Rifle Casing

[Steve T]

Vamp

Oh I am sorry my friend....I didn't notice you'd already told us !

<-----blushes and says sorry to the screen.

If the headstamp says RA 41 then it is definitely a 30-06 made in 1941, (Remington Arms Co, Bridgeport, CT, USA).. The reason for the minor differences in size are down to the fact the poor thing has had a good kicking over the past 69 years since it was made. A nice find and, where there's one, there will be more, but you may need a metal detector to find them.

Cheers

Steve T

[lithgow]

Hello-while the .30 cal round was the US standard round it was also used by British troops chiefly in the M1917 Enfield rifles sent as lend lease in 1940-41-used mainly by the Home guard, also Browning M1919 machine guns in US supplied armoured vehicles so no Yanks needed to be around for the casings to be found near British positions in the UK.

[VAMPIRE V12]

Thanks guys.
Im going to get a detector then

VAMPY

[Walkwolf]

Looks like a 30-06 american case with a Remington 1941 headstamp.

' R A 41 ' would be how a US cartridge is marked, as Zwerge says
( Remington Arms )

OOPS - Sorry !
I see a lot of guys jumped in on this already..................

[TonyE]

Hello-while the .30 cal round was the US standard round it was also used by British troops chiefly in the M1917 Enfield rifles sent as lend lease in 1940-41-used mainly by the Home guard, also Browning M1919 machine guns in US supplied armoured vehicles so no Yanks needed to be around for the casings to be found near British positions in the UK.

I was looking for something in the back pages when I came across this old post from three years ago and thought it worth comment.

No disrespect to Lithgow, but it seems that most people think that any munitions supplied to Britain by America in WW2 was "Lend Lease" when that was patently not the case.

Whilst it is certainly true that many millions of rounds and many billions of dollars worth of equipment were supplied under Lend Lease, it is not always realised that for the first eighteen months of the war until the Lend Lease Act was passed into law on 11th March 1941 goods were supplied to Britain on a purely commercial basis. Orders were placed by Great Britain on both the United States Government and private companies and paid for with good old British cash.

Once Britain had declared war in September 1939 there was an urgent demand for all forms of munitions and a British Purchasing Commission was sent to the United States to purchase aircraft, armoured vehicles, guns and ammunition as well as all manner of raw materials and supplies needed to prosecute the war.

One problem was that the Neutrality Act of 1935 prevented the U.S. Government from selling munitions to belligerent nations, but on 4 November 1939 this Act was amended to allow private U.S. companies to sell such goods. Accordingly, the U.S. Government sold surplus munitions of all types to the U.S. Iron and Steel Corporation who then sold them legally to the British via the British Purchasing Commission in America.

As far as ammunition was concerned, orders were placed for the normal American military calibres, .30-06, .45 ACP and .50 Browning, and for British calibres, 9mm Parabellum and .303 inch. The U.S. Calibres were required both for American equipment purchased (such as vehicles and aircraft) that were equipped with U.S. calibre weapons, and for the Model 1917 rifles and Thompson guns purchased. The ammunition was sourced from the U.S. Government as described above and with Remington and Winchester Western.

The attached list gives the quantities and costs of the equipment purchased and included are 500,000 Model 1917 rifles at $7.50 each. This was the main purchase but there was a second tranche of several more millions of dollars worth of kit.

With regard to the Remington round in the main thread, these were British contract rounds.

Regards
TonyE