John Holbrook
Member
I was in South Vietnam in 1967 doing Bomb Damage Assessment. The Navy was using MK 82 500# bombs that were dated back to WW II!!! Many were not detonating and the VC were digging them up and making booby traps out of the explosive.. I was a Navy CPO and was the leader of an EOD team. We usually had a Army or Marine Squad assigned to protect us depending on where we were working and the local conditions.. We would dig up these duds, remove the fuses and then detonate them...
On one of these missions, we ran into a little trouble with some VC. I was at the time carrying an M14 after a bad experience with an M16A1. I stepped from behind a tree and came face to face with a VC. He was just a boy, about 14 or so. He was armed with an AK and had a pistol in his hand. As he raised the handgun and began to point it in my direction, I brought the M14 up and fired two quick rounds, both of which hit him in the chest...
He fell back against a tree and I moved over to him and kicked the pistol out of his hand. After the situation stabilized, I picked up the pistol and saw it was a Victory Model S&W. I observed a bullet sticking out of the barrel, so I emptied the chamber of live rounds, which were WW II dated USGI, and dropped it into my pack.
When I had a chance to examine the gun, I could feel lumps in the barrel and so I knew that there were rounds in the barrel. I brought the gun with me when I flew back to the ship on my way back to the States. At the time I was working part time for Dick Green at his gun shop on Whidbey Island, WA. I removed the barrel and using a dremel tool, I cut a section out of the barrel and found 9 rounds stuck nose to tail!!!!! That means he had to reload it at leaast once!!!!! I made a new barrel for it, and that is why the barrel lug is cut off.... I replaced the original barrel in the receiver when I started working the gun shows. Thousands of people have seen this relic...
This pistol is chambered in .38 Special, however the barrel is marked .38 S&W CTG. which is a different round.... However, they are both .357 bullet diameter. the round sticking out of the barrel is a tracer, which is probably the curprit, and the rest are GI Ball....
On one of these missions, we ran into a little trouble with some VC. I was at the time carrying an M14 after a bad experience with an M16A1. I stepped from behind a tree and came face to face with a VC. He was just a boy, about 14 or so. He was armed with an AK and had a pistol in his hand. As he raised the handgun and began to point it in my direction, I brought the M14 up and fired two quick rounds, both of which hit him in the chest...
He fell back against a tree and I moved over to him and kicked the pistol out of his hand. After the situation stabilized, I picked up the pistol and saw it was a Victory Model S&W. I observed a bullet sticking out of the barrel, so I emptied the chamber of live rounds, which were WW II dated USGI, and dropped it into my pack.
When I had a chance to examine the gun, I could feel lumps in the barrel and so I knew that there were rounds in the barrel. I brought the gun with me when I flew back to the ship on my way back to the States. At the time I was working part time for Dick Green at his gun shop on Whidbey Island, WA. I removed the barrel and using a dremel tool, I cut a section out of the barrel and found 9 rounds stuck nose to tail!!!!! That means he had to reload it at leaast once!!!!! I made a new barrel for it, and that is why the barrel lug is cut off.... I replaced the original barrel in the receiver when I started working the gun shows. Thousands of people have seen this relic...
This pistol is chambered in .38 Special, however the barrel is marked .38 S&W CTG. which is a different round.... However, they are both .357 bullet diameter. the round sticking out of the barrel is a tracer, which is probably the curprit, and the rest are GI Ball....
I told him that I suspected that the first shot was a dud and he agreed that It sounded funny. When I looked down the barrel there was abullet lodged just past the forcing cone. When I tried to dilodge it with my cleaning rod I found the other 5 rounds.
There was a buldge in the barrel. He was lucky that the gun held together. The unfortunate part was that it was a brand new gun and the loads he was using were comercial reloads that he bought at the range.
