old .303 british ammo

[atr]

I have some very old .303 Ammo,,,,I pulled some of the bullets last night and found that there was a wad placed over the powder...I suspect it was there to prevent moisture intrusion, but I dont know for sure.
Three question:
can this wad be safely removed?
and
is resuing the old powder worth it?
and
the headstamps on the brass is very unusual...does anyone know of a site which would tell me about this ammo based on the headstamp markings?

thanks !!
atr

[madsenshooter]

There are several sites come up if you google 303 British headstamps, here's one: http://193.172.46.91/cartridges_headstamps.html

[StarMetal]

I had a cigar box full of old military 303 that I believe dated from WWI. It had the nickle copper alloy round nose bullets. There was a wad atop the powder, but the powder was Cordite, which is long spaghetti string type powder. That I don't believe you could reload. Way I read they actually loaded the powder in right before the final case forming. That is the case is a straight cylinder, then they insert that wad of Cordite and finish the forming.

What kind of powder does your 303 have in it appearance wise?

Joe

[Hardcast416taylor]

There should be a 2 digit number to represent the year of manf. on the case head. By the inclusion of the over cordite wad I must assume you have around WW 1 ammo or shortly thereafter. The wad was put there to seperate the powder from the bullet base and any chemical reactions that could occur. If there is no corrosion on the bullet base or sides of the bullet the round should be okay to shoot. I have been given WW 2 era 7.65 Argent. ammo that the bullet was rusted to the lump of cordite goo and case walls. My adage is "If in doubt - POUR IT OUT"! You can recharge with a modern powder and same or different projectile and fire.Robert

[atr]

the headstamp site recommended was useful, but I could NOT get a positive match. there is no date marking or any marking I can positively match up with. The bullet itself was spitzer pointed, FMJ with lead core...there were two type of metal jackets, one looked like copper alloy or brass and the other was silver-ish..
more later,,,Im going to dig some powder out
thanks all

OK,,,,the powder IS the long stick cordite type....Im going to soak it and dispose of it....

[madsenshooter]

Most of the websites I briefly looked at said it would be impossible to cover all headstamps because the cartridge was made so many different places. The 2 left cartridges have Arabic writing, (I get to see a lot of it at work, we have a group of coworkers from Yemen) could be Iraqi or some other Arabic nation. Eventually someone will come along that will know. I can't remember what disolves cordite, seems like it was acetone.

[StarMetal]

Cordite is very stable powder. The WWI ammo had was in good shape so it's appearance didn't leave me with doubts to firing it. Every bit of it fired. I believe the British, maybe others, used Cordite in their Naval cannons. The stuff smells bad when burned. If you take on one of those little strands and light it with a match it takes quite a few seconds for it to burn from end to end.

Joe

[bruce drake]

The two on the left are Iraqi and the one on the right (POF) is Pakistani Ordnance Factory.

Hope that helps.

Bruce

[Gerry N.]

Two years ago a friend gave me two plywood arsenal boxes of South African .303 Mk7ammo, each containing 288 rounds in 32 round pasteboard boxes. He didn't want to shoot it because he was scared sh*tless it might have corrosive priming. He was right. It is corrosive, it's also mercuric and not only that, but some of the most accurate milsurp ammo I've ever shot.

I broke a round down to find a wad under the bullet and a load of cordite under the wad. Yes, the stuff stinks when you shoot it. Too bad it's Berdan primed though, throwing brass away is against everything all three drops of my Scottish blood stands for.

My 1944 LB #4MkI* really likes it.

Gerry N.

[stubshaft]

I'd throw the brass away as I haven't seen a source for berdan primers lately. Other than that I would shoot it to empty it first

[NickSS]

I have shot thousands of rounds of British cordite loaded 303s in my life (I used to get them for 3 cents a round when I was a kid and the dealer let me do my own counting as he could not be bothered). Also some of the first ammo I ever loaded was berdan primed 303. I could not find berdan primers but had several hundred bullets that were once fired into snow and then picked up off the ground. I primed the unsized brass with winged musket caps with the wings cut off and loaded the cases to the middle of the neck with black powder and stuck the once fired bullets on top. I crimped them in place with a pair of electricians side cutters. Every one of them fired and I even hit the 100 yard target regularly after finding out that I had to elevate the sight to 600 yard mark. Oh the caps burned through at the firing pin and both flash holes.

