Houston: Couple finds fully-automatic M16s in military surplus storage cases bought online

[Bocephus123]

Probably remnants from the Fast and furious operation from the Obama administration.

could be!

 

[Snattlerake]

I think it was a legit mistake. The military has auctions all the time, some are boxes unopened having been in warehouses for years with the paperwork lost.
When stationed at Ft Monmouth NJ in the early 70's they had multiple warehouses with unopened crates, some from the WWII era they sold unopened at auction. Military folks had first and final bid.
Buddy and I bid on two wood crates and won that went for $100 each which was most of a months pay for us, but we sold a lot of plasma to get extra money.
Each crate had a Harly Davidson 45 courier motorcycle in them still in cosmoline.
The tires were rotted away. A guy offered us 3X what we paid for them which was a fortune for us and we took it.
Those machines would be worth a small fortune currently if we had the money to keep them at that time.
I've bid on military issue items over the years. It's online now. The best thing I bought was a trailer from 1970 that was stored at Tinker AFB. 1 1/4 ton on road capability and they put two new tires on it along with a new I'll bet that supply Sgt spare. I bought it for $175 a few years ago.
Duece and a halves were going for a couple thousand dollars with under 2000 miles on them. 5 tons for about double that.
Point is that the couple that got those M-16's got them by oversite or a mistake in the paperwork.
They did the right thing to report them as if they had shot them or attempted to sell them, their time in jail along with lawyer fee's would have negated any fun factor of owning them.

During my stay at Fort Swill, a cook found a wooden crate behind his mess. When the MP's brought it into the MP conference room and opened it up it was a new, still in cosmoline, M-2.



The stink that caused!

I'll bet that supply Sgt. is still making big rocks into little rocks at Leavenworth.

 

[Snattlerake]

During MP School at McClellan, a Lt lost his M-16. You shoulda seen the alphabet agencies come out of the woodwork. We all went back to the field and subsequently found his weapon leaning on the tree he remembered taking a leak.

 

[ratski]

During MP School at McClellan, a Lt lost his M-16. You shoulda seen the alphabet agencies come out of the woodwork. We all went back to the field and subsequently found his weapon leaning on the tree he remembered taking a leak.

When I was in Korea, one of the units was out on a Field Training Exercise and one of the guys lost his M16. The Koreans are pretty antsy about those things and the rifle was actually back at the base before the unit was.

 

[Foxfire5]

Probably some shady supply Sergeant behind this

I ain't talking!!

 

[rc508pir]

Would hate to be the last Armorer, and their CO, that signed for those bad boys.

Any equipment like this, at least in the Army, goes through the Supply Sergeant. And there are more than just some that know the system and can get away with CRAZY ****. Even without the CO knowing about it. Truly great Supply Sergeants use their Powers of Shady to make their CO's look good during inspections.

In reality, these weapons were probably mismarked and lost in a warehouse by higher supply chains. Happens a lot more than you would think. They would just be written off and stricken from the books

 

[SoonerP226]

It's not the first time it has happened. The first time I heard about it was around '95 or so. Somebody won a DRMO auction for, if memory serves, a shipping container. It turned out to be full of stuff that probably wasn't supposed to be left in it, including one or more cases of new M-16s. They got to keep everything except for the rifles (I'm pretty sure they were post-'86, and the people who won the auction weren't Class III dealers).

 

[SoonerP226]

Any equipment like this, at least in the Army, goes through the Supply Sergeant. And there are more than just some that know the system and can get away with CRAZY ****. Even without the CO knowing about it. Truly great Supply Sergeants use their Powers of Shady to make their CO's look good during inspections.

I used to know a guy who was in the Pink Teams in Vietnam. He said everyone wondered how they had such a high up-time with their helos; he said it's really not that hard if you can get down to the harbor and steal extra birds right off the docks.

He also said they used to fly out to the carriers for various reasons (mainly because they had better chow), and one time while he was out there in the mess, they had a declared emergency. The Navy doesn't screw around with those, so they shoved his helicopter over the side before he could do anything about it.

He said he got royally chewed out by his CO over that, and it didn't help at all when he told him not to worry about because it was one of the birds they'd stolen off the docks...

 

[AKguy1985]

I wonder if the "wrong" bidder didn't win that auction.
It might have been some cartel dudes were supposed to win that auction of EMPTY boxes as part of Fast & Furious Part II.

2 fast 2 furious??

 

[Louro]

When I was in Korea, one of the units was out on a Field Training Exercise and one of the guys lost his M16. The Koreans are pretty antsy about those things and the rifle was actually back at the base before the unit was.

Korean will turn in the Weapons quick, NVG was a different story.