American ammunition ?

[mossie]

Hi,Need some help,I have come across a quantity of this ammunition,But never seen it before.
They all look like they were live and then fired and reloaded and made into drill rounds.
They are all wartime dated 43,Headstamps look American,LC TW SL and DM.
The cases measure 12mm diameter around the base,8.5mm around the neck and have an overall case length of 51mm.
Thanks for looking.

[m3bobby]

From your measurements they sound like 7.62x51mm AKA 7.62mm NATO rounds. Tony is the Ammo expert, I'm sure he will be along soon.

If they are 7.62 NATO then they arnt WW2 unless they recycled .30 cases into 7.62mm for drill purposes.

LC could be Lake City
DM could be Des Moines Ordnance Plant, Des Moines, Iowa
TC could be Twin Cities Ordnance Plant, Minneapolis, MN
SL could be St Louis Ordnance Plant, St Louis, MO

[command450]

Its 308 win thats for sure.

I would think it would not be worth the time to go through all the work resizing,trimming, and reforming the shoulder on old 06 brass,especially given how cheap it would be to just get the right brass.

[mossie]

Thanks for your help Guys !

[TonyE]

Definitely 7.62x51mm drill rounds made from wartime U.S, .30 calibre brass.

They seem well made with the flutes set in the case, but I don't know of any country that might have done this. Also the use of cupro-nickel (or CNCS) jacketed bullets in this calibre is unusual, but not unheard of. The Danes were very fond of making drill rounds from old British and U.S. cases but these are not in the style of Danish drill rounds and in any case all those I have seen were still in the original calibre, .303, 30-06 and 7.92mm.

Perhaps made by a skilfull individual or a gunsmith for their own use?

Regards
Tonye

[mossie]

Hi Tonye

That makes sense,The cases are all wartime dated,I think they were for military issue,As the guy I bought them from had thousands of them,They were all on belts of 50,Similar belts to the mg42 but had a crown and the letters V A on the first link.

Regards Gary

[TonyE]

Those are Danish belts, so maybe they are Danish military issue. The original 30-06 cases were certainly military.

Regards
TonyE