doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com I.C.I. or Kynoch “Non-Rusting”

I recently acquired a part box of Kynoch.295 “Non-Rusting” batch number 17 P O which is either 17 September 1940 (seems a bit early) or 1966 (seems a bit late to be labelled Non-Rusting rather than Non-Corrosive).



A 1933 SMRC Catalogue offered I.C.I. (Imperial Chemical Industries) .22 Non-Rusting, and the 1940 A&N catalogue offers it across the .22 ICI sporting rimfire cartridges.

Anyone know when Kynoch started to phase in Non-Rusting in their sporting centre-fire range?

Where does it say "non rusting"?

Sorry Lloyd, it is on the side of the box.



Apparently the Group name changed in 1963 to Imperial Metal Industries so 1940 now seems more likely UNLESS IMI were using up printed ICI boxes 3 years later (which is not impossible).

But the red factory seals applied after the boxes were filled say ICI so probably 1940 after all.

In the early 1930s Remington introduced their "non-corrosive" "non-rusting" "non-pitting" "non-fouling" KLEANBORE shells with similar marketing verbiage



And Winchester "non-corrosive" & "non-rusting" STAYNLESS

We were slower off the mark on this side of the pond in introducing non-corrosive centre fire cartridges.

In particular Eley did not introduce non-corrosive primers in their .410 cartridges until about the late 1950’s which partly accounts for the high proportion of deeply pitted .410 guns.

The I.C.I. sticker would make it post 1930 and pre 1963. I have a 1935 Eley Kynoch catalogue and a circa 1960 catalogue and both list the .300 Rook but only mention the bullet weight at 80 grns. and type. The older catalogue lists it as available in both black powder and smokeless though sadly no mention of the primer type. I shoot .300 Rook and seek out old boxes of ammo. I have an identical box but no mention of date. My other boxes are much older. I would suspect your box to be around the late '50's to early 60's with the red & yellow box although I can't find a definitive date for the box design change. Lagopus.....

Lagopus,

These tables (I would like to credit the originator but I don’t know where they came from) show when the colour schemes were brought in and may well help date your ammo boxes.

That's very useful and thank you. I knew the colour coding meanings but not when they were actually introduced. I have saved the images to file and will have a look at some of my old Kynoch boxes. Lagopus.....

With apologies for resurrection of an old thread, but I have just been looking at 2 of my old shooting books by L. B. Escritt - “Rifle and Gun”published 1953 and “Rifleman and Pistolman” 1955.

In the former he says that British sporting centre-fire rifle ammunition was then generally corrosive primed.

In the latter, which includes a picture of an I.C.I. .22 Hornet box marked “Non-Rusting” he mentions that ,22 Hornet and .240 Apex cartridges were by then “Non-Rusting” the implication being that was still the exception and not the rule.

The part box of Kynoch.295 “Non-Rusting” batch number 17 P O which is either 17 September 1940 (seems a bit early) or 1966 (seems a bit late to be labelled Non-Rusting rather than Non-Corrosive), which I pictured at the start of this thread has 6/42 inked on the back, which could well indicate it was originally purchased in June 1942.

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It still went “bang” (and shot better than I did) earlier this year. It would have helped if I had set the windage correctly for this 25 yard standing stage at a HBSA Rook Rifle evrnt.