St. Louis Munitions Plant?

[Wag]

Here's a list:

http://www.cartridgecollectors.org/h...adstampcodes#S

--Wag--

[Big Boomer]

curdog: After looking up the meaning of the S L on the cartridge case, I looked up the info available on the St. Louis ordinance plant and saw the very buildings you refer to on that web site. Thanks for the info. Big Boomer

Wag: That's the list I found that put me on the trail of the St. Louis ordinance plant. Shame it is virtually all out of commission now. Big Boomer

[Jniedbalski]

The St. Louis plant that made ammo for ww2 is in north St. Louis. The federal building that I went to for my new Id had a plaque on the wall. It showed the different steps on making 50 cal bullets and cases .It showed the copper discs then the drawing proses to make them . This was about 6 years ago. I don’t know if this was the only place in St. Louis that made them but it was still open then as a federal building offices. I thank it was right off the highway heading north before the airport. I thank it said on the plaque that ammo was made there until Korea or Vietnam.

[Jniedbalski]

The building that I went to was a smaller office building.with other smaller buildings around it. The main building was torn down a few years before that

[Paper Puncher]

EDG: Interesting! My old Marine friend mentioned earlier who gave me these bullets also gave me a gallon can of take-down gun powder, a gallon can of 150 (think they were actually 147) gr. jacketed bullets, and I don't remember how many of these bullets that have an extremely hard core - of whatever composition. I shot one round into a sand rock out in the boondocks and had to go home and get some special chisels and return to retrieve the core. The core could only be polished by a NEW file. The core also had little barbs, I presume to hang onto the jacket. When the bullet hit the sandrock, it shed the copper jacket and just kept on going. I had to dig and dig until I finally got deep into the sand rock in order to retrieve the penetrator core. Someone told me they were tungsten carbide, so that is why I used the term - not really knowing the full implication of the terms. Thanks for the education. Big Boomer

If the 147 gr bullets where boat tail then they where probably M80 Ball (for 7.62x51) M2 Ball 150 gr where flat base.
There is a tungsten AP round M993 for the 7.62. It weighed about 127 gr I think.
The problem with the magnet test is a lot of jackets where made of steel.
I don't recall seeing barbs on any of the AP cores, interesting. Drawings for the 30 AP M2 show it as being smooth sided.

Those AP cores are HARD. Used to use 50 AP cores for a center punch.

[Big Boomer]

Paper Puncher: It so happens that I do have one of those 147 gr. bullets left … sort of. I had forgotten about it. They were boat tails but in one of my mis-led moments, I cut the tip off some of them to identical lengths and hollow-pointed them. Only one left. I shot most of them as they were originally out of a Win. M670 .30-06 and gave the remainder to a young friend. Don't remember the load but they shot pretty well. Don't remember how the hollow pointed version shot except that in a water-filled milk jug they were pretty violent. The black-tipped "penetraters" weigh 161.5 grains. The hardened inner part that I shot into the sand rock was so hard a new file would not make a mark on it. The file would only "polish" the surface. Big Boomer

[EDG]

The old gunsmith who had the cases of SL-54 brass lived in an old house with about a 300 ft high hill behind it. He let locals shoot there a bit. I always noticed the dozens of 30 cal penetrator cores exposed by rain run off water carrying away soil at the backstop. The cores were always rusty because of the steel content. Tungsten does not rust.

[Big Boomer]

EDG: Thanks for the info. Stands to reason. If not fe, it will not rust. Big Boomer

[429421Cowboy]

I'll have to dig up a picture and post it here but I found a .50 BMG casing laying in the desert near Rachel, Nevada just outside the current day bombing range at Nellis AFB that has the S L 4 headstamp and you can still see the marks where it was linked. I figure it was a pilot in a P51 training for the Pacific theater, maybe straifing antelope or wild horses.