[higgins]

If you shoot the old .303 ammo, expect some hangfires. Various .303 ammo has been stored, often improperly, all over the third world for several decades. The hangfire problem originates with the primers. As stated previously, cordite is very stable. Since I'm retired and have too much time on my hands, I "reloaded" about 80 rounds of hangfire cordite into new cases and primers by pulling the bullet, picking out the wad, and tapping the case mouth on a hard surface until a few strands stick up where you can grab them with tweezers or forceps. Once you pull out a few the rest will fall out. I put the cordite in new cases after reducing the charge 10% by counting the sticks. As I said, it's time consuming but it's better than throwing away good powder, and it's good enough for plinking ammo. Since you've probably got a variety of bullets and cordite, I wouldn't expect any great accuracy.

Also as stated above, it's corrosive, so if you shoot it "as is", be sure and clean accordingly. There are a variety of methods that work, but I'm in the "must involve water to be effective" camp.

[Boz330]

Cordite will also erode the throat of you chamber if you shoot much of it. Scotch blood or not, to me that is false economy. I think if I wanted to reuse the brass and bullets I'd put regular smokeless in the case and go from there.
I have 2 Brit rifles with the throats eroded and I have to use a 316 cast boolit to fill the throat, even though the slugs are 313.

Bob

[TAWILDCATT]

I have 500 rds or more of Eyptian in 50 rd boxes and it looks the same.
if its in 50 rd boxes its for vickers, in 48 rd for bren and lewis, the rifle is on stripper clips. my boxes are clearly marked but their in the shop and its raining like mad.

[-06]

TA, I picked up a 303 recently. Interested in selling your ammo??? wc

[PAT303]

There is alot of old wives tales about .303 ammo and corrosive primers.In Oz we shot millions and millions of rounds of it without an issue,my Mk111 has fired at least 3000 of them and the bore is like new,mercury primers won't corrode the bore any differently than any other type of primer,it will just cause it to happen sooner.Any barrel will rust in humid weather and it has nothing to do with the primer,dry hot bare metal rust's quickly with moisture in the air. Pat

[JeffinNZ]

Mercuric primers are fine providing you clean properly afterwards.

Cordite however will 'wash' away your barrel not unlike a plasma torch. HAHA. You have to understand that cordite was the powder of the day and the military didn't care if rifles wore out.

[BruceB]

Actually, I believe the later primers (WW II, etc.) used chlorate rather than mercury. No matter, because chlorate-based primers are equally corrosive.

The cordite-fueled .303 Mk VII exhibits a VERY different barrel-wear pattern from that of the Mk VIIIz which used nitro-cellulose powder much like our current commercial IMR-style powders.

This difference in barrel wear pattern is so dramatically different that barrels for the Vickers MG which had been fired with cordite ammunition were NEVER to be used for overhead fire. Use of Cordite in the MGs led to unpredictable trajectories and impacts due to the wear pattern....not a good idea when firing over the heads of one's own people. Great efforts were made to ensure that the Vickers units were supplied with Mk VIIIz ammo....the "z" indicated nitro-cellulose powder.

As stated earlier, the only critical thing about using cordite-loaded ammo and corrosive primers is the early and proper cleaning of the rifle. Water-based solvents will positively dissolve the salts created on firing. My Dad used to tell me of his Infantry-training unit taking their #4 rifles INTO THE SHOWERS with them....this undoubtedly got the salts out of the rifles, but good grief...what about the bedding, etc.?

Cordite was loaded into the cases before the necking and final-forming operation, which is why the charge fits so tightly. I have no doubt that the card wad was used to fill the remaining airspace in order to stop any shifting of the charge.

Mk VII bullets, at least, have a lightweight component in the nose, under the jacket. I've seen both fiber and aluminum used for the insert. This allowed a longer bullet with higher ballistic co-efficient without a weight penalty, and also tended to de-stabilize the bullet after impact, with the denser base rotating around the lighter nose. I believe the same bullet was used in the Mk VIIIz ammo.

