Could be a sad day for detecting in australia

Prospecting Australia

Help Support Prospecting Australia:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Posting hand grenades and live ammo is not the smartest thing to do nor taking them home :eek: they should have contacted the police handed them over. I definitely would not have touched the old ammo and grenades and I'm pretty sure its against the law to have a hand grenade. Don't know why they would have confiscated their detectors unless they were in a army range illegally detecting.
 
I once found a mortor when i was 16 with a whites coinmaster...buried in the back yard...had it for a year or so.....unscrewed it..... showed it to mates when having party's. ..eventually mum and dad found out....and called the cops...who called the army....they came and took it...and told us later.... it was live. .. :eek:
 
I guess they took all their gear because after taking it home they can not be trusted to not do it again, So far this year over 6000 people have been killed by landmines alone throughout the EU and the Gulf not counting the wounded, But they are stupid to have taken them home, Imagine if it had of gone off in a crowded street while placed in their boot of their car right above the petrol tank, I have found heaps of WWII Bomb fragments and a few 303 rounds but nothing like that, Although workers did find a Complete Huge WWII Bomb a month or two ago.
 
Also found 6 x.....50 cal live rounds...while digging up the vegie patch in the same area...cops took them as well ..lol
 
Smoky bandit said:
Also found 6 x.....50 cal live rounds...while digging up the vegie patch in the same area...cops took them as well ..lol
Click to expand...
Yeah that's a shame, but even without the powder in them the primers are enough to blow ya fingers off, Someone I know almost suffered such a fate and it was just sheer luck that they were not seriously hurt.
 
Don,t want to teach anyone to suck eggs here but Ammo is made for one reason and one reason only and that is to kill the more rusted it is the more dangerous it is anyone with half a brain knows leave it alone mark the area and call the police a trophy on the mantle above the fire looks good however if it goes off it will take out anyone in that lounge room wife son daughter the whole family you have to think is the trophy worth it
 
I hand in small munitions to the police station, anything larger than 7.62 should be marked and reported, some munitions can explode with a change of temperature ie:-your shadow cast over them. :|
 
How is it a sad day for detecting? Might highlight that you shouldn't play around with old munitions & save someone from having a sad/bad day? Where does it say that the detector & other gear was confiscated? From the news reports it appears to me that the police are only interested in getting the possibly live grenade & removing it for destruction. I can't see why they'd care how it was found - just that it was found & not duly reported.
 
I'd also love to know which other forum he was posting on. I just did a google search and checked out other stories in the paper and came up with nothing.

If the grenades in The Ducks link is the correct link I can understand the cops getting edgy about ammo and explosives finds.
 
Its on admrh if anyone wants to look, i think your a member heatho, the stuff was taken under the theft by finding law as they say all of the stuff belonged to the army, they took all of his rings as well under the same law, it was also on channel seven news in WA in case anyone else doubts this
How is it a sad day for detecting its a sad day because according to the detectorist the police are now looking at all forums to see if there are pictures of other ammunition and rings or any thing else that should have been handed into the police.
Hopefully they will just look at the ammo side of things, but this is a warning for forums and moderators they may want to filter what is posted in the future
 
I was thinking that but still, it could be a bad day for the person carrying the live grenade. For those who don't know some explosives become volatile with time so unexploded devices may not be a danger by mechanical means as firing mechanisms are rusted etc. but the explosive could go off if vibrated/knocked.
Jon
 
the duck said:
Its on admrh if anyone wants to look, i think your a member heatho, the stuff was taken under the theft by finding law as they say all of the stuff belonged to the army, they took all of his rings as well under the same law, it was also on channel seven news in WA in case anyone else doubts this
How is it a sad day for detecting its a sad day because according to the detectorist the police are now looking at all forums to see if there are pictures of other ammunition and rings or any thing else that should have been handed into the police.
Hopefully they will just look at the ammo side of things, but this is a warning for forums and moderators they may want to filter what is posted in the future
Click to expand...

Thanks Duck, I'll check it out today. Thing is I'm pretty sure you don't have to hand everything in to the police that you find, as long as you take reasonable steps to try and locate the owner. Some of the silver rings that are found are only worth $2 or $3 in silver content. More valuable items you think people would make an advert in local papers and gumtree. Deeply buried items should fall under the "reasonably suspected of being abandonned criteria".

Taking low value items to the police regularly is only going to upset them and maybe get them off side in my opinion.
 
the duck said:
Its on admrh if anyone wants to look, i think your a member heatho, the stuff was taken under the theft by finding law as they say all of the stuff belonged to the army, they took all of his rings as well under the same law, it was also on channel seven news in WA in case anyone else doubts this
How is it a sad day for detecting its a sad day because according to the detectorist the police are now looking at all forums to see if there are pictures of other ammunition and rings or any thing else that should have been handed into the police.
Hopefully they will just look at the ammo side of things, but this is a warning for forums and moderators they may want to filter what is posted in the future
Click to expand...
Not doubting you Duck - just couldn't find anything on it & the news story you linked seemed more focussed on the grenades/ammo than the detecting. If you are doing the right thing you shouldn't have anything to worry about really?
It does back up what some have been trying to tell people on here though for awhile. Be careful what you post & don't think it can't come back to bite you!
 
Whilst not a great idea picking up live grenades, i hope they were not as stupid as the bloke on youtube i saw in the USA who found an old grenade, then proceeded to try and pull the pin to see if it would go off :eek:

As for him having his finds confiscated, is it not the law that finds like jewellery and watches are ment to be handed in? Maybe if he had been doing the right thing from the start he would not have lost all his finds or his detector?
I would think so long as people on the forums have been doing the right thing, there would be nothing to worry about.
 
The forums should have never handed the peoples info over to the police in the first place,

I still think the finders were wrong for taking it home, what if their kids had found it and it had gone off, Doesn't bare thinking about when you consider how it could of ended.
 
I wonder under what law they took his detector? Perhaps as it was used in the commissioning of a crime so it's evidence??
 
I couldn't find anything about this on AMDRH, I don't doubt it at all Duck, anyway will just have to keep an eye out for any news on the subject.

Anyway here's a good link that mentions a bit about theft by finding, you don't have to hand stuff in to the police but should for anything quite valuable. If a large sum of say cash or gold bullion is found you would be mad not to hand it in.

"In New South Wales it is punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment, home detention, community service and good behaviour bonds. Offenders may also have to make reparations to the victim.

For theft by finding to be proved, the prosecution must negate the following:

the goods were abandoned;
and that the accused did not believe that the owner could be found.

If the person accused of the crime honestly believed that the property was abandoned or that the owner cannot be found, they are not guilty."

http://www.sydneycriminallawyers.co...d-you-do-if-you-find-a-large-amount-of-money/
 
I have about 600 old magazines full of pages of blokes with detected rounds and munitions meters high..are they going to go chase all of them up too? 8) It would be daft for anyone to want to bring home old live munitions of any sort, and to contact the police if such things are found.

Cant believe someone pulled a pin shivan..
 

Similar threads

Moneybox
How good are our fancy new metal detectors?
3 4 5
Replies
96
Views
18K
glenno11
G
7
Dig With Care and know when not to dig any more
Replies
7
Views
2K
20x
20x
F
CRETACEOUS TREASURES, SEVEN opalised teeth (5 broken) ...!
Replies
2
Views
2K
Fossil_phile18
F
Gravity
It pay's to declare what you find...Not in this case
Replies
5
Views
4K
Nightjar
Nightjar
Greenhornet_au
When you just cant win, but ended up with a trophy anyway. :)
Replies
2
Views
1K
aussiefarmer
aussiefarmer

Latest posts

Top