Who did we make 5.56mm for in 1971?

mwjones said:
A good war now and again is necessary for a strong economy. Opportunistic (or maybe not:nest:) capitalism at its finest :) After the dust settles, greece should start making guns.
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What is a good war???
One that your boy (or girl) doesn't come home with a toe tag?
Somehow, plenty of countries seem to have strong economies without blasting at the neighbours.
However, a war that you don't fight but still get to sell all sorts of goodies for while at the same time deploring the senseless waste and chuckling at your allies folly...that's the best.
 
CCM were making LAW rocket tubes and the rockets were made at the old bertrum plant (now gone) in Dundas ON...the old westinghouse plant on longwood in Hamilton made guidence systems for US missles ..my old neighbour was involed in the R+D
 
Actually, friend, what you have is rather on the unusual side. Canada was not using this ammo at that time, had not yet adopted Jammin' Jenny's Fat Sister (the C7), so we didn't need any. There never was much of it here as it all went to Uncle Sam.

Friend of mine spent 2 tours in 'Nam with the USMC (HAS the medals to prove it, all 14 of the things) told me once that they liked the Canadian ammo because it jammed in the M-16s a lot less than a certain big name of US ammo. I wasn't there myself, but my friend did wash his socks in the Perfume River.

Funny, but when Canada finally adopted the C7 and the 5.56 round, a whacking great subsidy was handed to a certain ammunition factory so that they could set up to make the "new" ammunition....... which they already had had in full production for at least 8 years. In 1979 you could buy Federal in the box of 20 in Grand Falls, Nfld 35% CHEAPER than a certain Canadian factory was getting paid for the stuff, turned loose on pallets. The US paid $109 a pop for the M-16 about 1968; 10 years later Canada paid $1314 a rifle for the later version, made in Canada, of which $300 went to COLT as royalties on THEIR design. Funny, I always thought that the Armalite AR-15 and its military brother were designed and developed by Fairchild Armalite, not by Colt...... which had not produced a military rifle since the Berdan I in 1867, but wanted the work. Probably had something to do with the number of retired generals on Colt's Board of Governors.
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smellie said:
10 years later Canada paid $1314 a rifle for the later version, made in Canada, of which $300 went to COLT as royalties on THEIR design. Funny, I always thought that the Armalite AR-15 and its military brother were designed and developed by Fairchild Armalite, not by Colt...... which had not produced a military rifle since the Berdan I in 1867, but wanted the work. Probably had something to do with the number of retired generals on Colt's Board of Governors.
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Canada bought a licence for the use of the TDP. It's essentially the recipie for making the gun. It's the difference between making a reverse engineered best guess and making a genuine copy.
 
Ivi 5.56

IVI made approximately 40% of the 5.56 ammunition used by the US during the Vietnam era. It left their factory by the boxcar load and went south.

It was SUPPOSED to be used in the Continental USA but some of it did get shipped to VN. There are production dates before 1971.
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smellie said:
Actually, friend, what you have is rather on the unusual side. Canada was not using this ammo at that time, had not yet adopted Jammin' Jenny's Fat Sister (the C7), so we didn't need any. There never was much of it here as it all went to Uncle Sam.

Friend of mine spent 2 tours in 'Nam with the USMC (HAS the medals to prove it, all 14 of the things) told me once that they liked the Canadian ammo because it jammed in the M-16s a lot less than a certain big name of US ammo. I wasn't there myself, but my friend did wash his socks in the Perfume River.

Funny, but when Canada finally adopted the C7 and the 5.56 round, a whacking great subsidy was handed to a certain ammunition factory so that they could set up to make the "new" ammunition....... which they already had had in full production for at least 8 years. In 1979 you could buy Federal in the box of 20 in Grand Falls, Nfld 35% CHEAPER than a certain Canadian factory was getting paid for the stuff, turned loose on pallets. The US paid $109 a pop for the M-16 about 1968; 10 years later Canada paid $1314 a rifle for the later version, made in Canada, of which $300 went to COLT as royalties on THEIR design. Funny, I always thought that the Armalite AR-15 and its military brother were designed and developed by Fairchild Armalite, not by Colt...... which had not produced a military rifle since the Berdan I in 1867, but wanted the work. Probably had something to do with the number of retired generals on Colt's Board of Governors.
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Just as John Browning designed the 1911 pistol, but Colt bought the rights from the designer, i.e. the rights to license who copies it and the right to receive the royalties.
 
smellie said:
Actually, friend, what you have is rather on the unusual side. Canada was not using this ammo at that time, had not yet adopted Jammin' Jenny's Fat Sister (the C7), so we didn't need any. There never was much of it here as it all went to Uncle Sam.

Friend of mine spent 2 tours in 'Nam with the USMC (HAS the medals to prove it, all 14 of the things) told me once that they liked the Canadian ammo because it jammed in the M-16s a lot less than a certain big name of US ammo. I wasn't there myself, but my friend did wash his socks in the Perfume River.

