Tacoma couple charged after explosive device blew up in their home
They spent a year collecting used ammunition around Joint Base Lewis-McChord and melting it to sell as scrap metal – until one of the rounds exploded at a Tacoma home, injuring the couple and tipping police off to what they’d been up to.

Pierce County prosecutors have charged Juliette Parker, 32, and Cody Hyman, 27, with possession of an explosive device, third-degree assault and reckless endangerment. The couple, who now live in Texas, is set to be arraigned June 23.

The investigation started Jan. 18 after Parker called 911 to report that a bullet had exploded at her home in the 5600 block of I Street. The blast blew a 2-foot hole in the floor just above where her children, ages 4 and 10, slept below.

Hyman suffered two severely damaged fingers which may have to be removed, according to charging papers. Parker had shrapnel in her eye and face.

Officers allegedly found three big buckets of ammunition in the bedroom, as well as an 81 mm mortar round and loose 20 mm and 7.62 rounds used in military grade weapons. They left the home and called the department’s bomb squad.

Agents from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives joined the investigation and helped search the home. In the driveway, they allegedly found containers filled with disassembled 40 mm military munitions and three 81 mm mortar rounds that were still functional. The U.S. Army took those rounds and destroyed them, officials said.

Hyman was apparently using a screwdriver to disassemble a 20 mm shell casing when it exploded in his hand, records show.

Parker told police they’d found the ammunition around the Lake Lewis camping area while four-wheeling, took them home and melted them down to sell as scrap metal, charging papers show. The couple said they'd been doing it for nearly a year without any trouble.

Law enforcement has not yet determined the value of the recovered ammunition.

Prosecutors said more charges may be filed against Hyman and Parker as the investigation continues.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.c...e.html#storylink=cpy

OK WTF is wrong with these people and just how did they find, live rounds?

Steve

------------------
Technology is great when it works,
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't



Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

I could tell you a story about a family, straight out of the Alaska wilderness and fresh into the California desert just outside of a military guard base/bombing range who's Dad used to sneak them out past the wire in the middle of the night with gunnysacks to collect brass shells & Magnesium bomb heads...but who'd ever believe it?!

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: OK WTF is wrong with these people and just how did they find, live rounds? Steve

Can't answer the first part. The second part.... Every good Supply Sergeant has "acquired" a couple ammo boxes of brass in different calibers. It's used when Private Snuffy stupidly disposed of spent and live rounds and has no idea where those rounds are at to recover them. Ammo, spent and live, is turned into the Ammo Point to be weighed. If it falls under the weight too much, the Supply Sergeant tells the Ammo Point that he's going to have the company search for those rounds and will be back. The Supply Sergeant then proceeds to screw off for the next hour or 2 and returns to the ammo point with the exact weight of the ammo needed from his stash of acquired spent rounds.

Thus, there are plenty of live ammo laying all around a military installation.

OK I get that part, but why are they leaving live rounds, especially mortar rounds in the field? Come on, and what kind of friggen idiot try's to take apart Live mortar rounds. I mean it had to be a mortar round he was trying to take apart if it exploded right, I know the economy is in crap shape but there has got to be a better/safer way to make a few bucks.

Steve

Yup. And on Ft. Knox when we went to gunnery, the only thing they were worried about recovering was the main gun round AVCAPs and any remaining unfired main gun rounds. Small arms ammunition was largely ignored during inventory on the ammo pad. The one exception I remember was the unfired .50 SLAP rds, those were counted fairly regularly. It wasn't uncommon for a full box of linked 7.62 ball and a half a box of linked .50 API rds(per troop[annoying CAV unit nomenclature]) using the range) to go missing during a week at the range.

To kind of go along with the story OP:
My first line supervisor was notorious for collecting small arms ammunition and when he got orders to PMCS to Camp Casey in Korea, he just up and left his off post apartment. He only took his GI equipment with him and left everything else untouched in his apartment. When the landlord went into his apartment after he left, he found broken open small arms ammunition and, bullets, casings and gunpowder everywhere in the apartment. The landlord called the MPs and after a brief search found other unspecified bomb making materials and was forced to call in EOD to sweep the apartment. Needless to say he was recalled from Korea and according to reports he was court-martialed and convicted of several major UCMJ infractions and last I heard he was still doing time in Leavenworth.

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: OK I get that part, but why are they leaving live rounds, especially mortar rounds in the field? Come on, and what kind of friggen idiot try's to take apart Live mortar rounds. I mean it had to be a mortar round he was trying to take apart if it exploded right, I know the economy is in crap shape but there has got to be a better/safer way to make a few bucks. Steve

quote Hyman was apparently using a screwdriver to disassemble a 20 mm shell casing when it exploded in his hand, records show.

20mm is way too small for a mortar round. AFAIK, 60mm is the smallest mortar round the US uses.
20mm rounds are usually from a helicopter gunship's cannon, but the M-61Vulcan (fixed wing aircraft-6 barrel gun) is also a 20mm. Helos use XM301 or M197 3 barreled Gatling type guns.
There are different kinds of rounds, some HE, some with tracer, some are incendiary, some with nose fuse.
Incendiary and even tracer will flash off as soon as they get air.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M197_Gatling_gun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM301

USMC uses the M-197 and the Army uses (I think) the XM301.

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 06-12-2014).]

quote Originally posted by maryjane: 20mm is way too small for a mortar round. AFAIK, 60mm is the smallest mortar round the US uses. 20mm rounds are usually from a helicopter gunship's cannon, but the M-61Vulcan (fixed wing aircraft-6 barrel gun) is also a 20mm. Helos use XM301 or M197 3 barreled Gatling type guns. There are different kinds of rounds, some HE, some with tracer, some are incendiary, some with nose fuse. Incendiary and even tracer will flash off as soon as they get air. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M197_Gatling_gun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM301 USMC uses the M-197 and the Army uses (I think) the XM301.

OK thanks for the clarification on the round sizes but this was what I was talking about when I said mortar rounds.

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: Agents from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives joined the investigation and helped search the home. In the driveway, they allegedly found containers filled with disassembled 40 mm military munitions and three 81 mm mortar rounds that were still functional. The U.S. Army took those rounds and destroyed them, officials said

And thanks all for the look deep inside our military's war machine and calibers differences. We have got to take just a little bit more control of how access to our military's bases allow civilians onto their gun ranges me thinks.





Steve

[This message has been edited by 84fiero123 (edited 06-12-2014).]

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: OK I get that part, but why are they leaving live rounds, especially mortar rounds in the field?

As far as leaving them in the field, the unexploded ordinance is kinda hard to find especially on a training range that is used over and over and over everyd day or week. I can remember one of the ranges out at Camp Pendelton that looked like a moon landscpe--full of craters and torn up earth. It does not take a whole lot to set off a "dud".

The picture below looks like a lot of unexploded 40mm grenades, (still live except the blue tip looking ones which are practice rounds) and two artillery projectiles.
http://www.latimes.com/loca...-20140305-story.html