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Cirrus N210MS
December 16th, 2009, 08:51
:salute:

Hey Guys I have some really Cool History!


i have 50cal Machine GUN Heads and Shells which were fired from American Bombers from WW2 when they used to Train The Crews In Gunnery school KINGMAN AZ Army airbase


plus i have Bell P-39 Aerocobra 30cal Machine GUn Heads and Shells! all Fired! in training!!

some are dated from 1942 1941 1944 1943 and other dates

Just So Much neat History!

:salute::medals:

Cirrus N210MS
December 16th, 2009, 09:03
photos soon :jump:

Francois
December 16th, 2009, 09:19
Are they FS2004 or FSX?

Just sayin'.......

Cirrus N210MS
December 16th, 2009, 10:17
sorry nope they are real!
:jump:

CrazyPants
December 16th, 2009, 10:33
^^that means its a portover :(


:mixedsmi:

Francois
December 16th, 2009, 10:44
:icon_lol::icon_lol:

Cirrus N210MS
December 16th, 2009, 11:30
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/hotshotmike1001/scan0001.jpg

Navy Chief
December 16th, 2009, 11:36
Back in 1996, I had the fortunate experience of spending 8 days on Wake Island, courtesy of the US Navy. I had escorted a liquid oxygen cart there (they are totally dependent on outside resources). I spent a lot of time, walking the beach all around the island. Am sure it is the same case now, but you can literally find spent .30 rounds just laying around. I brought home a few. Someday, I plan to encase them in resin, and use it as a paperweight....... So much valiant fighting took place on Wake. Later on, if I can find them, I will post pictures I took there.

NC

Cratermaker
December 16th, 2009, 11:59
Who put bullets back in the cases or were these duds?

Cirrus N210MS
December 16th, 2009, 12:10
they are dead rounds fired from airplanes

just Cleaning Them up for show displays

:salute:

Cirrus N210MS
December 16th, 2009, 12:11
i have all of the heads that Go with them aswell alot of hard work to find them all eheh


alot of digging

Cratermaker
December 16th, 2009, 12:46
It's great to own a piece of history. I don't think I have heard the term "heads" in relation to machine gun rounds... are those part of the links?

Dynasaur
December 16th, 2009, 13:33
It's great to own a piece of history. I don't think I have heard the term "heads" in relation to machine gun rounds... are those part of the links?

Hi
The component parts of a machine gun round (and most small arms rounds) are the projectile (bullet) and the case which holds the propellant and which has a primer in the base.
Those pictures of the bases of the cartridge cases show the primer (the ones shown have been fired) and the numbers and letters on the base are the headstamp. These appear to have been made at Salt Lake Arsenal (S L ) in 1943

I used to collect cartridges and still have a few, including a live WW2 .50 cal round.

Alan

JoeW
December 16th, 2009, 13:40
Do not try to fire any live rounds from WW2!
The powder they used back then will gain strength over time. You just might blow up the gun you fire them in.

Cirrus N210MS
December 16th, 2009, 13:45
collecting old ammo which has been fired is fun to do and you learn stuff as you do it aswell :medals:

Cirrus N210MS
December 16th, 2009, 13:51
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/hotshotmike1001/scan0002.jpg

Cirrus N210MS
December 16th, 2009, 14:09
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr258/hotshotmike1001/scan0003.jpg

Jagdflieger
December 16th, 2009, 15:03
If you find any of the armor piercing .50 cal projectiles, you can use them for a center punch. When they hit the ground, the gilding metal jacket usually strips off and leaves the hardened steel core intact and it usually shows no sign of wear. The point of it is perfect and hard enough to center punch most steel.

I used to pick up old .50 calibre projectiles and cases as well as 20mm cases in Central Wyoming years ago. The Casper, Wyoming airport was a training base in WW II and they used the high desert in the surrounding area as a gunnery range. They say the pilots often shot up the numerous herds of Antelope in the area, but I'm sure the pilots would never have done that. :rocket:

Yeah, right.

Cratermaker
December 16th, 2009, 15:24
Ah... headstamp. I just didn't make the connection. Thanks Dynasaur!

westjet
December 17th, 2009, 00:26
Do not try to fire any live rounds from WW2!
The powder they used back then will gain strength over time. You just might blow up the gun you fire them in.