Funny, but when Canada finally adopted the C7 and the 5.56 round, a whacking great subsidy was handed to a certain ammunition factory so that they could set up to make the "new" ammunition....... which they already had had in full production for at least 8 years. In 1979 you could buy Federal in the box of 20 in Grand Falls, Nfld 35% CHEAPER than a certain Canadian factory was getting paid for the stuff, turned loose on pallets. The US paid $109 a pop for the M-16 about 1968; 10 years later Canada paid $1314 a rifle for the later version, made in Canada, of which $300 went to COLT as royalties on THEIR design. Funny, I always thought that the Armalite AR-15 and its military brother were designed and developed by Fairchild Armalite, not by Colt...... which had not produced a military rifle since the Berdan I in 1867, but wanted the work. Probably had something to do with the number of retired generals on Colt's Board of Governors.
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Hmmm, sounds like IVI put their best efforts into the 5.56 that went south, and NOT into their 7.62 and 9mm that we got to use. This stuff was crap compared to the DA ammo that was previously issued. I distinctly recall raising a UCR on a couple of bad lots of 9mm when I served in 1PPCLI-faulty primers, uneven case mouths-the kinds of things that can really ruin your day when you are counting on it.

Around the time that the C7 was adopted IVI had produced several lots of the new ball ammo with the 62gr bullet which were rejected by DND because it couldn't meet accuracy standards. We had quite a bit of the Brit-made RG ammo in the system for a while as a stop-gap. There was quite a bit of RG 7.62 ball in use as well. That rejected IVI ball was available for blasting at some very attractive prices.

During this time IVI was a bit of a feeding ground for recently retired Vandoo officers.;)
 
Purple, I'm working my way through 5000 rds of IVI 9mm right now. It seem to be the most inconsistant ammo I've ever used. One will flash the next gives smoke the next a blast report. Every so often a misfire. Four years for the most part, 75,76,79 and 80. It was in .50 cal cans so no boxes or lot numbers.
 
browningautorifle said:
Purple, I'm working my way through 5000 rds of IVI 9mm right now. It seem to be the most inconsistant ammo I've ever used. One will flash the next gives smoke the next a blast report. Every so often a misfire. Four years for the most part, 75,76,79 and 80. It was in .50 cal cans so no boxes or lot numbers.
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-Running the Granville Ferry range shoots for CFRS Cornwallis recruits in 1986, we had some poorly performing 9mm Ball for the SMG shoots. I recall driving out several 9mm bullets from an SMG barrel using a cleaning rod. Good thing they were ALL squibs! The recruits received an immediate re-training on the IA for weak recoil, low sound report or excessive smoke on firing.
 
You may have been shipping the stuff to us as well, We were (the UK) the first National Armed forces ever to adopt the AR15, ahead of the USAF even. 1962 I believe and RG was still making .303 back then. We bought them or Borneo and I believe the original ones retired shortly after I did. We kept the M16A1 long after we had adopted the L85A1.
 
Being in Quebec IVI, like Bombardier and others, have had a long and happy life on the government procurement t*t, no matter what government has held the Ottawa power levers.

In 1990, when we were examining our contribution to the Gulf War, it soon became apparent that "Lyi'n Brian" didn't have the stomach to commit ground troops so our other NATO allies went in and did the heavy lifting. We were also seeing a fair amount of resistance from people in uniform on the grounds that we didn't have the proper kit to take on the Iraqis:confused:. This was quite stunning in view of the fact that we had 4 CMBG/1Cdn Div set up in Germany for many years to fight the Ruskkies with what they had on hand:eek:. This included the capability to operate in a nuclear/chemical environment, which was a big boogeyman at the time. The US had no difficulty in diverting VII Corps from Germany to the Gulf, and we thought we could and should do the same with 4 CMBG.

Besides, anyone with any experience with the various Arab armies knew that you could discount half of their equipment to mechanical failure, and that they didn't have the skills to manage high tempo mechanized operations with what was left over. Grinding up hordes of Iranian boy soldiers with tank tracks and taking a drive to Kuwait was one thing, but going up against a competent, well equipped opposition was a different proposition for them, and this is exactly how it played out.

By this time IVI had produced some pretty massive stocks of 155mm arty ammo for us. In fact, we were running out of space to store it. Some of us felt that if, for whatever reasons, the govt was'nt prepared to commit infantry and armour with the associated risk of casualties to the Gulf, then we could still have made a meaningful contribution in the form of an artillery brigade. We had all the ingredients to do this-a full complement of M109 SP guns with trained manpower, beaucoup ammo produced by IVI, and a fleet of spanking new HLVW ammo haulers just coming on line.

There were no takers on this one either, so we played it safe and did the CF18 airshow thing with a small naval contribution out of harms way and some odds and sods from the army to police up the aftermath. Talk about being turned into "chocolate soldiers".:redface: This was no time to stand tall in uniform.
 
TimC said:
You may have been shipping the stuff to us as well, We were (the UK) the first National Armed forces ever to adopt the AR15, ahead of the USAF even. 1962 I believe and RG was still making .303 back then. We bought them or Borneo and I believe the original ones retired shortly after I did. We kept the M16A1 long after we had adopted the L85A1.
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I didn`t know you guys adopted it before the yanks. Interesting.
 
Tim said:
You may have been shipping the stuff to us as well, We were (the UK) the first National Armed forces ever to adopt the AR, ahead of the USAF even. 1962 I believe and REG was still making .303 back then. We bought them or Borneo and I believe the original ones retired shortly after I did. We kept the MA long after we had adopted the LA.
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Yes, Brit Army used AR15 with 3 prone flashhider mostly in tropical theater like Borneo, Hong Kong & Belize. Little Gurkha loved their AR because of its light weight. Brits also had M79 commonly seen in Nam.
 
It was an inspired purchase as the M1 carbines were knackered and the value for money must have been phenominal as they were still in service over 30 years later!
 
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