W R A .303 ammo 1941

sniper762

sniper762

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I was given some .303 ammo at my gun club last night .it looks like military ammo should i shoot it ? keep it safe in my collection ? or what ? any info ? thank you . URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/46/1941001.jpg/]
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can't view pics from work but I believe it is Winchester manufactured commercial ammo. Maybe I am wrong and it was a lend lease sort of military ammo made by them. I'm no expert so I will let someone like Smellie or Wheaty chime in.
 
Made for Britain in 1941. The ammo was sold to the British until they ran out of money, then followed some amazing jiggery-pokery and finally it came under Lend-Lease.

I have seen ammo corresponding with this type datd from 1940 through 1943, but nothing earlier or later.

What I have seen has the bullet cannelure directly under the case-mouth and the mouth of the case cone-crimped into the cannelure. British practice was their standard 3-indent stab crimp about halfway up the neck of the casing. This made for a far more secure bullet which would take a considerable amount of bashing about before coming loose. This was important especially for the Vickers Gun, in which the ammo belt was dragged rather violently, sideways across the axis of the gun and through the feed block, using the noses of the bullets rubbing against the inner cam plate to force the complete round backward far enough for the gib to pick the round up, feed it and cycle the gun again. Standard British bullet pull was 60 pounds. The Lend-Lease ammo was nowhere near this figure but it worked fine in LEs and Brens and Lewises and Brownings.

Your ammo shows just how tight things really were, just after the Battle of Britain. I think possibly a bunch of this would have been used up in North Africa in the repeated chases back and forth along the Trigh Capuzzo..... followed up by Alamein.
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Given the lack of normal military markings such as "VII" etc. and the frequency with which this ammo shows up out here in BC, I'm guessing it was issued to the Militia Rangers and possibly other formations in Canada only.

An original 20 round box like that is probably worth preserving now.

You could do some research on the meaning of the purple primer annulus.
 
Some typical Winchester boxes

standard.jpg


Both Winchester and Remington were originally approached in March 1940. Neither was keen to bid. Winchester in particular had had a bad experience with British contracts in the last war, on which they had ended up loosing money. They wanted one hundred percent down payment, and the cost of expanding their facilities, and even then were not keen to negotiate. Orders were eventually placed in June.
Winchester either couldn't or wouldn't make the British compound bullet and furnished a solid core one, shorter to keep the weight the same, and loaded out to the same nominal length.
 
Mk VII said:
Some typical Winchester boxes

standard.jpg


Both Winchester and Remington were originally approached in March 1940. Neither was keen to bid. Winchester in particular had had a bad experience with British contracts in the last war, on which they had ended up loosing money. They wanted one hundred percent down payment, and the cost of expanding their facilities, and even then were not keen to negotiate. Orders were eventually placed in June.
Winchester either couldn't or wouldn't make the British compound bullet and furnished a solid core one, shorter to keep the weight the same, and loaded out to the same nominal length.
Click to expand...

Winchester got caught ripping off the British in WWI and got their knuckles rapped: billing them for plant improvements unrelated to their contracts for example. When they were assembling P14s they could only manage 50 a day. When it was M17s a year or two later, they suddenly managed 250 a day, per assembler!:rolleyes:

Found a chart here that says purple annulus indicates tracer, but I have no idea if that applies to this stuff.

If the bullets were not two piece core as mentioned that might explain why the lack of "VII" markings.
 
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