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Explosive discovery in Arizona

by Jonn Lilyea••77

Timothy sends us a link from ABC15 about a discovery near Pine, Arizona of plastic cylinders buried in a residential yard. The cylinders contained eighty blocks of military C4 explosives, nine Claymore antipersonnel mines with firing devices, and one roll of military det cord;

Investigators believe the explosives were in the ground for approximately 20 years before they were found.

“We have no information to suggest that anything nefarious was going to occur or that these were being stored for a future act,” Durastani said.

BATFE is offering a ten thousand dollar reward for information leading to the person who stored the stuff twenty years ago.

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77 thoughts on “Explosive discovery in Arizona”

  1. Hey, BATFE, fess up with the 10K.

    The person who buried that stuff is named Sarah Conner.

    I hear she also has a bunch of stuff buried down in Mexico, but has to get a starter for a Bronco first in order to retrieve it.

    Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.

    2. If that is correct – and I have little reason to believe it’s not – I want a Phase Plasma Rifle in the 40 Watt range… and the 1980’s Lynda Hamilton.

  2. Damn, I always buy the wrong house.

    “We have no information to suggest that anything nefarious was going to occur or that these were being stored for a future act,” Durastani said.”
    …but we are offering a $10,000 payday to anyone that can tell us who put it there.

    Because, you know, burying that treasure is totally normal.

    1. “Damn, I always buy the wrong house”

      I feel your pain. All I have found so far is some bricks, chunks of concrete and rebar, and a dead snake (I don’t count the satellite cable I cut).

    1. Maybe Dildo Bugger from Bored of the Rings was planning another party with a “fireworks display”. (smile)

  6. Hmm. 20 years ago would be during the Clintoon Administration. As I recall, it’s also around the time of the OKC bombing (1996).

    And yeah – it’s not exactly normal to bury explosives and antipersonnel mines in the ground in watertight protective packaging. Hopefully some of the individual items still have legible lot number markings and LE can trace the military items to a unit or group of units.

    1. I wonder if that stuff is still showing up on that unit’s inventory. It wouldn’t surprise me.

  7. That could have been a bad day for America if the wrong clowns had gotten a hold of that stash! Consider that bullet dodged!

    1. That’s rule number 2!

      Rule number 1 is “admit nothing”
      Rule number 2 is “deny everything”
      and most important…
      Rule number 3 is “make counter-accusations”!

      1. I heard it as “DAMN:

        Deny everything.

        Admit nothing.

        Make counter-accusations.

        Never change your story.

        (Thanks Hognose.)

  11. Many years ago my cousin brought back from Gitmo a sachel full of 1/4 lb blocks of TNT and electric blasting caps. Also the parts needed to make an AR selective fire. I don’t know what he did with the Selectors but we had a lot of fun with the training blocks! That was BJ, (before jihad) when we still enjoyed an abundance of freedom here in America. We have lost a huge amount of freedom since 911. Back in those days you could cross the Canadian border with out an anal exam. I understand the need to tighten up on all sorts of hazardous items and closely examine who is entering our country but I miss those days . I guess you have to have lived back then to realize how much we have lost.

    1. My Dad was Coast Arty (WW2) and when he was stationed in Fort Tilden, Rockaway Queens NY, He aquired Wood boxes of 40MM, .50 cal. and some other boxes he had stacked in the cellar next to the oil burner tank I vaguely remember. This was around 1951/1952 or 53. Turns out 40MM bofors rounds were still stored in some of the AA Battery quonset huts along the Belt Parkway in the Brooklyn part and there was a theft involved so Dad called up the NYC PD and explained how he had the munitions from Tilden but was not involved in the recent theft and they sent a truck over to pick it up. No charges involved. When he worked for Republic Aviation out in Rt.110 in Farmingdale Long Island, he stored all sorts of rivets, screws, bolts etc that were used in the F 86 jet production. Yea, Dad used to like to save things and not throw anything out.

      1. —“Dad used to like to save things—-! SAVE? like “brought some of this home from work.” It ain’t his, but it ain’t stealing.

        1. You are 100% right borderbill. Mom was a school aide back in the 50’s, and she took home pencils and scissors that had NYC board of education engraved on them. Couldn’t tell Mom that the stuff was not legal to take home. I worked for Brink’s on the trucks for 37 years and never took anything home that did not belong to me. Was not even involved in the Brink’s parking meter scandal even though I collected from the meters until some employees started to pocket the money. The story is also on the internet along with the names of the guilty employees.

    2. I must, in all humility and respect, state that AR-15’s cannot be converted without having the fire control pocket milled out a bit more, the correct pin configuration, an M-16 bolt carrier, the M-16 hammer and the auto-sear.
      There are drop-in auto-sears for AR-15’s but that is unlikely to be possessed by the military.
      I’m guessing your cousin may very well have brought back the components but never completed the build.
      I believe that the M-14 required a bit of milling as well to host the selector. Maybe the early generation of M-14 had the drop-in capability but later they changed the receiver for civilian use.
      There used to be a great post on AR15.com with pictures of all of the difefrences between the AR16 and M16 but I can’t find it. Maybe they ditched it after some whiny cry-baby snowflakes threatened them.

      1. Meant to spell AR15 in the last paragraph. The AR16 is only for Secret Squirrel Army SEALS.

        1. I had an AR16 as a backup weapon during my time as a USAF Submarine Door Gunner!

      2. As late as 1978 you could still purchase AR15’s with the mil spec lower reciever, no additional milling required.

      3. He had a bag full of parts that he said were for making numerous ARs select fire. I don’t know if he was full of it or not. I have never been a fan of that platform. I hated the M16 I was issued after going thru boot with an M14. He was into that stuff back then. I am a fan of the M1a and semi auto is fast enough for me. I’me pretty sure there are plenty of hobby gunsmiths who could perform the machine work if they had the parts necessary for the job.
        Carry on!

