.30-06 British Home Guard dummy

[phoenix]

That round you have, is very interesting, I have never seen one before, but it does not surprise me that spent cases were put to good use.The British purchased from the US, in gold, many .30 caliber weapons to make up for the loses following Dunkirk, these eventually went to the Home Guard, along with early Thompson shipments.
The Home Guard was equipped with the following .30 weapons:
M1917 Browning Machine gun on M1918 tripod
M1915 Colt Vickers Machine Gun
Marlin Machine Gun, this was a WW1 tank gun
M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle
M1917 Rifle Enfield
M1903 Springfield
M1 Garand, these were very early versions.
These all came with spares and a large quantity of amunition
Here are a couple of pics of two, .30 machine guns, they belong to a friend of mine who has many Home Guard items.The red band denotes .30 cal ammunuition
Pete.

[shadowwolf]

Pete,
Thanks for the info, and excellent photos of two of the Home Guard guns, one of which clearly shows the red band.
Regards, Simon.

[TonyE]

Actually these converted drill rounds are quite comon in the UK, having been made in their tens of thousands during the war. This particular one is a "Cartridge S.A. Drill .30 inch D Mark II".

The Mark I had a ball bullet soldered to the case without a distance piece to support it, the Mark II had a wood distance piece and bullet made in one and the Mark IV was similar except the wood bullet was covered with a cupro-nickel envelope. The Mark III was an Indian version which drawings show to have a fluted case, but it is not known if any were made.

Similar use was made of fired .45 ACP cases converted to drill rounds with a red wood bullet for Thompson guns. Attached is a picture of my example.

Regards
TonyE