Bullets - can they be identified?

[JefR]

I'm writing my wife's grandfathers WW1 story - 12th Northumberland Fusiliers (Loos & Somme), 9th Cheshires (Messines), DCM.

In his tin of mementos are a number of bullets (four different types) and a shrapnel ball, I don't think they have any personal significance but I'm wondering if any experts in the field can identify them.

Diameters in the photos were measured with an Imperial micrometer.

Here's hoping

Jef

[MikB]

B & C both look like 303 Mk.VIIs - I've seen lots like B, but the extra casemouth cannelure on C is something I've not seen before in combination with the stab crimp cannelure further back.

A is clearly a 7.9 or 8mm something - I strongly suspect Schweres Spitzgeschoss in 7,92x57; standard German WW1 & 2.

D may be from the 7,92x33 Kurzpatrone, a 125 grain bullet for the Stg44 Assault Rifle.

Regards,

MikB

[4thGordons]

If TonyE doesn't see this thread drop him a line, I am sure he will be able to help.

Chris

[Brian Curragh]

Could A be a Lebel?

Brian

[TonyE]

I have only just picked up this thread as I have been away for a few days, first doing some metaphorical digging in the archives at the Royal Armouries and then some literal digging in France..

Bullet A does indeed look like an 8mm Lebel, as the German 7.92mm sS bullet does nor normally have a cannelure. The sure way of identifying it is to look at the base, which should be solid bronze, usually with a makers identity stamped in it.

Bullet B is a normal British .303" Ball Mark VII and will weigh about 174 Grains.

Bullet C looks like an American made .303" ball bullet. I have seen these with the double cannelure before as this allowed the bullet to be secured in the case at either of the two positions.

Bullet D is a normal German 7.92 mm Spitzergeschoss. This was the standard German bullet for most of WWI rather than the heavy boat tailed schweres Sptitzergeschoss (sS) bullet originally designed for machine guns. (The bullet for the WW2 7.92 Kurz patrone was a much shorter stubbier looking bullet)

Regards

TonyE

[MikB]

Bullet A does indeed look like an 8mm Lebel, as the German 7.92mm sS bullet does nor normally have a cannelure. The sure way of identifying it is to look at the base, which should be solid bronze, usually with a makers identity stamped in it.

Bullet B is a normal British .303" Ball Mark VII and will weigh about 174 Grains.

Bullet C looks like an American made .303" ball bullet. I have seen these with the double cannelure before as this allowed the bullet to be secured in the case at either of the two positions.

Bullet D is a normal German 7.92 mm Spitzergeschoss. This was the standard German bullet for most of WWI rather than the heavy boat tailed schweres Sptitzergeschoss (sS) bullet originally designed for machine guns. (The bullet for the WW2 7.92 Kurz patrone was a much shorter stubbier looking bullet)

Regards

TonyE

A

I thought about that, but what turned me away from it was the apparent hole in the base - admittedly not definitely identifiable - suggesting normal swage-and-heel-fold construction. I seem to remember that Lebel bullets have a longer ogive with less curve...?

B

Yup.

C

OK, but the stab crimps will have to be in a different position from the British standard.

D

I think I stand corrected on this. It looked at first too short - but now I remember seeing some 7,92x57 Kynoch softpoint hunting ammo in the 60s with a 150 grain bullet with a very similar profile and short seating shank, as if designed to feed in the same actions and magazines. The 7,92x33 bullet does have a well-radiused ogive too.

Another thing that struck me was the variation in diameter on these bullets. Unfired bullets - as these obviously are - generally mike up with a few tenths of a thou both for roundness and parallelism. In fact in most cases only a precision comparator or a Vernier mike would show any variation at all

Regards,

MikB

[JefR]

Thanks a lot everybody, I'm most grateful for your help - and I've learned something new.

I never dreamt there could be something stamped in the base - Cheers Tony.

The photo attached shows:-

A - is not a solid bronze base, just lead, and there is no marking (just some minor staining or pitting that wouldn't clean by brushing with meths). Does that help to identify it Tony?

B - the British .303 is distorted but looks as if it might have been marked N(something) or (something)N.

C - is clearly American, as you said Tony. It is marked "US"

D - There were a couple of other examples in Grandpa's tin. One nickel cased and distorted, apparently unmarked, two bronze cased, one marked "H" the other possibly"J" (but the latter is unclear).

It's just struck me that only one, the nickel cased D, shows any sign of rifling marks - that seems odd.

Best regards

Jef

[gew98]

Bullet A does indeed look like an 8mm Lebel, as the German 7.92mm sS bullet does nor normally have a cannelure. The sure way of identifying it is to look at the base, which should be solid bronze, usually with a makers identity stamped in it.

Regards

TonyE

It is a cupro nickle plated jacket sS patrone. I have several hundred pulled german made sS patrone bullets and together with these and the many thousands I have shot never have I seen one without a cannelure.

