yes found the badge today in mint condition
yes found the badge today in mint condition
A cracking find. Items in sand can come out very well preserved as seems to be the case with this one.by ww2nut
Regards,
Jerry
Whateverits just an opinion.
Bullet - The projectile that leaves the barrel of a weapon at high speed when the propellent charge is fired.
Cartridge - The container for the propellent charge that also acts to hold the bullet in place.
Round - A bullet and a cartridge when still 'joined' together
Looks like an excellent day. How are you on headstamps? Have a look at the below thread if you're unsure of how to decipher them.
https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/ordin...adstamps-5718/
Headstamps can tell you an awful lot about a cartridge. Apologies if you're already aware of how to decipher them
The picture of your metal trays doesn't enlarge too well, but the left hand tray don't look like 303s as the cartridges appear to be rimless. Or am I seeing things?
tray 1 far left is lee enfield 303 cartridges
tray 2 is 303 bren gun style cartridges, bigger with no recess before the base rim, they are in fair condition
tray 3 same type but in very good condition
try 4, live rounds and a cap badge
The Lee Enfield rifle was in .303, same as the Bren, Vickers, Lewis, P14, Browning MkII etc. Post up some photos as they will all be pretty common rounds. Thinking about it, they could be either .30 from the 1919A4 or M1917 rifle or could be 7.92mm from a BESA.
Looking back at your photos it looks like you have a mix of 303 and post war 7.62mm.
confusion starts, i have bren gun cartridges with the longer firing pin mark but also lots of the same cartridges with only the pin style pin hole in them, did the lewis gun use this ammunition or what other gun could use the 303 bren gun ammunition?? would like to know which gun fired these rounds??
The ammunition for the Bren and Enfield is the same, the idea was that they were interchangeable, a Bren gunner could give ammo to a rifleman and vice versa. As you've mentioned, the Bren leaves a long pin strike and the Lee Enfield leaves a normal circular pin strike. Any other ammo is not .303, and from what I can see, they look 7.62mm so could well be SLR.
Okey dokey, let's start afresh !
303 cartridges are rimmed, the cartridges in your far left tray are rimless and therefore cannot be the same cartridges as in the other trays, nor can they be used in the same weapons. This may help.....
Rimmed Case : A rimmed case is distinguished by a rim that extends outward from the head of the case, to a diameter noticeably larger than the case body.
Semi-Rimmed : Semi-rimmed design is a rim only slightly larger than the case body itself.
Rimless : Despite the “rimless” designation, the case does indeed have a rim to facilitate extraction. In this design, however, the rim does not extend beyond the case body. Rather, the rim diameter is approximately equal to the diameter of the case body itself just ahead of the extractor groove.
Belted : The defining characteristic of these cartridges is a small band, or belt, around the head of the case, just ahead of the extractor groove. In use, the belt acts in exactly the same manner as a rim. Originally, this was an absolute necessity, owing to the steeply sloping shoulders of many of the first belted cases.
Rebated : the rebated case is characterized by a rim that is noticeably smaller in diameter than the case body. The intent of this design is normally to offer increased case capacity without altering or enlarging an existing bolt face.
Once you have determined the type of rim the cartridge has, you are half way to identifying them. All you need to do is clean the head to reveal the stamp, which will identify them further. Finally, accurate measurements of the cartridge length, diameter at the shoulder and diameter at the head, (which, in the case of cartridges, means the base), will give you a 100% accurate identification of the cartridge.
So, give us an example of the headstamps on the cartridges in the left tray and we can ID them. They are most certainly not 303s.
Steve T
One other thing, apart from the distinctive mark on the percussion cap made by a Bren, there is no way of telling what fired your 303 cartridges. They could be from a Lee-Enfield, Vickers, Lewis, Browning and a number of other weapons. If you are lucky enough to find extraction marks on your cartridge heads, this may ID the weapon that fired them. Crushing of the shoulder may also indicate the weapon that fired them. For instance, the German 7.92 was used in a large number of weapons, but damage to the shoulder normally indicates they were fired by an MG42. The very high cyclic rate meant them many cartridges were crushed against the mechanism during extraction, as they were cycled through the weapon.
Rule of thumb is, ID the type of rim, decipher the headstamp, measure the cartridge. This will identify the cartridge, but not the weapon as, as M3 has rightly stated, they were usable in a large number of weapons.
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