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Post by rickthelibrarian on Jun 11, 2014 21:46:33 GMT 8
During my trip to the Philippines last Jan., Bob Hudson showed me around and he shared with me a number of cartridges he had picked up or had been presented to him in the time he had lived there. As you may know, small arms and ammunition are a chief "specialty" of mine. A number of the cartridges were dated "41" and had ".300" on them. I did some checking with some "specialist friends and they said that this ammunition had been manufactured by Remington for the British for use in aircraft machine guns (thus the ".300"). Apparently, in the emergency build-up of 1941, a quantity of this ammunition was "confiscated" and sent to the Philippines. The manifests in Glen Willeford's fine book "Racing the Sunrise" mention small arms ammunition being shipped. Fast forward a few months and I found a box of this ammunition on Gunbroker in the original container. I thought it made an interesting comparison with the ammunition I saw over there. The "relic" ammunition: And the stuff in somewhat "better" condition: Just another little historical "tidbit"!
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Post by varsity07840 on Jun 15, 2014 1:43:19 GMT 8
You have to wonder why ammo intended for machine guns would be shipped in 20 round boxes.
Duane
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Post by rickthelibrarian on Jun 21, 2014 7:25:53 GMT 8
I had some people I know through the military firearms community take a look. They said that, while the originally-marked ammunition was designed for machine guns, much of the rest was designed for "general" use, although it retained the same markings. The need was so great, they weren't fussy about changing the headstamp markings until later. Still it was interesting to see the same-marked ammunition "over there" and "over here".
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Post by chadhill on Jun 22, 2014 4:12:17 GMT 8
Can anyone SWAG what weapon this cartidge would have been used for on Bataan? A number of Canadian Bren Gun Carriers came into US possession at the beginning of the campaign but they were not fitted with their Bren guns, which used a .303 cartridge anyway. And the M1917 Enfield used a 30.06 round.
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Post by Thearmorer on Jun 25, 2014 10:12:01 GMT 8
I don't know how quick this is since it's three days past the post, but here goes. The rounds pictured appear to be standard .30 cal (.30-06) with a non-standard British required headstamp. They are definately not British .303 ammo which has a rimed case. That being the situation they would be useable by 1903 & 1903A3 Springfields, the above mentioned 1917 Enfield, Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) and M1917 water cooled machine gun, plus the M1919 air cooled version used on AAF aircraft. I have also seen examples of a few M1 Garands that made it over prior to hostilities and the lewis drum-fed machine gun, all chambered for .30 cal. A site with some interesting photos of U.S. equipment captured by the Japanese is; www.criticalpast.com/video, which also posts the corresponding stills from the videos. Hope this helps.
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Post by rickthelibrarian on Aug 19, 2014 10:11:59 GMT 8
Yes, they were obviously 30-06. The British used a fair number of weapons in ".300" as they called it - machine guns, M1917 rifles and other military items. In early 1942, they received a large number of M1 Garands and Remington M1903 rifles.
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