The lebel bronze bullet has a much more pointed prfile and the boat tail will be visibly more machined in appearance. When I used to relaod for the lebel I had alot of post war cupronickel plated lead cored lebel surplus I pulled the bullets out for reloading. They could be mistaken for bullet A at a glance , but they still had a more pronounced pointed profile in comparison to the german heavy ball.

[TonyE]

Gew98, I stand corrected on the original bullet A. My eyes are getting old, but it looked to me like a polished copper coloured GM bullet rather than a the silver of a CN jacket.

MikB. The variation in military bullet diameters is considerably more that "a few tenths of a thou". The specification for the .303 bullet allows for a two thou variance, High .312, Low .310. Other military calibres have a similar tolerance. Modern bullets made for target work have closer tolerances, but even so, many bench rest shooters still mike every bullet and sort them into similar diameters.

Jef R. The marking on your bullet B is "KN" for Kings Norton Metals and Munitions Company Ltd of Birmingham, one of the major British ammunition producers. Bullet C with "US" is from the United States Cartridge Company of Lowell, Mass., who made many millions of rounds of .303" ammunition on contract for Britain in WWI. The quality was not very good and much of it was relegated to training use or supplied to the allies. The French pulled most of theirs and reloaded them with their own bullets.

The 7.92mm with the "H" was made by Rheinmetall of Dusseldorf. If the other is marked with a gothic "I" that looks like a "J", it was made at the Main Laboratory at Ingolstadt. Incidently. the factories marked the bullet bases with either a Latin or Gothic capital letter to distinguish between those with a soft or a hard lead core. The soft lead cores were made without the 2.5% antimony due to shortages so the bullet jackets for these were slightly heavier.

Regards

TonyE

[johnreed]

E is a British Shrapnel ball half an inch in diameter. The bullet used by the U.S. have six flattened sides, to facilitate packing, whereas those used in British Shrapnel Ammunition are spherical.

John

[MikB]

MikB. The variation in military bullet diameters is considerably more that "a few tenths of a thou". The specification for the .303 bullet allows for a two thou variance, High .312, Low .310. Other military calibres have a similar tolerance. Modern bullets made for target work have closer tolerances, but even so, many bench rest shooters still mike every bullet and sort them into similar diameters.

Regards

TonyE

Hmmm... two thou between military-grade bullets is to be expected, but 7 thou out of round or parallel within the same bullet is not - in fact, in rotary swaging machines it's not immediately apparent how it would be achieved...

However, it's clear from the base view that B has received some damage, although it's C that's worst.

I've just sat and miked 10-off Sierra Matchking 155s at random, using a Mitutoyo Vernier mike in which the last 30 years have led me to place some confidence , and I can't find a tenth between 'em. One of them might be .30805" or a bit less, but all the rest are .30800" to less than the thickness of the thimble line. If those blokes on the benchrest circuit sit there miking their bullets when they're of that quality, I'd say that behaviour borders on the irrational - but some people think that of benchresters anyway...

Regards,

MikB

[JefR]

Thanks again guys, your help very much appreciated.

Let's see if I've got this right.

A - looks like a German 7.92 sS (heavier) round - possibly machine gun, or rifle later in the war.

D - looks like the lighter German 7.92 IS round - possibly rifle from earlier in the war.

B - British .303 made in Birmingham UK

C - .303 round made in Lowell, Mass. USA

E - British 1/2in shrapnel ball

I still don't understand the lack of rifling marks. I can imagine grandfather picking up stuff that lands near him, but I can't see him sitting in a trench pulling live cartridges apart. Strange - but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

In due course, when I've finally put his story together, everything is going to a local museum, so the information you've provided will get recycled.

Thanks again

Jef

[gew98]

Thanks again guys, your help very much appreciated.

Let's see if I've got this right.

A - looks like a German 7.92 sS (heavier) round - possibly machine gun, or rifle later in the war.

D - looks like the lighter German 7.92 IS round - possibly rifle from earlier in the war.

B - British .303 made in Birmingham UK

C - .303 round made in Lowell, Mass. USA

E - British 1/2in shrapnel ball

I still don't understand the lack of rifling marks. I can imagine grandfather picking up stuff that lands near him, but I can't see him sitting in a trench pulling live cartridges apart. Strange - but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

In due course, when I've finally put his story together, everything is going to a local museum, so the information you've provided will get recycled.

Thanks again

Jef

Jeff ; there was so much loose ammo laying about that in sitting idle I have no doubt many a soldier of any combatant army had the time or curiousity to pull/twist the bullets out of cartridges for souvenirs and or trench art. Somehwere in one of my books I have an account of a french officer taking a gew98 and describing it's hun mean utilitarian looks goes then and bashes it to bits and uses the buttstock to carve something "beautiful" from it all.

