same thing.

More than likely the projos in the OP's pic hit rocks and bent the tips. At least that's what it looks like as they're old and crusty.

Mk-211 said:

There's no lead in the 50 bmg projos, all of them are made out of steel. Ball rounds use lead as a plug in the base and that's what cornfuses people.

The ones that have the hollow base are tracers. As big as the base is on them, let's them trace a long way out.

Click to expand...

The cleaned one appears to be brass colored.

That's the jacket, which comes off pretty easy when a .50 projo hits something.

Look at the other ones, it appears that the jackets on them are gone.

Use a magnet on them to demonstrate the use of steel penetrators withing the jackets.