My friend and SOG vet, Ken Bird, told me a great story last night about taking apart the claymore mine and using it to kill rats.
I was bored one day and took a claymore apart and counted the steel balls in bedded in plastic. I cannot remember exact count something close to 900 or so
.I used several balls to shoot rats in my bunker (Hill 950 AKA Hickory relay site). I discovered the diameter of the ball would fit snuggly in a 5.56 cartridge. After I took the round out and pored out most of the powder out and firing it was as loud as a pellet gun taped a flashlight to my CAR 15 and lay out a opened can of C ration cheese turn off light and wait for the can to move turn on my light and fire. I must have killed 20 in 5 days. BRU were happy.
..after firing you needed a cleaning rod to knock out the spent brass. Mot enough power to eject.
definitely put a hole in him. I shot a c ration case to check it out went pretty far into the case. Surprised me I did not want to see with more powder needed less noise. Anyway helped pass time listening to radios all day and night.
Scattered Shots 
If your Jarhead father/grandfather told you about the time a bunch of squids stole all his stuff on Guadalcanal, I know who did the deed and can now safely identify the culprits.
My late father enlisted in 1942 at the tender age of 33. Because of his employment as an auto mechanic, the Navy put him to turning wrenches on aircraft and in due course he ended up plying that trade at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. One day a boot Marine L-T ordered them out of the showers because apparently it was beneath that particular boot Marine L-T to shower with filthy squid enlisted men. When he came out, all he had was a bar of soap in one hand, and a towel in the other, because Dad and his cohorts had stolen all the young L-T’s gear, including M1 Carbine.
Dad’s unit was put in formation but apparently the young jarhead was racist, because all squids looked alike to him, and he was unable to identify the thieves.
Eventually things quieted down, and they got brave enough to retrieve the carbine from hiding. They would pull the bullets and “dump out most of the powder” before reseating the projectiles and using the little gun to shoot feral chickens to supplement their diet of SPAM. They must have been fed a lot of SPAM because Dad detested the stuff and would not allow it in the house.
Post-war, Dad went to work turning wrenches on Air Farce aircraft and had a story about the carbine in Air Farce service that may be of interest. I can tell that story as well if anyone wants to hear it, let me know.
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