THE CARTRIDGE COLLECTOR

Here are couple of interesting boxes of cartridges that have bullets that are intended to explode on contact with a solid object. I have had the box of .22 LR 'Devastator' cartridges shown in these first three pictures for a least 20 years, but only recently encountered a box of .30 carbine 'Exploder' cartridges, which is shown below.

The Devastator box is shown to scale here; it appears a previous owner took out some of his frustration on the box for some unknown reason by poking a few holes in it and scratching all six sides. While the number of cartridges contained in the box is not marked anywhere on it, I believe that it originally held only the twelve shown in this picture when sold, which were in a piece of black foam that had a hole for each cartridge. Over time, this foam deteriorated, much of it turning to dust while the rest attached itself in a sticky blob to the cartridges, eventually etching the surface of the cases; it was quite a job cleaning what remained of the foam off. If you have one of these boxes that still has it's foam block, by all means take it out and perhaps store it separately if it hasn't already disintegrated. The cartridges in the box were manufactured by Cascade Cartridge Inc with hollow point bullets. The manufacturing process at Bingham LTD involved inserting a small explosive-filled aluminum canister which they purchased from another company into the tip of each bullet. The flat ends of these canisters can be seen in the noses of the bullets in the picture, which appear to be white but are actually a shiny silver.

The Devastator cartridge gained national attention when John Hinkley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981, firing six of them from a recently purchased RG14 revolver. President Reagan, his press secretary James Brady, Secret Service Agent Timothy McCarthy, and Washington D. C. policeman Thomas Delahanty were hit by four of the bullets, the remaining two bullets struck the Presidents limosine window and the window of a building across the street from the shooting. Only the bullet that hit Brady was thought to have exploded. The 1 3/4" barrel of the revolver is blamed for the failure of the other bullets to explode, as it was most likely too short to have allowed the bullets to reach a velocity of 900 feet per second which a Bingham Ltd official said was required for the bullets to explode on impact.

Following the assassination attempt and the resulting attention it focused on their exploding bullets, Bingham, Ltd was notified on October 6, 1981 by the ATF that continued sales of the explosive bullets without an explosives license would be considered a willful violation of the law. After receiving this notification, Bingham cut back on production, selling only to government agencies, and took it's case to court seeking a ruling that since it did not actually manufacture the canisters that it inserted into the bullets, that it should not be required to have an explosives manufacturer's license. They lost this case in 1982, as well as the 1984 appeal..

Shown below are the pictures of the box of Bingham Ltd .30 carbine 'Exploder' cartridges, also shown to scale. The foam block has not yet deteriorated to the extent that it has caused any damage, but a portion of it is missing, and it appears to be in the beginning stages of deterioration; since taking these pictures I have removed the foam block to avoid problems. Again, there is no indication on the box regarding the number of cartridges that it contained when new, but I believe it was also twelve like the Devastator box. Apparently, the Exploder name was used for center fire ammunition. From my searches on the internet, production seems to have been primarily for the more popular handgun cartridges.

Sources:

The Exploding Bullets, Pete Earley & John Babcock, The Washington Post, April 4, 1981

Bingham, Ltd vs. United States District Court, N. D. Georgia, Atlanta Division, August 17, 1982, Leagle.com (http://www.leagle.com/decision/19821532545FSupp987_11397/BINGHAM,%20LTD.%20v.%20UNITED%20STATES)

Photo of Hinkley's gun: Wikipedia,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B6hm_RG-14#/media/File:R%C3%B6hm_RG-14_Reagan_attempted_assassination_gun.jpg