Historical - US Military Field Reloads for M80 Ball Cartridge

[crankycalico]

Well I was running through the interwebs the other night, and found a small snippet of information on the M80 Ball cartridge.

In Vietnam, Special Forces units were taking standard M80 ball and replacing the powder charge with the FACTORY CHARGE FROM GOVERNMENT ISSUED 45 ACP cartridge, and reloading the M80 ball fmj projectile, UP SIDE DOWN to the cannelure.

The Department of Defense also issued a small reloading kit to make it easier and better quality finished product.

My question is this:

Is there any way to actually figure out the powder charge used in the US Issue 45 ACP cartridge?

[M-Tecs]

Bullseye was the original GI powder. It was the only one load for the 45ACP for the 230gr FMJ bullet. 5.0gr was of Bullseye was the standard for years and years. Not sure if or when they may have changed.

[koehn,jim]

I hope you are not going to try and shoot those. They were left behind for the V C to salvage and mess up their weapons. This was not intended for their use.

[crankycalico]

I hope you are not going to try and shoot those. They were left behind for the V C to salvage and mess up their weapons. This was not intended for their use.

Everything I can actually find, Mostly material written by Harris, it was done for suppressor usage.

[MUSTANG]

Information on the .45ACP (and other) Small Arms ammunition for powder type, charges, etc.. can be found in TM's (Technical Manuals). The link goes to a 1994 version of the Small Arms Ammunition TM. Older ones during Vietnam are available via the Web; you'll have to do a search - but they do not change much.

http://gigconceptsinc.com/files/US-A...heets-1994.pdf

[NoZombies]

Everything I can actually find, Mostly material written by Harris, it was done for suppressor usage.

With any luck Edd Harris will chime in then.

[Larry Gibson]

I was a Special Forces Weapos NCO "back in the day" and never heard of that done with M80. There was some CIA doctored 7.62x39 and x54R that was "doctored" with PETN and dropped in enemy ammo cache/dumps on some cross border operations.

I have posted here and on other sites about my "Panama Load". After reading about Whelen's reloads for his M1903 in Panama and the Philippines I was sitting in an old observation tower north of Fort Sherman, Canal Zone, in the early '70s pondering about them. We were conducting some training out in the scrub jungle between Sherman and the Gatun river and had a bit of free time. I wanted to do some exploring and hunting. We always had some M193 5.56 and some 45 Ball (surreptitiously of course but SF got away with a lot back in those days) with us so I got a pair of pliers out of the tool kit, the TLs (wire cutters) from my Commo NCO along with crimpers (blasting cap) from my Engineer NCO. Pulled the bullets from some 5.56 and dumped the powder. Pulled the bullets from the 45 Ball and put it's powder in the 5.56 case. Pushed the 5.56 bullet back in backwards to the cannelure and crimped with the blasting cap crimpers. Found it was accurate in my M16A1 (with LR sight up) at 50 yards. Accurate enough for hunting capybaras, cormorants and parrots for the pot (the Panamanian "scouts" [indians from the mountains] we were working with) loved eating all of those and made some tasty dishes out of them. Of course those rounds would not function the M16A1 but would feed from the magazine so it was basically a straight pull bolt action rifle with them. They made about the same noise as 7.62 blanks so no one paid any attention to the sound as we were always shooting blanks in that area. The sound didn't travel far in the scrub jungle anyway. I added fresh meat to rations (early 1st iteration MRE's) and the hunting forays endeared to indigenous Panamanians to us.

As I said I've posted that several times and would bet if you could trace the OPs original story that's where it originated.......as the once was an SF NCO who pulled military bullets, replaced the rifle powder with powder out of 45 ACPs and seated the rifle bullet backwards. I've chronographed that load and they run 1500 - 1600 fps depending on lot of 45 Ball and the type of powder used. The flake "bullseye type powders worked best. The one lot with a ball powder I tested was somewhat erratic unless the powder was "positioned" at the rear of the case by lifting the muzzle before firing.

[jaysouth]

I hope you are not going to try and shoot those. They were left behind for the V C to salvage and mess up their weapons. This was not intended for their use.

I know about "pole bean" where doctored small arms ammo, and mortar rounds left behind for the NVA to use, and kill some of their people. The plan was to make the NVA distrust the Chinese who furnished most of their ammo.

Didn't know that the NVA had anything that used M-80 ball in 7.62x51.

[TCLouis]

I would imagine that the NVA/VC had at least one of everything we had at some time or place.
I know that they had a sniper M-14, Redfield, Starlight, several mags of M-80? along with, several M-16s/ammo, a PRC 77 and CAC at least for a month or so.
They used an M-60 and other weapons to do it so the also already had an M-60.
I am sure this was not the first or last 14 and 16s they acquired.

[john.k]

I think they were more into digging up mines than using anything else...

[KenT7021]

The VC had just about any weapon you could think of.We had a home made device on display in my helicopter company during the early 60's that looked like a horn drilled full of holes.It was loaded with home made powder and scrap metal and placed alongside a potential helicopter LZ.It was very effective.
Several years later on a different tour the Army instituted gun control on personal weapons in country.They did it to the enlisted men first.Someone must have realized they had overlooked the pilots so they went after them next.I was the helicopter weapons maintenance NCO in a gun platoon so all of the weapons were turned over to me until we could turn them in.One of the rifles was an M14 with the rear of the receiver milled or filed down and a M1919 rear sight brazed on.The barrel was shortened and the front sight and folding bayonet from a Type 53 carbine installed.It was well done.Photos of what is probably the same rifle are in the Collector Grade book US Rifle M14 from John Garand to the M21.