7.62 Ball Duplex M198 Ammo?

[Bjthomas99]

Hello!

I recently purchased this box of ammo on GB for cheap not knowing if it was legit or not, but figured it was worth a try. The bottom of the box has a small tear so I was able to pull one round out and look at. It doesn’t have the green painted tip I’ve seen in pictures online… The rest of the box is sealed.

Were these boxes loaded with just plain ball rounds?

[MUSTANG]

Do not know. For those readers who do not know what a Duplex Round is:



The Green tip on the left is a complete round, and the 2nd is a cutaway of the Duplex 7.62x51. Note the significant reduction in powder capacity in the case.

[cwtebay]

Hello!

I recently purchased this box of ammo on GB for cheap not knowing if it was legit or not, but figured it was worth a try. The bottom of the box has a small tear so I was able to pull one round out and look at. It doesn’t have the green painted tip I’ve seen in pictures online… The rest of the box is sealed.

Were these boxes loaded with just plain ball rounds?

Hi! Not sure how many have access to this, but taking an xray of it is the perfect harmless show and tell for these.

Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk

[MUSTANG]

Just had a thought. Weight will tell the difference. I am not sure what the weight each of the two bullets in a duplex load is; but weighing a standard 7.62 x51 round (Ball, Powder, Case) should give a significantly lower weight compared to the Duplex Round because the two Bullets (Ball) in the duplex round will be significantly denser than the powder the 2nd round displaces inside of the duplex round case.

[Earlwb]

It sure does look suspicious. Usually the bullets have a painted tip to them as a aid in identification. Also someone tried to ink over or blackout the Duplex M198 on the box too. That sort of implies that the cartridges were changed out inside the box. I think that someone reloaded some ammo and reused the box sometime in the past.

[Soundguy]

I've seen other Frankford arsenal boxes inked out on sales pages before where someone had repurposed the no and brass for their own needs, and the seller, who wasn't the original owner was making guesses as to what they may be, sometimes those guesses imho, were to increase the value/sales price.

[beagle]

Never saw any boxed duplex before (but I haven't seen everything yet). I have shot thousands of rounds of duplex in the M-60 and some though the mini-gun. Guess you'd have to pull one to find out for sure. All we used were painted and loaded 4/1 with tracer. They fired fine in the M-60 but seemed kind of sluggish in the mini which I suspect was due to the rapid velocity loss due to the two light bullet segments as opposed to the standard ball round. Firing into a lake produced impressive 200 yard patterns. They were a lot of fun on cattle egrets taking off from marshy areas around the lake./beagle

[AllanD]

I've seen these before make note of one thing these rounds are not copper jacketed over a lead core they are copper clad over sintered soft Iron you can prove this to yourself with a magnet!

Also the ones in my personal collection have black painted tips

I have two rounds one of which is disassembled, the two bullets are different the front one has a hollow base to accommodate the rear bullet, the rear bullet is flat based

[MUSTANG]

I've seen these before make note of one thing these rounds are not copper jacketed over a lead core they are copper clad over sintered soft Iron you can prove this to yourself with a magnet!

Also the ones in my personal collection have black painted tips

I have two rounds one of which is disassembled, the two bullets are different the front one has a hollow base to accommodate the rear bullet, the rear bullet is flat based

Is it possible weigh the Loaded round and provide the weight to readers of this thread? That would allow BJThomas99 to weigh his round and possibly determine if it is simply a repackaged 7.62x51; or a Duplex round.

[beagle]

The ones that we had in 1968 had a green tip. The front projectile was hollow based with exposed lead. The rear projectile had a jacketed base like a flat jacketed bullet on a slight bevel to allow dispersement or patterns away from the front projectile which went more or less true. As I said in an earlier post, the duplex rounds ran out of steam quickly due to the light weight and poor sectional density and we soon reverted to 4/1 ball and tracer for the longer range it afforded in fire supression. A local Special Forces camp was real glad to get some for perimeter defense. May have been sintered steel filling but I'm almost certain ours were lead./beagle

[TNsailorman]

I have loaded and shot duplex loads myself, powder duplex loads that is. But I have never seen a duplex bullet load before. I had read about them but never saw one. james

[Bjthomas99]

So I checked with a magnet, and the bullets are magnetic as all get out.

[Bjthomas99]

I weighed one as well and it's within 10 grains of a modern IMI 7.62X51.