doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Surprising vitality of ancient ammunition

Fudd,

Brass fired with mercuric primers quickly degenerates, but I am not convinced that mercury would migrate from the unfired primers.

I think these were embrittled by age, and may have been pretty flimsy to start with. I will weigh a couple and compare them to more modern cases.

I had a 401 Winchester, 7 or 8 years ago, that I shot some very old ammo in, old enough that it was corrosive. It was kind of amusing, I got a delayed click-bang, but it all went off. And, apparently, it all developed full pressure, every round operated that heavy action, and pressures don't seem to have to drop much to turn it into a single shot. The brass itself looked fine, no cracks or damage.

I have other ammo not nearly as old that developed lengthwise splits on the first firing, and unfired ammo with cracked necks. My suspicion is that the cases were improperly annealed in the manufacturing process.

Tim

20 years ago I purchased a German 11mm double rifle and it came with 3 original boxes of ammo that was dated 1894. To my great surprise I fired an entire box with no misfires and I was able to reload the empties. Needless to say I was quite amazed.

The traditional date for rook shooting was the 12th. May; the other sort of Glorious Twelfth. Rooks are members of the crow family and nest communally in; you guessed, a Rookery. Oddly enough often in old Churchyards. They can be very noisy places with sometimes several hundred in the larger Rookeries. Due to the fact they like to pull out growing seedlings of cereal crops there used to be a bounty on them. Not only Rook Rifles, so used with a low velocity heavy bullet so they didn't travel too far and cause damage, but bullet bows were used. A sort of Crossbow designed to project a lead round ball.

I suppose that they are not eaten so much now because the modern housewife seems unable to prepare anything that does not come in a shrink wrapped packet from the Supermarket along with full microwave cooking instructions. (Not all as I suspect there are some highly competent spouses of members on this site). Lagopus.....

Trigger Warning:- The following may upset dedicated cartridge collectors.

I recently bought at Southams 4 100 round boxes of 1942 Canadian wartime training .22 Long Rifle.

Anyone know what T.P. stands for?

The box on the left still has both its card “to open pull tab” seals intact and I am preserving that for a cartridge collector friend.

I decided to sacrifice to science 1 box, that had been opened and a round missing.

I shot 20 in my 1909 vintage B.S.A. War Office Pattern, checking the bore remained unobstructed between shots. All went briskly.

Thus encouraged I decided to use it in our recent HBSA Competition for these rifles




At 50 yards shot sitting (13 shots best 10 to count) my score was the best of the 4 competitors. Not bad for 82 year old ammunition. It was no fault of the ammunition that my 25 yards standing stage pulled me back to last place.

A suitable way to commemorate tomorrow's Remembrance Day.

I often drive past the huge Canadian War Cemetery just south of Caen, Normandy and just north of Falaise and its infamous Gap.

HB

Thanks to Google images and Wardscollectibles.co. I have just found out that T.P. on this Canadian military ammunition stands for “Training Purposes”.

It may have been added to forestall any arguments about The Hague Convention should any fall into Axis hands.

In the 1990's a friend of mine bought an Austro-Hungarian Mauser in 8X54? if I recall. Whatever, it was an obsolete cartridge so he could buy it without an FFL. He also bought some ammo that was headstamped 1905 and it performed perfectly.

Also in the 90's I bought a Holland and Holland double rifle in the .303 Mk VII caliber. The rifle was regulated with the 220 gr. bullet and the only ammo I could find was from Don Shrum. As I recall it was certainly pre WWII, cordite, and corrosive primed. It fired more like a percussion muzzleloader with a "clap-boom" report. However, it reliably fired and was quite accurate.

I had always heard the Hercules Unique powder was incredibly long lived. At the NRA show in New Orleans I believe in the 80's I asked the Hercules people about that. They said it was true. They had a powder from the first batch they made and would periodically test it and it performed perfectly.

Smokeless powder is a chemical compound while black is a physical compound. Chemical compounds can degrade yet ammo and powder carefully stored can easily last a century or more. Black will last forever so long as it's kept cool and mainly dry.

Over the years I have shot quite a few rounds of pre WWII rifle and pistol ammo all worked well.

I have also fired a bunch of 1944/45 mortar ammo back in the late 1980’s, that did not go as well, but still worked ok.

If it was an ex-military Austro-Hungarian, id est a sporterization of some M 95 rifle, it was chambered in 8x50R or in 8x56R M30S.
If it was a civilian Austro-Hungarian turnbolt hunting rifle, it may have been chambered for the 8x56 MS (rimless, of course).

And if it was indeed a 8x54 gun, it was either a civilian (bored-up) Norwegian Krag, or a civilian (bored-up) Swedish m/96 Mauser.

Or it was a slightly mislabelled Finnish Mosin-Nagant conversion, the semi-wildcat cartridge of which is *usually* called 8x53R or 8,2x53R.

So, what was it?

Best regards,
Carcano