.303 drill ammunition-WW1?

[mark holden]

I have just bought a charger and 5 rounds of .303 training or drill? ammunition. The base of four of the rounds are marked R /I\ L 14 VII. The fifth just N /I\. The heads of the rounds are wooden with traces of red paint the one marked /I\ N has a black wooden head. they came in a MK II charger. Are these WW1 period can anyone show a photograph for comparison?

Many thanks

Mark

[TonyE]

If the bullets are round nosed wood then the rounds are "Cartridge SA Dummy Drill .303 inch Mark III", and if they are pointed they are Mark IV. Both are typical World War I drill rounds for training troops.

The pointed bullet Mark IV was introduced in November 1910 (LoC Para. 15630 October 1911) to be the drill equivalent of the pointed Mark VII ball round, but was found to be too fragile, so production reverted to the earlier round nosed Mark III which had originally been introduced in 1903.

Your R^L round was made at Royal Laboratory, Woolwich but I am not sure about the other one without a picture. "N" is the code for Nobel, but it should not have a Broad Arrow in the headstamp. Any chance of a close up picture or sketch?

This is the Drill Mark III

Later in 1917 the Drill Mark V was introduced (LoC Para.18972 March 1917) with a normal metal jacketed bullet and was stained black for identification, but this was found to be insufficient as a couple of accidents with live rounds occurred. This led to the more familiar fluted type of drill round, the Mark VI, introduced by LoC Para.20299 in April 1918 which remained in service until WWII.

Here are the Drill mark IV, V and VI.

Regards

TonyE

PS I shall leave it to others to admonish you for the use of the dreaded word "head"!

[auchonvillerssomme]

Tony, were the flutes infilled with red at that date as well or was that later?

Mikc

[TonyE]

The Drill Mark VI in my earlier photo is one of the prototypes made by Birmingham Metals and Munitions who came up with the design. The production round only differed by having a different crimping cannelure. The first wartime Mark VI did not have the flutes painted red, but this was soon added and was in use by the end of the war. Here is another picture with the same rounds as before but with a late 1918 Mark VI added.

Regards

TonyE

[mark holden]

Tony,

Many thanks. The heads are the round type. I have just checked the headstamp of the 'N' /I\ and definitely marked as described I'll add a photo shortly.

regards

Mark

[SiegeGunner]

Aarrgghh - he said 'head' again ...

I know that I recently saw a WW1 film in which men in the front line trenches were loading their rifles with chargers of white-metal cartridges with a red-painted flute. I think it may have been 'Passchendaele'.

[TonyE]

Despite the much vaunted advances in CGI, the standards of realism in films has actually gone down. In a budget of millions, how much effort does it take to find realistic looking dummy rounds? Unlike in the service, there won't be any live ball rounds around to get confused with the dummies.

For "The Longest Day" they made a special run of brass coloured plastic blanks, even though the film was shot in black and white!

Regards

TonyE

[Radlad]

Aarrgghh - he said 'head' again ...

He must be an Ex Navy man, I believe they use 'heads' frequently

[mark holden]

TonyE,

Picture as requested.

regards

Mark

If the bullets are round nosed wood then the rounds are "Cartridge SA Dummy Drill .303 inch Mark III", and if they are pointed they are Mark IV. Both are typical World War I drill rounds for training troops.

The pointed bullet Mark IV was introduced in November 1910 (LoC Para. 15630 October 1911) to be the drill equivalent of the pointed Mark VII ball round, but was found to be too fragile, so production reverted to the earlier round nosed Mark III which had originally been introduced in 1903.

Your R^L round was made at Royal Laboratory, Woolwich but I am not sure about the other one without a picture. "N" is the code for Nobel, but it should not have a Broad Arrow in the headstamp. Any chance of a close up picture or sketch?

This is the Drill Mark III

Later in 1917 the Drill Mark V was introduced (LoC Para.18972 March 1917) with a normal metal jacketed bullet and was stained black for identification, but this was found to be insufficient as a couple of accidents with live rounds occurred. This led to the more familiar fluted type of drill round, the Mark VI, introduced by LoC Para.20299 in April 1918 which remained in service until WWII.

Here are the Drill mark IV, V and VI.

Regards

TonyE

PS I shall leave it to others to admonish you for the use of the dreaded word "head"!

[TonyE]

Ah, now I understand! If you look carefully, the headstamp is actually "N" on the left and the letter "I" with a broad arrow over the top on the right, like this:

This is the Indian government ownership mark and in this case "N" is the code for the Dum Dum Arsenal Northern Circuit. The round was originally a Cordite Ball Mark II before the fired case was converted into a Dummy Drill Mark III.

Regards

TonyE

[mark holden]

Thanks TonyE-A well travelled round (and BULLET!).

REGARDS

Mark

[MikB]

Thanks TonyE-A well travelled round (and BULLET!).

REGARDS

Mark

With an interesting Dumdum *head* !

Regards,

MikB

[TonyE]

Now who's a Dum Dum!

Cheers

TonyE

[MikB]

Now who's a Dum Dum!

Cheers

TonyE

Hmmmmmm... no need for that - I did mean the casehead...

Regards,

MikB

[TonyE]

Touche, mon brave!

Cheers

Tony

[Ghost]

If the headstamp is not on the head, then what is it on?

Alan

[SiegeGunner]

I did mean the casehead...

One could easily become a head case wrestling with this terminology.

The head is easy enough to find. First locate the pointy bit, then proceed down past the groovy bit (cannelloni), all the way to the other end, and it's there.

[Pete1052]

Is a head, be it pointed, round, soft, or hollow, anything like a nose cone for a shell?

[truthergw]

The people who know, ought to refuze to answer that

[Anzac16]

Can i add a question here aswell?

I found this 303 blank shot last winter in France.

But is this just a blank or is it a bullit used for shooting a rifle granade?

The tip of the blank stil has red painting on it and i cant find any markings on it.

[TonyE]

That is a training blank, not a grenade discharging blank. The British WWI blanks were not full length like the one you found, plus the red paint on the tip suggests it is a relatively modern blank, possibly made by Fabrique Nationale. (FN)

There were two early British blank that looked like that, the Cordite Mark II and III, but they would have had an R^L headstamp and no red paint. Also they date from the 1890s.

Are you sure there is no headstamp? Can you post a picture of the base please.

Regards

TonyE

[Anzac16]

I will make one but its very hard to see any thing

[Phil Eyden]

Hi,

I found this drill round this evening on a stroll around the old Grand Shaft Barracks site at the Western Heights at Dover. It has the three indentations and traces of red paint as per others in this thread. The marking is R /|\ L D VI. There is no manufacture date I'm afraid - could this be WW1?

The Barracks were occupied from WW1 to WW2 and I found it in a wooded area above them where the Irish Guards may have dug some practice trenches in late 1940.

I'm afraid I know little about headstamps, so any pointers would be most welcome.

Many thanks!

[TonyE]

You found a Drill Mark VI (D VI) made at the Royal Laboratories, Woolwich (R^L).

These were introduced at the end of the Great War (see my post above), but your one dates probably from the 1930s. The use of letter codes for each type of round in both the nomenclature and the headstamp, in this case "D" for drill, was not introduced until 1926.

The Drill Mark VI was manufactured from 1918 until the beginning of WW2 when cheaper alternatives were introduced. Drill rounds were not dated during this period as the age of a drill round is of no importance, unlike with regular ammunition.

Regards

TonyE

[Phil Eyden]

That's absolutely brilliant Tony. Thank you very much.