mark VII 303 ammo,any toughts about these?

tristanium

tristanium

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a friend of mine gave me these today.any toughts about history,i know these are amour piercing bullets.mfg dates,value (hurts just thinking about tearing the package and shoot them,seems to be in their original wrapping,overall somehow in good condition)etc...
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I believe the numbers in the squares are the dates. It's not AP though. It appears to be Indian manufacture. What's the head stamp? There's a headstamp list on 303British.com.
 
around the primer is:VII K(arrow with a line under)F,6-40.made by:Ammunition Factory, Kirbee.yes,appears to be indian.i took this one off from a ripped corner,the silver tip looks very much the same as the kynoch markVII AP's i have.
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I recently picked up two similar packages; mine are marked as "FOR D.R.A or P.R.A USE ONLY." Any idea as to what this means?

Mine are fom 09/38 and appear to be Canadian. The bottom states "D.A.Q. Mk.VIII C.I.A." with an arrow enclosed in a C above the "C.I.A."
 
cartridgessa303ballql8.jpg

Shot at 2007-12-09

DAQ stands for Dominion Arsenals Quebec. I believe DRA is Dominion Rifle Association and PRA is Pacific Rifle Association, but am not 100% positive the arrow surrounded by the "C" is known as the Canadian Broadarrow which was stamped or inked on to almost every piece of kit issued by the Canadian military during World War 2.
 
tristanium said:
a friend of mine gave me these today.any toughts about history,i know these are amour piercing bullets.mfg dates,value (hurts just thinking about tearing the package and shoot them,seems to be in their original wrapping,overall somehow in good condition)etc
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complete packets are worth more as a collectable than as shooting ammo.

Wrap your packets in saran wrap to stop further deterioration and flog (sell) the extras.
 
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bdtyre said:
I recently picked up two similar packages; mine are marked as "FOR D.R.A or P.R.A USE ONLY." Any idea as to what this means?

Mine are fom 09/38 and appear to be Canadian. The bottom states "D.A.Q. Mk.VIII C.I.A." with an arrow enclosed in a C above the "C.I.A."
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What you have is either match ammo, or ammo that was degraded from war stocks to practice use.

DRA is Dominion Rifle Association
PRA is Provincial Rifle Association (rather than list all 9 provinces)

C.I.A. is either Canadian Inspectorate of Armaments (or Ammunition?)
 
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The seller had about a dozen packages. I'm starting to wish I had picked up some more, but if it is practice ammo it may not be worth much. Packaging is in good shape at least. I'll try to source some more at the next gun show...it looks like I was the first person to buy any from the seller today.

I also picked up a shrink-wrapped plain brown box of 48 cartridges. The front is marked:

48
CARTRIDGES
.303 INCH MKVII

With a large Canadian broadarrow on the right with C.I.A. underneath.

The back is "QUEBEC _________ CO. LTD." The second word is obscured by what appears to be original packing tape. The box appears to have been opened as it is held closed by scotch tape, but this could also be to hold the bottom together as it has come apart with age. Inside, it looks like the rounds are loose (I can see them through the join on the bottom). The ones I can see are stamped with the broadarrow and appear to be fairly shiny, so I doubt they are reloads.

I think the word covered by the tape is probably "Arsenal" as in Quebec Arsenal Co. No dates or anything.

I find the packing in box of 48 odd as these were likely meant for riflemen and this would like a rifleman with 3 extra rounds when loading the chargers.
 
tristanium said:
it may not mean AP,i thought they were cause i've compared them to the MKVII AP's i have and they looked exactly the same.
thanks
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MkVII is standard ball ammunition which could have a variety of jacket materials. It is not "armour piercing".

IIRC Armour piercing is W coded followed by the Mk of the bullet design.

I I A is Indian Inspectorate of Armaments (or Ammunition?)

The I "Broad Arrow" being the Indian government property marking similar to the C "Broad Arrow" of Canada.
 
On second thought, I wonder if the paper wrapped packages might actually be match ammo. They're dated from Sept. 1938, a full year before the war began, so I don't think they'd be war stocks...unless of course, the the D.R.A./P.R.A use only stamps were stamped afterwards.
 
Cupronickel

I personally won't fire cupronickel bullets in my .303's....why? The metal gets embedded in your barrel and is very very hard to remove. So hard that it's almost impossible in fact.
 
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Mark VII indicates ball ammo. AP ammo of that era will have a WI in the hs. W indicating AP and I for MkI.
 
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