Cnock Posted 5 December , 2009 Share Posted 5 December , 2009 Hi, A guy found long time ago in a field near Langemark a British .303 round with sharp bullet nose. It is marked 17. M VII. A A, thus it should be a Pomeroy (correct me if I am wrong) My question is if this type of round was also used by British infantry. This also draws attention to the fact that all kind of ammo should be left untouched. What looks like an ordinary .303 is not always what it is in reality Regards, Cnock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 5 December , 2009 Share Posted 5 December , 2009 The Pomeroy was only an Air Service store. The Mark VII AA should have the domed copper warhead, so do you mean it was headstamped "VII AA" but had a normal spitzer bullet? I can post pictures of the Mark II Pomeroy if required. Regards TonyE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cnock Posted 6 December , 2009 Author Share Posted 6 December , 2009 Tony, 'The Pomeroy was only an Air Service store' That is why I posted this topic. A farmer found the Pomeroy together with a lump of mudcaked ordinary .303's. When I go back I will try to make some fotos. Foto's of the Mark II Pomeroy would be welcome Regards, Cnock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 6 December , 2009 Share Posted 6 December , 2009 I will post some pictures later today. Regards TonyE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 7 December , 2009 Share Posted 7 December , 2009 Pictures of the Pomeroy rounds as promised. Left is a Mark I, headstamped "E 16 VII" and right a Mark II, headstamped "E.17 VII A.A." Although they look very similar in these photographs, the Mark I has a small pin hole in the nose which was intended to prevent air pockets forming when the warhead was filled. This caused nitro-glycerine to exude in storage and so the hole was omitted in the Mark II. Also, the Mark II has a small spherical ball in the base of the warhead to aid ignition on striking the target. In practice, the shape of the warhead and the amount it protrudes from the body of the bullet varied considerably with each manufacturer. Both of these bullets were made by Eley Bros. and the Mark II has an impressed "E" on the bullet base. Regards TonyE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cnock Posted 7 December , 2009 Author Share Posted 7 December , 2009 TonyE, thanks for the pics Cnock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cnock Posted 7 December , 2009 Author Share Posted 7 December , 2009 For TonyE the complete round Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 7 December , 2009 Share Posted 7 December , 2009 Thanks Cnock I think it is simply an instance whereby a case originally destined to be a Pomeroy Mark II has been loaded as a ball round. Interesting never the less. Thanks for showing the picture. Regards TonyE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiegeGunner Posted 7 December , 2009 Share Posted 7 December , 2009 If a suitable Pomeroy Mk II bullet could be found, would it fit straight into this case, or is the neck fitting different for .303 ball and Pomeroy bullets? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 7 December , 2009 Share Posted 7 December , 2009 Related questions were the cases interchangeable? Was there any recycling of used cases? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squirrel Posted 7 December , 2009 Share Posted 7 December , 2009 I remember reading somewhere that sandbags were used in trenches for collecting empty cartridge cases for salvage and presumably the RFC also sent cases for "recycling". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 7 December , 2009 Share Posted 7 December , 2009 The British military did not reload small arms ammunition. Any cases that were recovered and returned to depot were melted down as scrap brass, and only a percentage of this was added to new brass to make cartridge case cups. Experiments had been carried out with reloading recovered brass by both Kynoch and the Royal Laboratory but it was found to be less economical than melting it down. The cases were interchangeable between the various types of .303 as obviously it was all the same calibre and had to feed through the same guns. The only difference was in the securement of the bullet. Ball rounds were secured by the familiar 3 x 120 degree slit crimps, AP rounds by pin stabs and tracers by a tight friction fit. It was found that trying to secure tracer bullets by any form of crimp caused the tracer compound to break up and fail when fired. Similarly, the level of the slit crimps relative to the top of the cartridge case depended on the position of the cannelure on the bullet and differed between say the Brock, Pomeroy, RTS and the normal ball round. However, to answer Siegegunner's point, a spare Pomeroy Mark II proj could be put in that case and would be good enough for anyone ecept a pedant (moi?). Here are a few spare Mark IIs, all be it a bit corroded. Regards TonyE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 7 December , 2009 Share Posted 7 December , 2009 So if before the bullet was inserted and fixed the cases were identical (apart from the head stamp) why make different cases for each type of bullet by having a different head stamp? It would be a more efficient manufacturing process if cases were not designated for a particular type of round and the round type was identified by, say, a paint ring applied after it had been manufactured. It seems an unnecessary complication to have batches of cases specifically designated for a particular type of round. Is there a simple explanation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiegeGunner Posted 7 December , 2009 Share Posted 7 December , 2009 ... presumably the RFC also sent cases for "recycling". Did aircraft MGs retain their spent cases, or spit them out all over the countryside ...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4thGordons Posted 7 December , 2009 Share Posted 7 December , 2009 Did aircraft MGs retain their spent cases, or spit them out all over the countryside ...? Way out of my area of knowledge but I believe in some of the "pusher" aircraft there was an attempt to catch the spent brass (bags) to prevent it flying backwards and into the prop. