British army dump dig - Second dig of 2014

[Steve T]

Hi all

I was a little disappointed at my finds from my first trip out in 2014, so decided to hit the British army dump again. This trip proved much better with some great finds, and some bits I have not seen from this site before.

Here is everything I brought back with me.



Steel butt plates. Need de-rusting to determine what they are off.



Many thanks to Eddy8men for stopping me chucking these over my shoulder !!!! I chucked the first one I found and, when I found a second, happened to mention it and show Eddy8men the rusty chunk. He looked at it and immediately IDd it as a Bren carry handle.......well, the metal piece at least. As we continued digging, more and more popped up!! Well pleased. Got some in cleaning solution as I write. Will post them again once cleaned.



Lots of sling buckles and other buckles.



Bakelite oiler bottles, what we think is a sharpening stone and what I think is a trigger from a Browning MG.



When I first started digging, I suddenly hit a seam of burnt cloth MG belts.

Some rotten so-and-so had set fire to hundreds of cloth belts. I started pulling out starter tabs first, both Browning........



..........and Vickers.



Then I hit the main burn area and discovered the belts that were burnt included the WW1 type Vickers belts with the brass ribs. I was scooping up literally thousands of the strips. I saved the half decent ones as many had been totally buggered by the heat of the fire.





You may have seen on my last visit I got a warning plate from inside a No.76 Incendiary bomb crate. Well, I got another......this one with nearly all the words !



Here it is after a bit of a wipe down.

Well chuffed



The Vickers starter tabs proved interesting. I've cleaned a few of them and most appear to be American and made on January 7th 1913.

Love the picture of the complete round.





One was dated 1939



The Browning starter tabs are quite common at this site, but even so, it is nice when the stamp on them is visible.





So, I have a lot of cleaning to do. I have taken this opportunity to do a bit of a test of cleaning methods.

I have some examples of each in......

1. 10% Citric acid solution

2. White vinegar

3. My rock tumbler

I am particularly interested to see which method cleans the Vickers cloth belt ribs the best as, with that big pile to clean, I don't want to be messing around with an ineffective method. I'll update you with pics once the trial is complete.



Cheers

Steve T

[Pryo]

Looks great Steve!

[Steve T]

Thanks Pyro

[Richard_J]

Some good finds there, Steve. Not as good as mind though!

[Steve T]

Hmmmmm.......maybe I didn't match your PIAT rear site, but the other finds compensated, especially the 11 Bren carry handles

[Richard_J]

I like the .30 cal trigger!

[eddy8men]

was a good day at the dump, we certainly had the weather for it, i'll post up some pics of my finds tonight

rick

[Steve T]

Just found a nice picture of a Browning showing the trigger.

Here is what I recovered.....



.........and here is a cutaway of the M1919 Browning. I have arrowed the trigger, just in case some of you don't know where it is.



The trigger is undergoing rust removal at the minute. I'll post a pic of it when this is complete. Well pleased with this little find

[Richard_J]

If you look on ebay there's two for sale!
WWII BMG Browning .30- M2HB39 1919 TRIGGER -original | eBay

[hangarman]

For a moment I was going to say how effective your new rust removal agent was working............
Nice finds never the less.
Cheers
Gary