In the second explosive Argyll story this week, ardentinny.org reports that a villager from Ardentinny in Cowal who was out for a walk on Tuesday afternoon (4th May) had an anxiety-making surprise.
On the walking route from Carrick Castle to Ardentinny, the local resident found a sealed green plastic bag labelled BAE Systems at the side of the path.
When opened, the bag contained 120 unused blank 5.56mm cartridges packed in six boxes. Each box was marked: RORG 24-04-07 20CARTS 5.56mm BLANK L18A1.
The finding of the bag – and its contents - was reported to Dunoon Police who have now collected the cartridges.
Local concern centres on the fact that, with the summer all but upon us, more walkers will be on that path and they have no guarantee that the ammunition discovered on Tuesday is the end of the story.
The national media have covered the story and, although Strathclyde Police has said that, having collected the cartridges, they ‘will contact Faslane and police will dispose of the package accordingly’ local anxieteis are far from allayed.
Ardentinny wants some answers.
Part of the code marked on each box is ’24-04-07′ which is presumably a ‘Use Before’ date. This may not indicate that any action involving these cartridges predates this. Training exercises often use out-of-date material.
Our own immediate questions focus on two issues:
- What condition was the green plastic bag in when it was found? Did it look newish or aged?
- What is the likely event that may have brought this ammunition to this place?
It has to be said clearly and unequivocally that Argyll is not – and must not become – a playground for the military – and the careless military at that.
Curious youngsters walk these paths and blanks are far from being risk-free cartridges.
(The first explosive Argyll story this week was the dredging up of a ‘historic’ missile from Campbeltown Harbour in Kintyre – taken into 30 metres of water and safely exploded by the navy’s bomb disposal team._
ok from the information you have provided the following can be gleaned from the serial number
RORG – Royal Ordnance Radway Green – Place of manufacture
24-04-07 – Date of Manufacture
20CARTS – Number contained in each box
5.56mm – Calibre of Ammunition
BLANK – Type of ammunition
Bag as described is a thick plastic bagwith reasealable top, ****contains 10 boxes**** ie 4 missing or used as your report only says there were 6
the ammunition is “not out of date” dont know how it got there but if there has been any training excercises by the forces in that part of the area recently that will be the likely culprits
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