More Cartridges

[assafx]

Hello,

in the past week i received a few more cartridges.

one of them (#1) was handed to me today, by a friend who helps me to survey the site.

1. As i said i received this one today. unlike the others, he was photographed out of the studio.

2. The fragment of this one was found next to a bullet:

if i read right this one is from 1327 which is 1909.

now the question is: is this an Ottoman made or German made round?

are all of them (both German and Ottoman) 7.65 mm?

3. a 303 cartridge:

Thank You

Assaf

[assafx]

i forgot this one:

it seems to be modern (1978?) but i wonder if it was fired by a mauser.

[TonyE]

OK, here we go.

No.1 is a French 8x50mm Lebel round made in the 2nd Quarter of 1927. I cannot read the manufacturer "E??" (4 o'clock position) Can you clarify please. Also the metal supplier (10 o'clock position) looks like "2" but should be a letter.

No.2 is as above made at the same date. Again I cannot read the manufacturer but the metal supplier is "R", Rugles, Usine de Trefilerie et Laminoire du Havre.

No.3: the bullet is a .303 British, but the two knurled cannelures suggest it is a WWI American contract made round. The case could be either a 7.65x54 Turkish or a 7.92x57 Mauser.

No.4 is almost certainly Turkish made. The double crescent was used on Turlish made ammunition from 1908.

No.5 is made by Birmingham Metals and Munitions Company in 1916.

Regards

Tonye

Last one is modern.

7.62x51mm NATO made by Fabrica Nationale de Municiones in Portugal in December 1978.

Cheers

TonyE

[assafx]

Thanks Tony,

so that's how a label cartridge looks like. i think that i know how the label got to the site but it will be hard to prove it.

I forgot to mention that the first two photographs are of the same cartridge.

I had a problem reading the letters so i tired photographing the cartridge from different sides.

it's hard to read the manufacturer but there's definitely a clear 'E' and it's hard to see if it's 'DB' or '03' after the 'E'.

If i'll have to chose then it's more like 'EDB'.

i hope to have an access to the studio on Tuesday, i might get a better photograph.

The Headstamp in #4 is the cartridge fragment photographed with the bullet,

now i'm regretting that i didn't photographed the cartridge and the bullet as they were found next to one another.

i'm imagining a Turkish soldier firing and a British one returns fire...

i'm wondering if all the ammunition both made locally and in Germany was made for the Turkish 7.65 mm or also for the 7.92?

too bad about the last cartridge, i hoped it was a 7.65 or 7.92 mouser.

if it was, it could have helped me proving that the locals are still having WWI weapons stashed .

[TonyE]

"EDB" makes sense. That was a private ammunition company "Cartoucherie Etablissement Delanny-Belleville" making ammunition for the military.

I do not believe that the Turks made any 7.92mm domestically until 1925. They had formally adopted the round to replace the 7.65mm in 1924 and purchased a number of Czech Vz24 rifles and ammunition that year. Domestic production commenced about that time and the earliest known date is 1925.

Regards

TonyE

[assafx]

Tony,

I managed to photograph the lebel cartridge in the studio.

it seems to be 'EDB'

Assaf

[assafx]

I found three Cartridges next to one another:

1: British cartridge, it suffered from fire damage so it's hard to see the writing (and again i photographed all them out of the studio).

i can see the remains of an R and L before the 15.

2. A strangely marked Cartridge, this headstamp is puzzling me. what i can read (clock wise from 12 o'clock):

KF, VI(tilted), VI (upside down), 4-17, VI. seeing the 4-17 at first, i thought of WWI but the markings are strange and messy.

3. The Last one is a poorly preserved shotgun case: i can read 12 (9 o'clock) , and ELET both on 12 o'clock and at 6 o'clock)

Thank You

Assaf

[MikB]

I think the last is an ELEY 12-bore - possibly one of several different loads they produced. During my time of shooting shotgun, the headstamp didn't differ between types, though the posher high-power loads had a longer brass head.

