View Single Post
  #1042  
Old 22-02-19, 06:57
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Winnipeg, MB
Posts: 3,384
Default

Hi Lynn.

Not to deflect Colin’s Thread for too long, you are correct up until about 1944/45 .303 Grenade Launching Rounds.

Prior to that date, sorting out these rounds is a complete PITA, particularly if dealing with spent casings. Brass cases were standard Ball Cartridges with no special Head Stamps, or crimping. Some iterations had fully blackened, or partially blackened cases and were described in great detail in written documentation, but rarely, it seems, were the differences ever deemed important enough to make the rounds readily obvious to the end user in the field, or at sea. Most of the earlier cartridges were a slightly heavier load of standard powder with a small insert of guncotton fore and aft with a lacquered plug and no crimping. Ballistite and Cordite loads did not gain prominence until the 2nd War when Rifle Grenades, Anti-Tank Grenades and Smoke Grenade usage really evolved, along with Line Throwing equipment for the Navy. I think the Cordite loads were a tropical thing where they stood up better in high humidity to Ballistite.

By 1944/45, all Grenade Launching Rounds had been standardized in so far as head stamps and they all bore the letter H, with a following number (1-8 eventually), the rosette crimp was also standardized and the cases were either blackened any of the front third, the rear third, or two small black bands roughly amidships.

It’s amazing it took the bureaucrats 45 years to sort these rounds out properly. Makes one wonder how many poor sods grabbed a blank round by mistake at a critical moment and what the consequences of that mistake must have been.

David
Reply With Quote