.303 headstamp ID please

[J T Gray]

I've recently found both a .303 bullet and a case on my allotment - I don't think I've cheesed the allotment committee off enough that I'm getting the mafia treatment - and wonder whether either could be WW1, as I'm on the old RFC Port Meadow aerodrome. As far as I know the meadow wasn't used for live firing during WW2, but you never know...

 

The markings are: Z017   RG   60

 

 

Google has not been hugely helpful - RG is apparently Radway Green, post 1940ish, but the typeface is very different to any example I have seen illustrated, and Z017 brings up nothing.

 

Bright ideas welcomed - and what is that strange  witness mark under Z017?

 

Thanks,

 

Adrian

 

 

 

 

 

[MikB]

The round is probably from 1960 - there's no WD Broad Arrow between the R and G - and I think it was fired in a Bren, from the oval firing pin indentation and the ejector witness mark overlapping the annulus.

[Stoppage Drill]

You are reading the "Z017" upside down.

 

It is "L10 Z" which indicates nitro-cellulose loaded Bulleted Blank.

 

Radway Green 1960.

 

Bulleted blanks were intended to give back pressure in an automatic weapon, so Mik B's suggestion of it coming from a Bren is a good 'un.

 

You say that you have the bullet ? More info please.

[J T Gray]

*cross-post with Stoppage Drill*

 

Curious - if so, what on earth is it doing on my lottie?  There was definitely live firing in WW1, and troops were billeted under canvas there in WW2, but live firing post-1960?

 

Edit - maybe if it was blank ammuntion it could have been the OTC on manouevres? The bullet is the real thing alright, but I'd have to find it in my "interesting stuff dug up on the allotment" heap - as someone seems to have put a match to a house's worth of furniture out there that might take a while...

 

Adrian

 

Edited 30 May , 2017 by J T Gray

[Retlaw]

Mk 7 z is loaded with nitrocellulose not cordite. Can't remember when Mk 7's were introduced, but do remember they had not to be used in weapons that had previously fired cordite rounds, unless new barrels had been fitted.

[Stoppage Drill]

The L10 Z Bulleted Blank had a wooden bullet, and was used in Brens with a special barrel which broke up the bullet. The bullet was stained blue, and were often referred to colloquially as "Blue Tips" or "Blue Nose"

[J T Gray]

I'll try to look the bullet out tomorrow, past my bedtime!

 

Entirely pointless without pictures, but my immediate thought on finding the bullet was that it looked like the nickel-jacketed rounds I picked up 25 years ago at Hampton, near Herne Bay, except that they were silvery in colour and this one is black. Howevere (a) memory is a funny thing and (b) to me one pointy .303 round looks much like another.

 

Adrian

 

[Stoppage Drill]

What makes you think that the bullet you have is associated with this case ?

[MikB]

7 hours ago, Stoppage Drill said:

The L10 Z Bulleted Blank had a wooden bullet, and was used in Brens with a special barrel which broke up the bullet. The bullet was stained blue, and were often referred to colloquially as "Blue Tips" or "Blue Nose"

Yes, the device was yellow and called a 'Half-Moon Attachment' - we used them occasionally in the CCF in the 1960s. I can't remember whether it was permanently assembled into the barrel. The remains of the wooden bullet emerged as a cloud of small splinters - you still weren't supposed to shoot directly at anyone on exercises.

[J T Gray]

10 hours ago, Stoppage Drill said:

What makes you think that the bullet you have is associated with this case ?

Sorry, obviously not being clear, I don't, I just mentioned that I'd found both. I've found plenty of stuff over the years (broken neolithic arrowhead being the top prize), but have never found ammunition before so was a bit startled to find bullet and case within about three weeks and a few yards of each other. Being on land used as an aerodrome in WW1, I automatically think of that as first possibility. 

 

Adrian