Regards,

MikB

[shippingsteel]

I found three Cartridges next to one another:

As a mere amateur I am going to chime in here with some trepidation - knowing too well that TonyE will be standing by, waiting to pounce ...

So anyway here goes ...

1) is a .303 British Mark VII made at Royal Laboratory, Woolwich, England in 1915

2) is a .303 British Mark VI which was made at Kirkee Arsenal, India in April of 1917

3) is a regular 12 gauge shotgun shell made by ELEY

Cheers, S>S

[TonyE]

S.S is spot on.

The only point I would add is that the symbol at 3 o'clock of an "I" surmounted by a Broad Arrow is the Indian government ownership mark (introduced in 1896) similar to the British Broad Arrow.

Indian Kirkee manufactured .303 inch ammunition has always included the month as well as the year up until about 1960.

Regards

TonyE.

[assafx]

Thank you guys and as usual, I have a few questions:

what is the difference between the British mark VI and mark VII ammunition.

my cartridge is rimless, is that one of the differences?

Regarding the shotgun shell, my assumption that it's post WWI, am i right?

Thank You

Assaf

[MikB]

Mk.VI shoots a 215 grain roundnose bullet, Mk.VII a 174 grain flatbased spitzer at a higher velocity, both fully jacketed - but the cartridge case is the same rimmed bottleneck job in both cases, so as to fit the same chambers.

The shotgun shell looks much like a corroded example of the ones I was buying and using in the 1960s, so may be practically impossible to date with any certainty, even if the same design was in use in WW1 era and before.

Considering the corrosion, could it be 'brassed' steel rather than proper brass?

Regards,

MikB

[assafx]

Mk.VI shoots a 215 grain roundnose bullet, Mk.VII a 174 grain flatbased spitzer at a higher velocity, both fully jacketed - but the cartridge case is the same rimmed bottleneck job in both cases, so as to fit the same chambers.

The shotgun shell looks much like a corroded example of the ones I was buying and using in the 1960s, so may be practically impossible to date with any certainty, even if the same design was in use in WW1 era and before.

Considering the corrosion, could it be 'brassed' steel rather than proper brass?

Regards,

MikB

Mike,

if both mark VI and VII are rimmed, then my #2 cartridge is something else.

the shotgun shell looks as if it was made out of steel and i don't see any brass remains on it.

[MikB]

Mike,

if both mark VI and VII are rimmed, then my #2 cartridge is something else.

the shotgun shell looks as if it was made out of steel and i don't see any brass remains on it.

If you mean the rimless #2 in your original post, TonyE's put that as #3 - I'd've guessed at 7,92x57 Mauser, but I don't know about the 7,65x54 Turkish as he does. I too think the bullet looks American-made, and very much like a 303 174-grain Mk.VII ball, and therefore doesn't appear to belong to the case. Since it has no rifling marks, it looks as if it's been pulled, or blown out of its case - for example in a fire - rather than shot.

I have no way to be certain, but if the 12g Eley case head is pressed steel, that looks rather like a modern 'value-engineered' product. As a teenager in the 1960s, I wouldn't've known whether I was looking at real brass or yellow-plated steel.

Regards,

MikB

[shippingsteel]

Assaf, the Mark VI cartridge to which you refer as #2, does appear to have had the rim abraded or ground down for some reason - it is not round.

You can see that some of the circumference has had areas flattened out. Why it is so I cannot say - perhaps some bored kid was playing with it.?

Cheers, S>S

[assafx]

Sorry for my late reply, i was too busy at work.

Mike, the shotgun shell looks indeed as if someone painted it once as yellow plated steel because its corroding like steel and not like brass.