I shoot surplus ammo all the time dated back to 1942 in 7.92x57, .45, 7.62x39 and have never had a problem.2 weeks ago i shot about 30 rounds of .303 Brit through my great grandfathers WW1 service rifle and the ammo was 1927 vintage.The case of 7.62x39 corrosive i just bought is 1956 Czech surplus and millions of those are fired in North America every year without problems. 5.56mm i have is also Vietnam era and everyone i know that shoots AR-15s uses it without problems.
My experience shooting old ammo is that if it has been stored properly and the rounds are in good shape with no sign of corrosion blast away.I would be more worried about the old gun than the old ammo that is being used.Gunpowder loses its potency as it ages so it blowing up in your face isnt my major concern but getting a squib load (underpowered bullet stuck in the barrel ) as the follow up shot can be deadly.Its well accepted that old surplus ammo can loses up to 50% of its potency at 50 years but my experience on a chronograph is more in the 25-30% range with the surplus available to me.
Steel cased ammo is what i stay away from as the case can corrode due to a reaction with the solvents in the powder and cause extream overpressure.
For competition i use i only fresh handloads.

Just my 2 cents

Dynasaur
December 17th, 2009, 02:23
Hi again
I have been using military ammo for over 30 years, the oldest would have been some 1930's 7.92 Mauser which worked fine.
Just recently I tried some .303 British military (FMJ) made by Winchester in the 1950's and had a lot of misfires, probably because it hadn't been stored properly and moisture had affected the primers.

You can always tell if you flinch when firing if you have a misfire or hangfire (a delayed firing when there could be pause of a second or so before the round goes off :pop4:)

Alan

JoeW
December 17th, 2009, 02:29
Alan ...... Have you ever had a case to separate? I fired some back in the mid 60's and blew the back of the case off. I really don't recommend this at all. After 2 cases separated I buried the rest about a foot in the ground.
I was a gunsmith for about 12 to 15 years about that time.

Cirrus N210MS
December 17th, 2009, 07:30
i have old 303 brit from pakastan works great :ernae:

Jagdflieger
December 17th, 2009, 11:40
We shoot surplus ammo (some from the 40s) all the time in our Mausers, Mosin Nagants, Springfields and Lee Enfields. I've often shot US Government issued ammo in DCM/CMP rifle matches that dated back to the early 50s and when I was growing up, it was not unusual to see pre-WWII ammo in the hardware store and at the range.

Most military ammo was stored properly while in the custody of the military and many of the components used in manufacturing the ammo were selected for their stability for long term storage. That is why military ammo of the 50s and even into the 60s still have corrosive primers. The corrosive primers were more stable over time than the newly developed non-corrosive types available back then.

The brass cases, if not annealed properly at the neck will often age harden. You can often see stress induced split necks in old ammo, and like JoeW notes, case head separation is also possible from too hard brass. The brass case needs to be pliable enough to obturate (expand) to fit the chamber walls to prevent the gas (often over 50,000 lbs per square inch) from blowing back past the case into the action.

While I've never seen any injuries from this, wearing safety glasses while shooting is a good idea in the event a case head separates and you get gas blow back through the rifle's action and into your face. Some rifles, like the Model 98 Mauser, handle the high pressure gas better than others. In fact, Peter and Paul Mauser designed their opus magnum that way because components used in the new fangled-smokeles-high-pressure ammo of the 1890s was prone to failures such as JoeW notes.

The biggest issue with old surplus ammo is the corrosive priming salts left in the barrel after firing. It is always a good idea to clean the bore as soon as possible with hot water and detergent or Windex with viniger to wash the salts out. Clean a couple of times over the course of a week and use a good rust preventative greese like "Rig" when done. Use the same cleaning regime as for black powder weapons and your rifle will last a long time with a good bore. Neglect this, and your bore may rust to the point of looking like a hundred miles of bad road. Soldiers were required to clean their weapons thoroughly after firing; but many civilians buying the surplus weapons, many used to non-corrosive civilian ammo, failed to do so and that's why you often see very nice surplus rifles at gun shows with horrible bores.

Dynasaur
December 17th, 2009, 13:43
Alan ...... Have you ever had a case to separate? I fired some back in the mid 60's and blew the back of the case off. I really don't recommend this at all. After 2 cases separated I buried the rest about a foot in the ground.
I was a gunsmith for about 12 to 15 years about that time.

Hi
I haven't had a case separate yet although I've had a few times where the case has split at the shoulder.
I once saw someone in our military club shooting an SAFN (FN49) in a comp when the firing pin broke and protruded from the bolt face and caused the round to go off before it was fully chambered. The head must have separated and the stock was blown apart around the receiver although the shooter was OK.
--The FN 49 had a two piece pin and the back of the front section used to snap off.
I've also seen a Swedish AG42B that was completely destroyed when someone used a handload that was a bit too powerfull.

Alan

JoeW
December 17th, 2009, 13:54
The cases that separated on me were at the base about 1/8" above the extractor ring. They separated from pressure. I bought the rounds, about 100 from a store simular to Wal-Mart. It took me the better part of an hour each time to remove the upper part of the case from the chamber. I was using s 1917 enfield from WW1. That rifle was very strong. The separation did no damage to the rifle.