[ian turner]

I still don't understand the lack of rifling marks. I can imagine grandfather picking up stuff that lands near him, but I can't see him sitting in a trench pulling live cartridges apart. Strange - but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

Jef

If the rounds had been fired they would either have disappeared into something soft, like mud or a sandbag, or hit and ricocheted off something hard. In the latter case they would be severly deformed, in the former case hard to find, not least due to their relative size.

Thus the likely source of undamaged bullets would be unused rounds.

[MikB]

If the rounds had been fired they would either have disappeared into something soft, like mud or a sandbag, or hit and ricocheted off something hard. In the latter case they would be severly deformed, in the former case hard to find, not least due to their relative size.

Thus the likely source of undamaged bullets would be unused rounds.

Even in the former case, there are powerful turnover forces generated as the bullet decelerates in the mud or sand if this happens whilst they still have a lot of energy. 303s retrieved from a range sandtrap are typically folded into a V-shape or snapped in half by these.

The complete absence of any obvious impact damage, rifling marks, or any other striations suggesting passage down a bore, means that unloading from live rounds is the simplest explanation for their condition by a very long chalk. The out of round or out of parallel condition may well have come from the action of unloading them - but it's interesting that he managed to do so without much other visible damage - except maybe to bullet B. Of course it's extremely unlikely he had anything like a kinetic puller.

Regards,

MikB

[TonyE]

Mik - I take your point about the consistency of modern bullets (and agree with your suspicions about bench rest shooters) but you are comparing ninety year old military bullets made under wartime production conditions with state of the art 21st Century match grade bullets. We also need Jef R to tell us whether the variations in diameter of 7 thou are at different point along the length of the bullet or at different points on the circumference all measured in the same plane of the bullet. The accuracy of the measuring device is also needed

It is interesting that the KN bullet only shows a variation of two thou, as KN were known for the consistency of their ammunition and were the favoured producer of special purpose rounds for the RFC. On the other hand, the large variation is in the US bullet, a manufacturer known for poor quality inconsistant ammunition. To quote the History of the Ministry of Munitions, "..the American manufacturers had proved to be broken reeds."

Regards

TonyE

[JefR]

Wow - I didn't realise that my naive query would open up such a fascinating conversation.

Mik

When I was a lad in the early 50s we used to dig spent rounds out of the sandhills at Leasowe in the Wirral where I guess the Home Guard had trained during WW2 (we'd then melt out the lead and sell it to the scrap man!). As I recall, many (perhaps most?) of them seemed undeformed. We didn't measure any at that time of course, but I suppose my original expectations were coloured by that - I'd assumed that the diameter variations were caused by soft impact. As a result of this conversation though, I accept that the lack of rifling marks points to pulled rounds - perhaps they were emptying cartridges to make improvised bombs.

Tony

The measurements I took on each bullet are the max. and min. of 5 or 6 diameters of a single plane cross section at approximately the widest point - in effect an estimate of the 'out of roundness'. I used an old Moore & Wright micrometer that measures to 0.001 in. It's in good condition, but I have no way of determining it's absolute accuracy. I am confident though about it's relative accuracy - given two readings 0.311 and 0.316 for example, the difference will be 5 thous.

The variation has surprised me - especially so since I have now measured the other undeformed short German bullet 'D' that was in the tin. It was exactly the same as the first, 0.319 to 0.321. Hardly an exhaustive survey, but it perhaps casts a surprising light on the relative quality of American and European production engineering at the time.

Best regards

Jef

[MikB]

Mik

When I was a lad in the early 50s we used to dig spent rounds out of the sandhills at Leasowe in the Wirral where I guess the Home Guard had trained during WW2 (we'd then melt out the lead and sell it to the scrap man!). As I recall, many (perhaps most?) of them seemed undeformed.

...I accept that the lack of rifling marks points to pulled rounds...

Hi Jef,

My experience dates back to Rainham ranges where I used to shoot as a cadet in the '60s. On one visit, the butt next to one we were using was being cleared and repacked with sand. There were tens of thousands of spent 303s in big piles in front of the empty sandtrap, presumably awaiting removal for scrap.

During one of those many periods of waiting for something to happen, I sloped off to search for an undamaged bullet for my collection. I never found one. All those I saw that were still recognisable and whole showed the V-fold.

Rainham was used up to 600 yards. I guess bullets arriving from longer ranges mightn't have enough of a turnover couple operating on them to do this, or maybe other conditions were special in some way. But I think the condition I found them in matches published studies in wound ballistics.

