Help needed to identify ammo...

[fugawi]

So I picked a few rounds at the Dugald show, a couple of FN 9mmK which I'm assuming from their size, date and head stamp are Fabrique National .380 rounds made during the German occupation. (9mmK meaning 9mm Kurz which is another name for the .380)

However I would like some help in identifying the particulars of these other rounds:

F N 39 .380 cartridge head stamp

F N 39 .380 cartridge side

What is the meaning of the green annulus on the prewar F N .380?

In Kent's book on German 7.9mm rifle cartridges this signifies the s.S heavy ball bullet. Same with prewar Romanian from what I can tell. But I've read that on British rounds this signifies 'amour piercing'. (but I hardly think that applies here!) Any thoughts on what the Belgians used?

Finnish VPT 38 cartridge head stamp

Finnish VPT 38 cartridge lead tip

Finnish VPT cartridge 38 side

Is this a hunting round from 1938? Military is FMJ. I don't have a lot of military ammo, just surplus for plinking, but I can't remember if any had their lead cores exposed at the tip.

Thanks for any answers.

 

[37patt]

On the 380 the only significance to the green primer annulus is that it provides a visual means for the ammunition inspector to see that the sealant is actually there. Colour codes are very country specific prior to the end of WWII. With the advent of NATO and the Warsaw Pact there is some commonality of use between member nations but individual countries will still have colours that only they use.

The soft point 7.62x54R is a reload, probably done by a manufacturing company, although an individual could also have done it. It was common to pull the FMJ bullets from surplus ammunition, which could not be used for hunting, and replace them with soft point projectiles in order to move the large amounts of surplus on the market post WWII.

 

[smellie]

The soft-point VKT 7.62x54R dates from the late 1950s/early 1960s and was on the market at the same time as Korean-captured Moisin-Nagants, left-over War One Moisin-Nagants..... and the first crop of SVT-40 rifles to hit this side of The Great Puddle. Ths SVTs were Finn captures from the Winter War and the Continuation War and sold in Canada for $39.95.

Ammunition was $6 a hundred for military but you needed soft-points to hunt, so lot of the Finn surplus ammo was reloaded commercially and came in Winfield Arms boxes of 20.

But the Moisin-Nagant was heavy and clunky and cost just as much as a decent Lee-Enfield, which was much slicker. MN sales languished.

And the SVT was l-o-n-g and looked really sort-of science-fiction. A few sold, but nothing like what has been going on recently. In the end, they mostly went to Globe in Ottawa..... and Globe then converted almost the entire world's remaining stock of SA-marked Finn capture SVT rifles..... into Globco 555 semi-auto .303s.

I was teaching school on Fogo Island in 1976 when I finally had $39.95 to spare. I phoned Globe one day when the phones were working..... and they still had ONE Finn capture SVT left. It had a broken firing-pin and they no longer had any spares... but it was for sale if I really wanted it. So I bought the very, very LAST Finn capture, SA-marked SVT rifle for the original selling price: $39.95. I still have it. It is a 1940 rifle with the 6x2-port muzzle brake, insanely-mixed serial numbers and a chopped magazine (to fit the 555 conversion).