S^S, i noticed the irregular shape of the rim but then i said to myself: "but there's also a groove, so it can't be a british 0.303...".

so after your last comment, i looked closely at both. to my surprise it seems as if someone tried it's best to make a cartridge that apparently was a Mark VI British to look as something else.

look at the images (the fire damage to the British made Mark VII is clear)

the groove seems to be made by hand.

assuming that what we see is a result of a bored person who tried (maybe) to reload a British 0.303 as a different cartridge, I still have a question:

Is it possible that Mark VI round were still in use in WWI? Could the Indian troops of the 75th division still use them in 1917?

Assaf

[Thunderbox]

MkVI would certainly have been around in WW1, especially in the Middle East theatre.

It looks like the case has been altered to fit a rimless cartridge rifle - and then fired! It seems to me that the case has expanded at the shoulder to fit the new chamber. You probably need to compare the case to all the other rimless cases you have found, and see which one it matches.

[assafx]

MkVI would certainly have been around in WW1, especially in the Middle East theatre.

It looks like the case has been altered to fit a rimless cartridge rifle - and then fired! It seems to me that the case has expanded at the shoulder to fit the new chamber. You probably need to compare the case to all the other rimless cases you have found, and see which one it matches.

So far it's the only MKVI that i've found in four sites and it has been altered...

the only other cartridges found in this site was the MKVII and the shotgun shell, other then that i had a 5.56 mm bullet.

in terms of weapons from that time period, the only cartridge that comes to my mind is the german/turkish 7.65mm

[Simon127]

As we're loosely on the subject of Turkish ammunition, I thought I'd take the opportunity to share a recent acquisition. A Turkish M1887 rifle casing with a headstamp which I believe is 1911. It came with a group of souvenirs from a Private in the 8th Battalion, Welsh Regiment which saw service at Gallipoli and Mesopotamia.

[TonyE]

Agreed, it is a 9.5mm Turkish Mauser dated 1329 which equates to 1911. It is a Turkish made example rather than German or other contract as domeatic production had a much simplified headstamp.

Regards

TonyE.

[TonyE]

So far it's the only MKVI that i've found in four sites and it has been altered...

the only other cartridges found in this site was the MKVII and the shotgun shell, other then that i had a 5.56 mm bullet.

in terms of weapons from that time period, the only cartridge that comes to my mind is the german/turkish 7.65mm

I wonder if it was fired in a 7.92x57mm rifle? The fired case looks the right shape and case length is sufficiently close but I must measure the case head diameters to see if it could be done!

Regards

TonyE

[assafx]

I wonder if it was fired in a 7.92x57mm rifle? The fired case looks the right shape and case length is sufficiently close but I must measure the case head diameters to see if it could be done!

Regards

TonyE

i also noticed one more thing. there's a small hump on the cartridge, behind the groove. i wonder if it was created after the firing or in the ejection process.

[MikB]

I wonder if it was fired in a 7.92x57mm rifle? The fired case looks the right shape and case length is sufficiently close but I must measure the case head diameters to see if it could be done!

Regards

TonyE

I had thunk similar thoughts. My Speer manual has 303 at 0.4601" in front of the rim, and 7,92x57 at 0.4716" in front of the extractor groove, so the 303 would fit with about 11 - 12 thou clearance. That would be consistent with the case swell ahead of the web you can see in Assaf's closeup.

I wouldn't reload this round for a second go after fireforming...

Regards,

MikB

[TonyE]

Thanks for looking that up, Mik. Great minds and all that!

I think it is probably cracked now as an attempt to make a .303 inch fit a 7.92x57mm!

Regards

TonyE

[MikB]

Thanks for looking that up, Mik. Great minds and all that!

I think it is probably cracked now as an attempt to make a .303 inch fit a 7.92x57mm!

Regards

TonyE

Considering that it would take several minutes per round even for quite an experienced handworker, and that the result would put a bullet up a bore that was also about 12 thou loose, with substantially reduced power and probably immediate toppling on exiting the muzzle, it seems astonishing to me that anyone tried this. Looks like a measure of genuine desperation.

Regards,

MikB