Personally I don't think the American ammunition industry produced out-of-round bullets. Many of the techniques in use to this day to produce bullets originated there. However, 303 Mk.VII is a rather odd load in several ways when compared to what are now more 'mainstream' rounds like 7,92x57 or 30-06 and their derivatives, and it's quite possible they may have had difficulty trying to duplicate Cordite MDT, say, or match its performance with a nitrocellulose granule - if that's what they did - or get the case web profile right. I'd expect their difficulties lay more in that area than consistent and accurate bullet manufacture.

But if the method of extraction involved, say, drilling a 5/16" hole in a piece of plate or hardwood, sticking the bullet point in the 'ole and waggling the case forcefully until you could pull the bullet out - well, I think we might look there for the source of the out-of-round.

Regards,

MikB

[TonyE]

I quite agree with you Mik that waggling the bullet to get it out of the case could easily account for the variations in diameter. After all, it does not take much deformation to change the diameter by seven thou.

Whilst the manufacture of .303 Mark VII does have some different features, the American ammunition strictly speaking was not Mark VII and avoided most of these difficulties. They did not use cordite so avoided the problem of necking after loading; they used nitrocellulose, probably Dupont No.16. The bullets did not have an aluminium tip so were slightly shorter to maintain the weight at 174 grains and they were Boxer primed. This would have avoided any problems with the web of the case as it would have been no different to any similar rimmed round, e.g .30-40 Krag.

With regards to quality, I offer these snippets from the official History of the Ministry of Munitions, Vol. XI, Part VI.

"This step [the cancellation of American contracts] was desirable from the point of view of economy alone, the price of American ammunition being roughly £8 10s. per 1000, compared with £6 10s. for British ammunition. It was even more desirable from the point of view of the quantity and quality of the supply. The ammunition produced by the United States Cartridge Company (more than 50% of the whole) was regarded by the War Office as suitable for emergency use only, and much of it was sentenced for practice at home."

Discussing the large stock of salvaged ammuntion lying at Woolwich in 1917: when it was sorted a good deal of it was found to be American, and the department stated that "apart from Peters, American small arms ammunition has so many faults that it will probably not be worth while to try to clean and recap this ammunition.....It would appear from the condition of the boxes that in many instances the boxes were opened, and as soon as it was observed that the ammunition was American,they have been thrown to one side as useless."

Discussing the reasons for setting up the Government Cartridge Factories; "Most of the existing organisations in England had by this date [1916] been developed to their utmost extent, the American manufacturers had proved broken reeds, and enquiries had shown that there was little hope of developing any other external sources of supply."

Regards

TonyE

[JefR]

I quite agree with you Mik that waggling the bullet to get it out of the case could easily account for the variations in diameter. After all, it does not take much deformation to change the diameter by seven thou.

Whilst the manufacture of .303 Mark VII does have some different features, the American ammunition strictly speaking was not Mark VII and avoided most of these difficulties. They did not use cordite so avoided the problem of necking after loading; they used nitrocellulose, probably Dupont No.16. The bullets did not have an aluminium tip so were slightly shorter to maintain the weight at 174 grains and they were Boxer primed. This would have avoided any problems with the web of the case as it would have been no different to any similar rimmed round, e.g .30-40 Krag.

With regards to quality, I offer these snippets from the official History of the Ministry of Munitions, Vol. XI, Part VI.

"This step [the cancellation of American contracts] was desirable from the point of view of economy alone, the price of American ammunition being roughly £8 10s. per 1000, compared with £6 10s. for British ammunition. It was even more desirable from the point of view of the quantity and quality of the supply. The ammunition produced by the United States Cartridge Company (more than 50% of the whole) was regarded by the War Office as suitable for emergency use only, and much of it was sentenced for practice at home."

Discussing the large stock of salvaged ammuntion lying at Woolwich in 1917: when it was sorted a good deal of it was found to be American, and the department stated that "apart from Peters, American small arms ammunition has so many faults that it will probably not be worth while to try to clean and recap this ammunition.....It would appear from the condition of the boxes that in many instances the boxes were opened, and as soon as it was observed that the ammunition was American,they have been thrown to one side as useless."

Discussing the reasons for setting up the Government Cartridge Factories; "Most of the existing organisations in England had by this date [1916] been developed to their utmost extent, the American manufacturers had proved broken reeds, and enquiries had shown that there was little hope of developing any other external sources of supply."

Regards

TonyE

Mik - Tony

Many thanks to you both, It's been a fascinating insight into the subject.

I'm most grateful for your help.

Regards

jef

[lionboxer]

When I was in NI in the mid seventies we used to make key rings and necklaces out of 7.62 rounds. We just wriggled the head until it finally came free of the brass case, I didn't notice any distortion though. The bullet was then heated until the lead in the copper jacket melted and then a hook or loop was pushed in until it solidified. Small safety pins were used for this. There was always a source of ammo even though it was supposed to be stricktly controlled.

Lionboxer

[TonyE]

You need to give lessons to Piorun on the thread about reversed bullets!

Regards

TonyE