caution ! contaminated army surplus

[swampman]

hey guys i know alot of us here are looking for or currently using used army surplus gear.. and i know that when ever i see an army surplus store , i cant help myself , i just gotta go in and shop..

there is a thread going on over on jeep kings which kinda scared me a little bit , i never would have thought about contamination or poisons of any kind .. not at a store..

im just gonna copy the first post and post the link .

Jeepkings

I was killing time with my little guy at the local Military surplus shop here in London and had a scary situation develop while looking at some surplus Ammo boxes.

My little guy being 2.5 and wound for sound thought it would be cool to play with al the boxes and climb on them. 1 min later we are walkin gout the door I suspect he was picking his nose or wiping his face and all hell broke loose on the poor kid. Tears, snot, screamming, watering mouth, gaging.... All at the front counter. All the employees and customers thought the kid had just been smacked by me or was gaging on something.

I brought him outside to get some air and water from the truck. I then realized that he was on and touching the amo boxes and had CS gas (tear gas) contamination. I recognized it from my own CS gas training at CFB Pet. Not a fun experiance when i was 18 and I know sure as hell it sucked for my little guy at 2.5 years old.

Now I was PISSED! I tied the little guy in his car seat and went back in a tore a few new a$$ holes. And told them they are gonna have to decontaminate their stock.


Now, on my way home I was dumb and not thinking wiped my own nose with my hand. Guess what! I f***in got my self! At home Cameron got a bath and I got a nice cold shower and a load of laundry to make sure.


FCC be warned!!!!​

 

[sirenmoses]

sounds like a middleman skirted the de-mil rules. cant say I'm surprized, but sorry to hear ya'll had to suffer for it.

 

[psfpilot]

I hadn't thought about this before. CS would be the least of my worries. I would be more concerned about insidious low-level exposure to nerve agents, or other toxins or dioxins that might not be common concerns in our part of the world. Depleted U comes to mind. Sheesh--now I'm going to be paranoid when I'm investigating the treasures in the Army-Navy stores...

 

[prado t]

Yup, Our canadian junky surplus, when training in the gas chamber circa 1987 my mask fell apart.
Sorry your little guy had to experience the gas residue.

P.s. On a different note what about the Brigadier General fxxxing criminal

 

[JackZilla]

I know when I went through my CS training it was horrible. I can't even begin to imagine the effects it would have on a 2 year old. Poor little guy. Is there some type of law or regulation requiring surplus stores to run some type of decon on their gear before they sale it? Hmmmmm, that's got me pretty curious. I know I will definitely be more careful the next time I'm poking around through my local military surplus store. Thanks for the heads up!!!

 

[swampman]

i made a trip to princess auto on saturday.. in the back corner there were 20 or so ammo boxes.. and there were 4 of these really cool plastic containers like giant pelican boxes. i was almost afraid to touch them .. but i did anyway.. althought the cases were really cool , rugged and waterproof , i couldnt justify 100 bucks for one.. all the while i was looking at them i kept thinking about that poor little kid..

 

[titanpat57]

That's crazy sh*t Bro...classic case of buyer beware!!

 

[rspeters]

I grew up as a proud son of a military surplus store owner...a responsible one who made his son clean every ammo can with WD-40 and a rag before putting it out for sale. I don't know if WD-40 was the best for that, but it worked.

 

[rhyary]

>> Now I was PISSED! I tied the little guy in his car seat and went back in a tore a few new a$$ holes

I hope the 2.5 year old was not left along in a car, in a parking lot, while you went back into the store.

 

[swampman]

>> Now I was PISSED! I tied the little guy in his car seat and went back in a tore a few new a$$ holes

I hope the 2.5 year old was not left along in a car, in a parking lot, while you went back into the store.

im pretty sure if were my kid he wouldnt be left alone , any time, under the circumstances i doubt he left him too long for sure,,

 

[craigwanderer]

CS isn't fun. I remember it well. Not only did we do mask-off familiarisation training, but I was the unlucky SOB who had to carry the big cement bag of powdered CS to the gas chamber... seems that the bottom of the bag had gotten soggy at some point and when I lifted it, I disappeared in a cloud of irritant powder. No mask, no suit and to make things worse, the ex- copped a dose the next day from the washing machine lol (I shouldn't laugh)

When it comes to possible contamination from surplus goods, definitely watch out for ammo cans - not only for CS, but also for explosives residue. I bought one that must have been used to store commercial gelignite at some stage - splitting headache for hours.

Also watch out for the paint on everything from trailers to ammo cans and tent poles. It's called CARC - Chemical Agent Resistant Coating. Designed to allow for easy decontamination and it's very, very carcinogenic. If you rub back any metal painted with this stuff without a mask with a filter, you MAY have problems down the track.

 

[Josh N]

I hadn't thought about this before. CS would be the least of my worries. I would be more concerned about insidious low-level exposure to nerve agents, or other toxins or dioxins that might not be common concerns in our part of the world. Depleted U comes to mind. Sheesh--now I'm going to be paranoid when I'm investigating the treasures in the Army-Navy stores...

I wouldn't worry about it in the least. DU was primarily used in larger scale ammunition like artillery shells or tank rounds. The smallest round that I know of that used DU was 20mm. The amount of containers for these types of ammunition are relatively low as only really the 20mm, 25mm, and 30mm ammunition was stored in something that might be useful to wheelers. As far as worrying about chemical munitions, rest easy. The smallest were artillery munitions and most 3inch or larger which meant they were individually packaged and not in anything that you will likely find or likely find useful at a surplus store. As far as powder or "explosive" residue, well that is a possibility since bullets all contain it. A simple rinse with warm soapy water and your good.

For the little guy...I feel for him. My son got a hold of my uniform after a day of training and sneezed all day when he was a baby but I had aired out extensively before I came home.