Bullet ID and more...

[centurion]

less than reputable arms dealers"

Possibly a tautology? (Like criminal lawyer )

Tony may know but I was under the impression that it was the combination of the jacket and the soft nose (or hollow) that caused the damage as the lead 'exploded' out of its jacketed confinement. Were lead bullets actually banned? Now a lead bullet will tend to mushroom on impact and there have been age old complaints of soldiers cutting an X into a lead bullet to encourage this. Washington and Howe exchanged words on this in the AWI.

[MikB]

We've been through this in other threads before, but cutting or filing off points from jacketed bullets might allow the core to be driven through, leaving the jacket in the bore to present a dangerous condition (to the shooter) on feeding the next round. There doesn't appear to be much evidence that this was done by anybody in large numbers.

German rounds were found with bullets reversed (much easier to do with their ammunition than with 303) but whether these were intended for 'Dum-Dum' effect, ripping up sandbag cover, or piercing armoured loopholes or vehicles has been subject of much dispute.

The damage shown on the bullet in the original picture is almost certainly accidental - far and away the most likely explanation is a timber or brick falling on it in the fire, or possibly a misfeed as TonyE suggested. It looks like minor impact damage and would be very difficult to cause with any sort of snips - but it could also've been done with a single stroke of a file - though if it was intended to make a Dum-Dum, that would've been done straight across, square to the axis.

Regards,

MikB

[depaor01]

Thanks again everyone.

I'll be posting a bandolier ID request shortly. Part of the same group of items.

[centurion]

We've been through this in other threads before, but cutting or filing off points from jacketed bullets might allow the core to be driven through, leaving the jacket in the bore to present a dangerous condition (to the shooter) on feeding the next round.

Doesn't make sense - if this was the case the same problem would exist with the original soft nose dum dums.

[MikB]

Doesn't make sense - if this was the case the same problem would exist with the original soft nose dum dums.

No, I think they were made by swaging the jacket around the core from the heel forward - the base was closed. Or it is in ordinary softpoints anyway - they're basically made the opposite way round to FMJs.

I have to say I don't know what they did in the original Dum-Dums, though - but I expect they had some design protection against the core being driven through, which wouldn't be there in a bobbed FMJ.

Regards,

MikB

[centurion]

Found a 1915 reference (Rifles and Ammunition Shooting, New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co. ) to the fact that the original British soft points did in fact occasionally shed their jacket and more rarely this was left in the bore. This was sufficiently rare as to make their use acceptable until they were banned. So it would be unlikely to be a constraint on topped rounds either.

[TonyE]

The reason for the change from the Mark IV hollow point to the Mark V was that the core of the Mark IV occassionally blew through the envelope. The Mark V, whilst still having the hollow point used a lead/antimony (98/2%) alloy which was harder than the pure lead core of the Mark IV. The turn over at the base of the bullet was also increased to minimise the problem.

The genuine Dum Dum bulets had the envelope open at the base as well but were well turned over. Mik's point about sporting bullets having a solid base by being made the opposite way round to FMJs did not apply to British (or Indian) ball bullets. The only British military bullets made like that were the Brock and Pomeroy incendiaries in WWI.

The problem should not be taken lightly though. I have posted this before, but a kind friend fired some military FMJ with the tip removed through my MP44 some years ago this was the result. Fortunately the barrels are easy to replace!

Centurion - lead bullets were not in themselves banned. The ban was on expanding, explosive or other "inhumane" projectiles. We retained the lead bullet .455 Mark II round throughout WWI and the Germans routinely complained about this. By the time that WWII was looming the British authorities decided it was not worth the hassle and designed jacketed bullets for both the .380" Enfield (Ball Mark II) and the .455" Webley (Ball Mark VI).

regards

TonyE

[MikB]

Found a 1915 reference (Rifles and Ammunition Shooting, New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co. ) to the fact that the original British soft points did in fact occasionally shed their jacket and more rarely this was left in the bore. This was sufficiently rare as to make their use acceptable until they were banned. So it would be unlikely to be a constraint on topped rounds either.

The Army mightn't care, but the individual probably would, if he knew enough to recognise the risk - which was real.

This is becoming an argument for the sake of it, about a bullet that wasn't a softpoint, or bobbed.

Regards,

MikB

[Stoppage Drill]

May I observe that the 1897 Hague Convention had no direct effect on the withdrawal of Mk IV. Britain did not ratify HC97, and it was not until the 1907 Convention that we were legally bound.

Britain was still stockpiling Mk IV worldwide until July 1899. It was only then that the shortcomings of the bullet, when used in hot, dirty conditions became apparent - the core could shoot through - due to the jacket being open at both ends - leaving the jacket in the barrel. Up to March 1899, of a total stock of 172 million .303 rounds, 66 million were Mk IV.

When it became clear that we were going to fight a civilised enemy, the two Dutch Republics, there was an undoubted moral imperative not to use expanding ammunition, but there was no legal bar. There was a huge amount of the stuff stockpiled in Natal and Cape Province, and Cronje, Snyman and Erasmus in particular reported unfavourably on their finds of it after the opening battles.

My source is evidence given on 21 October 1902 by Lt Gen Sir Henry Brackenbury, Director General of the Ordnance, to the Commission on the War in South Africa. I don't think it's anywhere on Google, though I may be wrong.( Apart from this limited reprint posted by the British Medical Journal. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2514126/pdf/brmedj08263-0036.pdf which covers medical arrangements.)

Of course the Brits accused the Boers of the same thing, but also claimed that they were using "poisoned" bullets. This is now accepted as being a wild claim made when a greenish grease was found on Boer Mauser rounds. My own (entirely personal) view is that Brtish Army surgeons were unfamiliar with the concept of temporary cavitation caused by the energy transfer imparted by a high velocity bullet, mentioned earlier by Tony E. When they received casualties they encountered an apparently conventional, rather neat, Spanish Mauser wound and were unaware that the surrounding, still healthy looking flesh had been macerated and needed debrading. When they didn't do it, and then found that the wound festered, it was human nature to assume that a poison was at work. Link that with the green grease . . . . .

Although more modern military ammunition is not "expanding" in the conventional sense, it is deliberately designed to be only marginally stable so that it will tumble and fragment as soon as it encounters a medium more dense than air. The wounding effect is very similar to that caused by expanding ammunition.