        1. I have a Springfield Armory M1A Loaded (NM). Love it! I also have 8 AR-15’s.
          Just like I have 4 Glocks and 2 1911’s. Why should I have to chose when I can have both?
          The M1A ended up being quite a bit more expensive after upgrades and the optic.

          My favorite firearm is the Lorcin .32 with duct tape handgrips.
          Too bad I lost all of those evil firearms in a boating accident over the Mariana Trench…

  13. Am I the only one thinking that if I found 20 bricks of C4 and 20 feet of det cord that I too would do the right thing and turn in all 19 bricks and 19 feet?

    2. That stuff could come in handy for say, getting rid of tree stumps on property out in the boonies or blasting some bedrock to make riprap for filling in a washout.

      1. The RE factor is high on the C4 (1.34), for stumps you want some M1 dynamite with an RE of .92, the slower explosion pushes instead of cutting.

  14. Ya’ never know when you might need to establish a perimeter or disinvite malingerers. Better to be prepared than scared.

    Back in the 90s it was somewhat common to stash SKS’ in PVC pipe, just in case.

  15. Wonder what the chances of Fingerprints surviving and if they are attempting to pull them for cross reference to the find location

  16. Having zero experience with Claymores – would they work for clearing thick underbrush? Might be an interesting experiment…

    And 20 bricks of C4 with det cord? There is still enough young boy in me to make my mouth water at the thought.

    1. Probably not so good for clearing brush as the energy is dispersed in a vast pattern, 90 degrees vertically and 180 degrees horizontally. A bull dozer would be far more efficient 🙂 Clear a fire gap around the area and then start burning in segments.

      Not that I would know, but I’d guess that possessing a Claymore might not be lawful, even in Texas.

      1. Yeah, TW, pretty sure that possession of a Claymore would get me fired and my LTC revoked.

        But in my fantasy world, they might be useful clearing out some meth houses in the county…

        1. Now meth houses are a different situation for which either a Claymore or C4 would be a reasonable application! Not so sure about how effective rat poison might be but if you tell it’s hash brownies or something like that, who knows.

      2. I would guess owning a claymore is perfectly acceptable in Texas as long as the excitable ingredients are absent.

  18. Maybe the stuff was to be used to heat up c ration cans and the cord to be used to slice up the franks into smaller pieces. that makes sense. How about the ham and lima beans.

    1. Ham & Limas are explosive enough by themselves–no additives needed. (except “T” sauce, of course)

  19. Ah, I accidentally brought back a red smoke and set it off in my apartment all in one weekend while dumping my ruck in the living room.

    Note: reduced gpm toilets don’t work when frantically attempting to extinguish an activated smoke. An honest confession of dumbassery to Security and FDNY was accepted without any further action.

    1. It’s a good day when an honest confession of dumbassery doesn’t end up with some kind of charges from a DA. I guess that is proof that there are still sensible folks in FDNY.

    2. That is why I would require people to bring all residue back to me at the end of the training evolution. No alibis.

  21. With the way people have been driving during this storm, I have been looking for one of those I can insert into my hitch.

    I figure if they get close enough to read “Front towards enemy” the last thing they should ever hear is “clicky, clicky, clicky”

    1. “boring metrics meetings”
      Any metrics meeting is, ipso facto, boring.
      And most meetings are as well.

      A great time-waster at work, except they are so necessary to keep from wasting time doing the wrong stuff.

  23. Those OD plastic wrapped blocks of C-4 bring back memories. I used to carry two of them in the bottom of my rucksack in the Viet of the Nam. I couldn’t let my troops carry them because they would use pieces of the C-4 to heat their C-rats. When it was time to blow and unexploded bomb or arty round, there was no C-4 in the company in the field. Also, I had to check claymores to make sure they hadn’t removed some of the C-4 from them for cooking.

      1. Thanks. I use it all the time instead of RVN, since some of the uninitiated may not know what that acronym means.

      2. Really? And here all this time I thought it was one of the more infamous posers. Are you sure you want to claim it?

        😉

    4. Many a fine meal was cooked over a lump of C-4! Do you remember the story of some guy cooking (not with C-4) dinner for his girlfriend using a bunch of left over C-rats? After dinner they relaxed on the couch and the 2000 calories began to gurgle in her gut and after a trip or three to the bathroom a resounding fart was heard thru the bathroom door? I wish I could find that story again!

      1. I remember reading that, it was a Marine Vet who did that for dinner at his place on their first date and she did ALL the cooking afterward.

          1. Yeah, he fed her a collage of MRE’s (Meals Rejected by Ethiopians, Mostly recycled Entrails).

  24. Donate it all to wild hog eradication here in Texas.

    “Here come the hogs. Hold my beer and pass me the clicky thing…”

      1. With three or four of them and some det cord, you could set up a mechanical claymore ambush and wipe out a whole herd of them.

  25. just imagine the person who found the stash, when they realized the content.

    Probably found less than gently.

    2. Not sure about the Claymores, but isn’t C4 supposed to be very stable? (I thought the boom-stuff in Claymores was C4, but that may just be my ignorance showing.)

      Kind of the opposite end of the “stuff that goes boom” spectrum from nitroglycerin (which my great uncle used to break rock when the drill bits couldn’t handle it).

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