Gov spending $1billion to dispose of unneeded/extra ammunition?

[def90]

Anyone have any more info on this?

"According to Senator Tom Coburn's 2014 Wastebook on wasteful federal spending, the Department of Defense is set to spend $1 billion destroying $16 billion worth of ammo that it no longer intends to use."

http://benswann.com/waste-report-dept-of-defense-to-spend-1-billion-destroying-16-billion-worth-of-ammo/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=nl

[BushMasterBoy]

We should have DOD sell the ammo to American citizens to help stop the space alien invasion!

[boomerhc9]

since when did it cost 1 billion dollars to pay a couple of platoon of soldiers to go to the range? or sell it to civilians?

maybe it realy is stuff they can't use, antique ammo for guns they don't have anymore?

[clublights]

A GAO audit cited by Coburn’s 2014 Wastebook stated, “According to an Army financial statement in June 2013, the Army had about 39 percent of its total inventory (valued at about $16 billion) in a storage category for ammunition items that were excess to all the services’ requirements.” Some of the ammo is being decommissioned due to international treaties that ban their use. Coburn’s report noted that “the amount of surplus ammunition is now so large that the cost of destroying it will equal the full years’ salary for over 54,000 Army privates.”

AKA Lead Core rounds I bet ya....

[cstone]

That would be a lot of surplus pulled down powder, scrap brass, and depending on the ammunition pulled down bullets. Why would anyone ever want to buy that and put that money back into the general fund of the US Treasury [facepalm]

[Irving]

If this is true, it's fucking stupid. I'm too pissed to not swear. Sorry mods.

[sportbikeco]

They probably have money in the budget to break down munitions that are then sold for "scrap"

[Big E3]

I'm betting that most of it is for old obsolete cannons, tanks, mortars, etc. Too big to sell to the public.

[Gman]

Gotta' get rid of the non-green ammo don'tcha'know.

[tim-adams]

The Pentagon is spending a billion dollars to destroy $16 billion in over purchases of military-grade ammunition. The amount of surplus ammunition is now so large that the cost of destroying it will equal the full years’ salary for over 54,000 Army privates.439 How the military came to purchase so much ammunition it didn’t need was uncovered in a 2014 Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation.440 Certain kinds of
ammunition became “obsolete, unusable or their use is banned by international treaty,” according to Pentagon officials.441 However, GAO found that record-keeping for ammunition was also poor, and that accurate
records were hard to come by for the nation’s $70 billion ammunition arsenal.442 Over time, the amount of ammunition deemed no longer necessary has grown to nearly 40 percent of the Army’s total inventory: “According to an Army financial statement in June 2013, the Army had about 39 percent of its total inventory (valued at about $16 billion) in a storage category for ammunition items that were excess to all the services’ requirements.”443 However, the Pentagon may be throwing away ammunition that could still be used. According to GAO, some of the material set for destruction has at times been found usable.

wow they need to surplus this and recoup some $$$$$ what a waste of money.

[Hound]

I volunteer to help them dispose of as much as I can.......... For free even.

[tim-adams]

I volunteer to help them dispose of as much as I can.......... For free even.

Amen!!!! sign me up.. If they drop a pallet of steel core I am sure someone around here will let us have some fun..

[Aloha_Shooter]

Mmmm .... if it's banned by international treaty then you're probably talking about things like chemical weapons. It costs a lot to build furnaces capable of destroying mustard and VX. We had tons of that stuff in storage; we've been trying to get rid of it for decades and it has cost a lot to burn what we could. Ammo for atomic artillery is also banned by treaty and pretty darn expensive to get rid of. Other things like artillery/tank rounds and mortars for WW2 and Korean War-era munitions just aren't going to be sold to the public.

[Rabid]

I posted a link about this a while ago, i cant remember the exact details but it is not just small arms munitions. It is some BS excuse about it taking more money to catalog it then destroy it. No it is not about non-green/lead core ammo we have been using steel since WW2 and our troops, believe it or not, still use ammo that old.
Any way thank Clinton for not allowing the small arms ammo to be sold to the public.

[hurley842002]

Mmmm .... if it's banned by international treaty then you're probably talking about things like chemical weapons. It costs a lot to build furnaces capable of destroying mustard and VX. We had tons of that stuff in storage; we've been trying to get rid of it for decades and it has cost a lot to burn what we could. Ammo for atomic artillery is also banned by treaty and pretty darn expensive to get rid of. Other things like artillery/tank rounds and mortars for WW2 and Korean War-era munitions just aren't going to be sold to the public.
Probably a more viable theory, think Pueblo chemical Depot.

[BlasterBob]

Surely a lot of local police departments would be glad to get some of the small arms ammo if compatible with their firearms.