squirrel Posted 2 November , 2006 Share Posted 2 November , 2006 Following on from another thread earlier this week. When the Japanese Arisaka rifle was issued, as well as live ammunition, were practice and/or dummy rounds issued to practice loading etc? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 3 November , 2006 Share Posted 3 November , 2006 Indeed there were. In fact there were several types. The original shipment of Type 38 Arisakas received in about November 1914 included Japanese Type 38 ball ammunition (which became the .256" Ball Mark I in British service) and also an unknown number of the then current Japanese drill round. This had an empty round nosed brass bullet heavily crimped to the case with circumferential grooves around the bullet and case. The rounds were coated in a gold coloured lacquer. Interestingly, the chargers were also lacquered in the same way. The first British drill round was the tin plate Blanch dummy called the ".256" Dummy Drill J Pattern". These were very similar in construction to the .303 version and 500,000 were ordered on 20/3/1915. I don't have an example of the .256" but this is the .303. The next type was the ".256 inch Dummy Drill Mark I" which consisited of a fired case with two pairs of holes drilled and a red wood round nosed bullet roughly of the shape of the Mark II (Type 30) ball round. Again I have no example of this. More info on next post. Regards TonyE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyE Posted 3 November , 2006 Share Posted 3 November , 2006 The wooden bullet of the Mark I Drill was fragile so was replaced by a drill round with a sevice bullet (exactly the same as happened with the .303 at that time). The ".256 inch Dummy Drill Mark II" was manufactured by both Royal laboratories and Kynoch, the two differing slightly. It consisted of a tinned brass case, drilled with two pairs of holes and with a service bullet. The RL version was specially made with a blind cap chamber abd the bullet secured by a heavy neck crimp and was unheadstatmped. The Kynoch type utilised a normal case and crimp, sometimes with red paint in the empty cap chamber, and a normal ball headstamp. The tinning on the cases was very thin and rapidly wore off. (Sorry it is only B&W but the colour pic was too big to post.) If any one has a blanch dummy in .256 or a Drill Mark I with the red wood bullet please contact me! Regards TonyE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squirrel Posted 3 November , 2006 Author Share Posted 3 November , 2006 TonyE thanks for such a detailed reply - much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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