Intriguing find whilst out and about

[Kepis]

I meant to post this up at the time, but forgot, on a recent bimble with Hugo & Rockmonkey, we stopped at a Redwood plantation for a brew, while we were kicking around the area, i spotted something on the ground that caught my attention as it looked out of place.

What i saw was this

Nothing unusual in that there are cases like this all over the country, what intrigued me was the firing cap, untouched but by the state of the thing you could see it had been there knocking around the woods for many years.

then i looked closely, the round is dated 1924

ive inverted the colours here so the markings stand out a bit.

 

[Toddy]

Don't show my bother that; he collects the blooming things

It's amazing the bits of detritus that we find across this land, it really is. Imagine that had turned up three or four hundred years in the future; it would have caused archaeologists no end of discussion

cheers,
M

 

[bilmo-p5]

Might it have been burned at some time?

 

[bb07]

Quite unusual to find an unfired, primed case. It looks as if the neck is somewhat mangled, and in fact looks as if a portion is actually missing. A guess as to caliber: .303 British? It's obviously a rimmed case, and appears to have enough case taper to possibly be .303, not to mention that was the service rifle cartridge of the time, making that caliber seem likely.
My theory is that some kids got hold of it and pulled the bullet with a pair of pliers resulting in the damage to the neck, then lit the powder on fire before finally tossing the case aside (many, many years ago)
That's my guess

 

[Miyagi]

got hold of it and pulled the bullet with a pair of pliers resulting in the damage to the neck, then lit the powder on fire before finally tossing the case aside (many, many years ago)
That's my guess

Which was exactly how we got old dry hexy to light.


Liam

 

[bb07]

I knew it!!

 

[Kepis]

Quite unusual to find an unfired, primed case. It looks as if the neck is somewhat mangled, and in fact looks as if a portion is actually missing.

That it is, but only because it's heavily corroded, mind you, the bit that's corroded could have gotten that way as the base metal was opened to the elements due to metal on metal, ie pliers, of course the other thing that could have happened being that this was found miles from anywhere and not in an area that kids even these days frequent, is one of the Estate workers or a "well presented chap in his Tweeds on an Estate Deer shoot", dropped the round and it's just sat there out in the woods, in the mud, snow, rain etc for over 80 years and it's just naturally deteriorated over time, the neck could have broken away due to it being trampled and moved against rocks and stones by Deer & other animals over the decades that it's been there, guess we will never know and anything we come up with is going to be pure speculation, but it is fun to consider all the different scenario's as to how it got there.

 

[dwardo]

Grab a metal detector next time your up there and see what else is about

 

[hog]

Def looks like 303, British for sure, some 'tween the wars training perhaps.

 

[Kepis]

Def looks like 303, British for sure, some 'tween the wars training perhaps.

It's certainly a possibility Bru, lots of training was done around here by the Canadians

 

[British Red]

I suspect you are close there Mark - plenty of .303 rifles were (and are) used for deer hunting - its pokey old cartridge - pretty similar ballistically to the .308. I wouldn't jump to a conclusion that a case with a '24 headstamp was lost in that year. I have some '43 .303 cartridges in my cabinet at the moment - WWII surplus - still goes "bang"

Clearly been there a while, but I propose it was surplus ammo and from a deer hunter using a surplus rifle....maybe sixties or seventies when it happened?

 

[abominable_scouse_monster]

Just another thought on how it got damaged, during the 2nd world war I am sure they had a way of clearing a jam from a weapon mounted in a aircraft's wing it could have been torn out resulting in the damage.

 

[Kepis]

I suspect you are close there Mark - plenty of .303 rifles were (and are) used for deer hunting - its pokey old cartridge - pretty similar ballistically to the .308. I wouldn't jump to a conclusion that a case with a '24 headstamp was lost in that year. I have some '43 .303 cartridges in my cabinet at the moment - WWII surplus - still goes "bang"

Clearly been there a while, but I propose it was surplus ammo and from a deer hunter using a surplus rifle....maybe sixties or seventies when it happened?

Cheers Hugh, knew you would be the man to throw some reasoned ideas in there, thanks for the info on the date mark as well, didn't know that you could still use rounds that were that old - every day is a school day

 

[abominable_scouse_monster]

Cheers Hugh, knew you would be the man to throw some reasoned ideas in there, thanks for the info on the date mark as well, didn't know that you could still use rounds that were that old - every day is a school day

Yep, and WW1 ammo and other larger things like land mines (bigger than the ones used in the opening moments of the Somme), one has a town built over it still primed and ready to go, and google Iron Harvest mustard gas shells still active are found regularly.

Edit: Let's not forget this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery

 

[British Red]

What are the letters on the top Mark? the VII is standard Mk 7 ball (174gn FMJ)

 

[British Red]

Okay, possibility for the manufacturers headstamp....DAC?



Intriguing if it is.....Dominion Arsenal, Quebec Canada

I'm also going to venture an opinion that the bullet was deliberately pulled. the sideways outwards deformation is typical. Perhaps to pour out the powder to start a fire which is far from uncommon.

 

[Kepis]

What are the letters on the top Mark? the VII is standard Mk 7 ball (174gn FMJ)

I'll have a proper look in the morning Hugh as i left it outside after i had taken the photo's, i think you could be right though with DAC. This area had a huge number of serving Canadians during WW2, to the point that one of the woods i use which is not far from where this was found, wont be touched by the saw mills, as the trees have too much shrapnel in them, the landowner told me once that he had a couple of different mills come and look at the Oaks in there and to be fair he told them the woods history, one of the guys came back with a metal detector apparently and ran it over a few of the trees and the detector lit up and he declined to take the timber, it's also where i found this;

Which was identified by a collector as a round for an Enfield Anti Tank Rifle in .55 Calibre

 

[British Red]

The collector is mostly correct...although the gun is unversally known as the "Boys" anti tank rifle after Captain H C Boys who was the designer at the Royal Small Arms factory Enfield. I would expect that the shell casing is a Kynoch. It was woefully under powered against all but the lightest armour. So much so that the Canadians (who probably fired that puppy) made a proaganda film for its forces called "Stop that tank"....actually produced by Disney.

and....for your edification on what shot that big hunk of brass..........

(drum roll)

[video=youtube;ov4lOcD7O5c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov4lOcD7O5c&list=PL6CA AD06849EC83F0&index=1[/video]

 

[British Red]

[video=youtube;Aq3psVj3LI4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq3psVj3LI4[/video]

[video=youtube;Z2XR1BT-s0A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2XR1BT-s0A[/video]


and cease nerd mode

 

[Kepis]

and cease nerd mode

Thats exactly the same video he showed me when i took the thing round to him to get it identified, although his words are not repeatable here about how ineffective the thing was, you keep the nerd mode on though, the more info i can get the better, it fascinates me to learn what was being used and it all adds to the history of the area.