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deadin Posted 8 December , 2009 Share Posted 8 December , 2009 Slightly off-topic, but when was the period of cordite loaded .303's? I ask because I seem to remember seeing an article on the production of .303 cordite rounds where the case was charged with the cordite strings before the neck was formed. Then the neck was formed and the bullet seated in the same operation. I can't recall if the primer wqas seated before or after charging the case. This method would definitely make the spent cases unreloadable. Dean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 8 December , 2009 Share Posted 8 December , 2009 Cordite was used in .303 inch rounds from the Cordite Ball Mark I introduced in 1891 to the last of the Ball Mark 7 rounds loaded in 1957. After that production continued with the nitro cellulose Mark 7Z version. You are correct in that the cordite was loaded into the un-necked but already primed cases and then the case was necked and bulletted. Whilst it would not be possible to re-load them as full charge ball rounds, they could have been loaded as blanks or short range practice rounds, but tests showed this was not economic. Regards TonyE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 8 December , 2009 Share Posted 8 December , 2009 Way out of my area of knowledge but I believe in some of the "pusher" aircraft there was an attempt to catch the spent brass (bags) to prevent it flying backwards and into the prop. Chris In general on tractor aircraft the cases were just ejected, post war when peace time economics prevailed special collector bags were introduced (or possibly re introduced). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 8 December , 2009 Share Posted 8 December , 2009 So if before the bullet was inserted and fixed the cases were identical (apart from the head stamp) why make different cases for each type of bullet by having a different head stamp? It would be a more efficient manufacturing process if cases were not designated for a particular type of round and the round type was identified by, say, a paint ring applied after it had been manufactured. It seems an unnecessary complication to have batches of cases specifically designated for a particular type of round. Is there a simple explanation? A very astute point Mr.Centurion! There is not room here to go into all the details of why the headstamping practice of .303 inch rounds evolved the way it did, as it would need a small book to cover it fully (..which I have written. PM for details!). However, before 1914 there were only ball, blank and dummy rounds in general service, and whilst the difference between these was reasonably self evident, often different cartridges within the same type looked identical externally. For example, between the introduction of the Lee Metford in 1889 and 1893, four different marks of Ball round were introduced, two with blackpowder and two with cordite. A method was needed to differentiate between these and so the Mark numeral was included in the headstamp. (Although this practice had started previously with .45 drawn case rounds). When special ammunition was developed in WWI, tracer, AP, Incendiary etc., a means was needed to identify them and so a suffix was added to the ball mark number, giving VIIG, VIIW etc. and included in the headstamp. In 1918 Col.Todhunter at the Royal Laboratory suggested colouring the waterproofing varnish used to seal the primer to identify the different types of round. (called the primer annulus). After some discussion on colours a code was adopted with purple for ball, red for tracer, green for AP and blue for incendiary. There were others, but they were the main ones. This was introduced in late 1918 and carries on to this day. The question of using a "universal" headstamp that could be used for any load and simply use a tip colour or the primer annulus does not seem to have been raised in WWI. The first instance of this happening was when the new Defence Industries plant was set up in Canada in 1942. All .303 ammunition produced there until the end of the war had a universal headstamp of "DI date Z" irrespective of load, the "Z" indicating nitro cellulose propellant. As a final note of interest, modern British 7.62mm Nato ammunition originally had the type included in the headstamp, L2A2 for Ball, L5A3 tracer etc. In 1976 ROF Radway Green introduced a universal headstamp and used this for a number of years. However, once we started buying in ammunition and components from all over the world around the time of Gulf War I, a method was again needed to identify where components came from and so we reverted to the old system and gave not only each type its own headstamp, but also each change of supplier of primer, powder etc. We are up to L47A1 I think at the moment!. Regards TonyE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 8 December , 2009 Share Posted 8 December , 2009 Way out of my area of knowledge but I believe in some of the "pusher" aircraft there was an attempt to catch the spent brass (bags) to prevent it flying backwards and into the prop. Chris As Centurion says, on tractor aircraft the empty cases and links were simply ejected out of chutes in wartime. For observer mounted Lewis guns it was normal to have case catcher bags attached to the gun. This was principally to stop empty cases rolling around on the cockpit floor and possibly jamming control wires etc. For overwing Lewis guns it seems the cases were allowed to simply eject into the slipstream. Even very early in the war, before the general advent of machine guns, wire case catcher cages were fitted to rifles and pistols. Regards Tonye Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cnock Posted 8 December , 2009 Author Share Posted 8 December , 2009 TonyE, Mick and Gentlemen, thank You for Your comments regards, Cnock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobL Posted 8 December , 2009 Share Posted 8 December , 2009 As Centurion says, on tractor aircraft the empty cases and links were simply ejected out of chutes in wartime. For observer mounted Lewis guns it was normal to have case catcher bags attached to the gun. This was principally to stop empty cases rolling around on the cockpit floor and possibly jamming control wires etc. For overwing Lewis guns it seems the cases were allowed to simply eject into the slipstream. Also the Handley Page bombers too, and presumably the DH10 Amiens which did a raid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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