WW II Ammo

[Bzcraig]

Someone here might be interested in this ad. This is a link to a wooden crate with an unopened spam can of 45acp with numbers matching the wooden crate. Here is his description: I have an issued WWII ammo crate with 1200 rounds of .45 ammo. The unopened spam can is numbers matching to the crate. Half of the other ammo is filled with non military issue ammo. The other half is still WWII issue ammo but not numbers matching with the crate. So 1/4 of the ammo has no significance and 3/4 of the ammo has some prominence. Good luck finding another one like it.



http://www.zidaho.com/category/318/Ammunition,-Clips-and-Magazines/listings/56656/WWII-Ammo-Crate-1200-rounds-45.html

[runfiverun]

oooOhH.
providence.
prominence.
provenance.
umm old bullets err ammo.

[NoAngel]

Between the Krauts & Japos at the time and Knob Creek nowadays...it probably is getting pretty rare.

I wonder what all the countries of the world would have said had they only known that such a large portion of their small arms ammunition would eventually get expended by some good ole boys in Kentucky. LOL!!

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Believe it or not, I have much the same thing -- the crate, an unopened spam can, and several loose boxes of steel cased WW II vintage .45 ACP. I never thought to check the lot numbers, but it's interesting that the listing values the total at $450. I never thought the stuff would be worth that much. Of course, maybe it's not, and it remains to be seen if it sells for that price.

That time period will mean that, except for the boxes of Remington ammo, it is corrosive. Lots of years ago, before carbide dies were invented, I had a large box of the WW II vintage steel cases, once fired, and thought it would be nice if I could reload them. "Oh, no..." other reloaders cautioned, "You'll wear out your dies." But the idea kept nagging me and I decided to try it. I considered the cost of a box of factory loads vs. the cost of a set of dies, and only the sizing die would get the wear, and it seemed economically practical. If a person could get, as an example, 4 boxes of 50 rounds out of the die the die would be more than paid for. And, I think that would hold true today with the current retail cost of a box of factory ammo vs. the cost of a new set of dies. Anyway, try it I did, lubed the cases well and found that they pretty much loaded like brass cases. Over a period of time I probably loaded several hundred rounds and got about an average of 5 reloadings per case after which time they became brittle and would split. Another drawback was that after they had been resized once or twice the protective wash coating that they had began to wear off and they were prone to rust. But for a while they served the purpose and I consider the experiment to have been a success. I never did wear out a die, which were RCBS dies. Although I still have the described quantity of the ammo I just keep it around because I'm a packrat, and would only shoot it in my prize 1911s as a last resort.

[Outpost75]

I was gifted a similar crate of steel cased .45 ACP when the original owner downsized and moved into a smaller home. He had been unable to sell the ammo at several gun shows because it was common enough that the collectors had no interest and the shooters didn't want it because it was both steel cased and corrosive. I paid $100 each for the two spam cans and let him have the wooden box back, which he lightly finished with a mixture of linseed oil and marine spar varnish, using it to store his smaller ammo stash in his new digs.

The steel cases reload fine if you use carbide dies, but used the old .206" diameter WW2 primer, so require reaming to reload with modern primers. After doing so a cow magnet on a length of parachute cord makes cleanup at the range easy!

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[Thumbcocker]

I am always amazed at the quantity and consistency of U.S. WW2 ammo.

[bedbugbilly]

Just think how much of it got dumped into the sea.