Can underwater ammo explode?

[Divrtim]

When diving in Truk lagoon( now known as Chuuk) I dove in the San Francisco Maru( 70 meters to the sand)/ In the forward hold, there where spherical mines. I was told later that many of these mines had been harvested by locals to salvage the powered.
I also dove in the aft hold where there were thousands of rounds of 6.5 rifle ammunition, the crates long disintegrated. The rounds sloped to the center of the hold like the side of mountains. I snapped off a bullet head as a souvenir. It did not explode in my hand.

 

[Scuba Lawyer]

What about Truk?

We came across lots of loose small arms and deck gun ammo during several expeditions to Truk Lagoon looking for wrecks in the 1970's. Never had any mishaps but heard stories at the time of a few explosions from divers handling corroding ammo. Don't have any way to vet the truth of those stories but the sources were locals that I came to know pretty well. Who knows. I do recall the ordinance in the hold of the San Francisco Maru. We had some long deco dives on that wreck. All good memories.

 

[Celt]

Couple of 3in rounds and a box of 50 cal.

 

[Centrals]

https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthis...ound_this_when_fishing_in_latvia_weighs_more/ Scroll down for the posts with pics of the guy messing with it, taking the explosives out, and burning it. Lol.

It might have saved the authority 30k to dispose it. But how much is a human life? From zero to sky the limit.

 

[Wibble]

I'm afraid to ask why you want to know....
You are aware that diving on sunken military vessels is frowned upon or outright prohibited in some locations? Some are officially designated as war graves.

Come to the UK, we’ve got thousands of them to dive on. Skippers tend to not want you to bring up UXO or segments of cheese (torpex). There’s some wrecks that you can’t dive on such as the Montgomery — not that you could as there is no visibility in the Thames.

 

[Celt]

In the corner of my garden just now,

 

[Manatee Diver]

@mac64 We are well aware that the Irish are very familiar with explosives, we've seen the news.

 

[Celt]

@mac64 We are well aware that the Irish are very familiar with explosives, we've seen the news.

It was a real nuisance as we had to get a Garda escort when blasting. Someone came up with a bright idea to hide the plastic on the wreck. When blowing a prop the entire stash went off. A lot of red faces on the boat that day.

 

[O-ring]

only one way to find out

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I've heard of fishing trawlers detonating UXO, but never heard of it happening to a diver. That doesn't mean it's never happened though.

I was diving the Morgan out of VB years ago and surfaced at the ladder right in the middle of 2 guys trying to whack the projectile out of the top of a 75mm shell they had brought up with a wreck hammer. They figured the best place to do this was on the transom where it was "safe".

 

[Wibble]

I was diving the Morgan out of VB years ago and surfaced at the ladder right in the middle of 2 guys trying to whack the projectile out of the top of a 75mm shell they had brought up with a wreck hammer. They figured the best place to do this was on the transom where it was "safe".

Darwin's a bitch! Pity it would affect other, errm, less stupid people.