Wyandotte home hit by 105mm artillery shell from OFATS.

[dieseltech09]

Oops.
http://www.miamiok.com/news/article_16604173-fab8-595c-97f7-4b19e9f9f5b9.html

WYANDOTTE - In a bizarre accident, a rural Wyandotte home was damaged by an errant cannon round late Saturday.
Between 9:15 and 9:20 p.m. Saturday, a 105mm howitzer round was fired at the Oklahoma Full Auto Shoot and Trade Show outside Wyandotte. According to the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department, the round apparently ricocheted off the ground, bounced into the air, traveled about a mile and a half to Gene and Jeanne Kelley's property, where it ripped a limb off a tree, hit the ground again and then bounced through the back wall of the house and into the couple's bedroom.
Gene Kelley said the round slamming through their house wasn't as noticeable as one might think.
"I don't really really recall much as far as hearing noise," he said. "I heard the glass break in the bedroom. When we went into the bedroom to see why the glass was broke, we got to looking and saw the hole in the wall and the ceiling was damaged and the other wall was damaged."
Jeanne Kelley immediately called 911 and said "a bullet went through my house."
Deputies came out to investigate and also went to the shoot to talk to the owner of the gun.
Gene Kelley said an officer was sent to the shoot and took pictures of the gun and said it was pointed in a safe direction.
"But regardless of how safe a direction it was pointed in, the end result is it still reached my home," he said. "We were pretty fortunate we weren't in that part of the house."
Jeanne Kelley said on most nights she would have been in the bedroom when the shell hit.
"What I normally do schedule-wise, that night I happened to be sitting up late in the living room, I'd have been in the bedroom reading when it came through that wall," she said.
Gene Kelley said he then called his grandson who was working the shoot.
"My grandson happened to be working for the shoot," Kelley said. "I called him that evening and told him to find Mike Friend (event organizer) and said 'you let him know your grandpa is one mad SOB.'"
Friend and one of his staff came out and helped find the projectile and then got in touch with the owner of the cannon in question, who came out the next day to talk to the Kelleys.
The cannon owner, whose name has not been released, told the Kelleys he would pay for needed repairs to their home.
"He has said that he will take care of things, just get him an estimate and we'll go from there," Gene Kelley said, adding he should have estimates Tuesday or Wednesday.
"The man who owns the gun, he's a stand-up guy," Friend said. "He was so sick about it he could barely stand."
OCSO has forwarded the information concerning the incident to the Ottawa County District Attorney's Office, and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms field office in Tulsa, and legal action on the part of authorities is possible.
Gene Kelley, however, said he has no plans to sue, provided he's made whole.
"There won't be any from us, as long as they do the right thing," he said. "They take care of this and everything will be fine."
Friend said they do a great deal of safety training prior to the shoots but are looking at additional steps to make sure this never happens again.
"We're looking at ways to make the range even safer," he said. "We're going to have to build some sort of bullet trap for the bigger stuff.
"The main thing is no one was hurt."
Friend said he'd prefer not to ban artillery from the annual shoot, but if he's told that's what has to happen, then he'll comply.
For Gene Kelley that would seem to be the easiest solution.
"I'm really not necessarily in favor of shutting them down as much as I am the limitation of what they can discharge," he said. "There just has to be some restrictions."
Gene Kelley also said he'd like to have the fired round once things settle out, but was told by the investigating officer that it may be a while before everything is settled.
"I said 'I understand, but I'd like to have it put in the paperwork,'" Gene Kelley said. "He says 'well I believe you were the last one in possession of it.'"

 

[Mr.Glock]

Oh snap!! Glad to hear no one was hurt!

 

[dennishoddy]

+1 glad nobody was hurt. It looks like the folks involved have came to an agreement to resolve this among themselves.
I hope it stops there, and some DA doesn't get involved.

 

[dieseltech09]

I hope it stops there, and some DA doesn't get involved.

Yeah I hope it doesn't have a negative affect on OFATS.

 

[FullAuto]

Where can I buy a Howitzer?

 

[Poke78]

I've never heard of that happening with a 105. It was well known to happen with 175s shooting at Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany because the 175 is a low-trajectory gun and the ground at Graf has been a training area back to the Kaiser's day, making the ground very hard. There were stories about rounds going well off the impact zone and landing on main post.

The article doesn't say why the projectile didn't explode but I'm guessing it was designed as a practice, non-explosive round?

 

[Oklahomabassin]

Hey honey did you leave the window open again? I feel a breeze.

 

[dieseltech09]

Where can I buy a Howitzer?

I don't know but I bet this guy can point you in the right direction. http://nationalreport.net/civil-activist-arrested-taking-tank-drive-thru/

 

[mouthpiece]

I think these rounds were made of cement with a bronze gas check ring.

 

[uncle money bags]

I was not there Saturday but spoke with a couple vendors about it Sunday when i was assisting Machine Gun Tours. According to them the round was fired at the base of the bus, which was located about 2/3rd of the way down the hill and about 200 yards away from the firing line. The hill side is about a 35-40 degree angle from what i could tell. By all estimates that should have prevented the skip. It was thought by the guys i talked to that a rock/boulder under the bus may have deflected the projo up and over the backstop. We werent allowed down range, even after the shoot was over to check it out so that is my best guess.