I've chronographed several different vintages of .303 Mk VII and Mk VIIIz ammunition. When fired from a STANDARD .303 rifle barrel of 25", they showed amazing consistency for having been loaded literally decades apart. The nominal velocity is supposed to be 2440 fps for the 174-grain bullet. My chrono work said that the REAL velocity from several different rifles was in the range of 2410-2450 fps. One reason that Cordite lasted so long as a propellant was that it stored very well over long periods in tropical climates. After firing some of it after 40 or 50 years' storage (or more!), I can surely see the reasoning.

[JeffinNZ]

BRUCE: There are still folks here using CAC (Coloniel Ammunition Company NZ) .303 ammo produced before the plant stopped making it in the late 50's. CAC 54-57 is highly prized and still shoots VERY well. I believe the POMS imported some into England for Bisley competition. That's right. Bludge of the colonies. I will have to check if the late CAC ammo is 'Z' marked.

[PAT303]

I watched a show on TV that showed divers collecting sticks of cordite from wrecks at sulva bay and even though it had been on the bottom of the sea for 80 years it burnt just fine,I've also seen mk7 ammo dug up from france and it fired and shot fine.Cordite burns very hot but it does work,as Jeff said it was the powder at the time but it did give excessive pressure in the desert which is why 303's have groove dia's over .312,they were made that way to cope with all the different conditions. Pat

[StarMetal]

Bruce,

My old 303 ammo is marked DA IV which I believe to have been made at Dominion Arsenal up in Canada. It has the nickle cupro round nose. Even the exposed lead core at the base of the bullet is marked DA.

Joe

[Texasflyboy]

The two on the left are Iraqi and the one on the right (POF) is Pakistani Ordnance Factory.

Second that. Have both of the same in my .303 stash.

[Ricochet]

I've pulled a bullet out of a 1940s (I don't have it now to check the headstamp) .303 British military round and found that overpowder wad over the Cordite. I remember it having a fabric-like pattern on the surface. I ended up firing it to get the wad and powder sticks out. (I was making a dummy round.) Like Joe said, the cases were primed and loaded before the bottleneck was formed.

[StarMetal]

I've pulled a bullet out of a 1940s (I don't have it now to check the headstamp) .303 British military round and found that overpowder wad over the Cordite. I remember it having a fabric-like pattern on the surface. I ended up firing it to get the wad and powder sticks out. (I was making a dummy round.) Like Joe said, the cases were primed and loaded before the bottleneck was formed.

John,

You described the wad that was in mine to a T. It was fabric like and kind of reminded me of, for lack of better description, like a old printed circuit board, but much softer.

My best friend and I use to use the cordite strings for fuses in our various black powder escapades. One would burn for 13 seconds. If we need more time we taped more strings of it together. I remember when you burn a string of it in the open air it leaves a residue on the surface of what it burned on that you couldn't easily get off. Definitely not an ash or carbon.

Joe

[PAT303]

The over powder wad had graphite imbedded in it to coat the bore to protect against throat erosion.Both cordite and the glycerine based nitro celulose powders burn at very high temps and ''wash out'' barrels.Almost all 303 ammo had them and the bullets had fillers made from aluminium,cane fibre,cardboard and kapok from coconuts,if they didn't the weight would be around 190grns. Pat

[StarMetal]

The over powder wad had graphite imbedded in it to coat the bore to protect against throat erosion.Both cordite and the glycerine based nitro celulose powders burn at very high temps and ''wash out'' barrels.Almost all 303 ammo had them and the bullets had fillers made from aluminium,cane fibre,cardboard and kapok from coconuts,if they didn't the weight would be around 190grns. Pat

Pat,

The cards in the ammo I had were brown and didn't have anything in them. They left nothing on your fingers and were not slippery. I even tore or cut some up to see their composition. Perhaps some other wads were used too such as you describe.

Joe

[Ricochet]

The wad I saw was brown and shiny.

The light filler material in the nose caused the bullets to be unstable on impact and tumble, causing much greater damage. We fired some of those into soft dirt. All that I found had tumbled sideways and disintegrated, leaving the pointy ogive with the hard aluminium (it was British) insert as the only intact remnant.

[StarMetal]

The wad I saw was brown and shiny.

The light filler material in the nose caused the bullets to be unstable on impact and tumble, causing much greater damage. We fired some of those into soft dirt. All that I found had tumbled sideways and disintegrated, leaving the pointy ogive with the hard aluminium (it was British) insert as the only intact remnant.

John,

I'm beginning to wonder if we had the same ammo. My card wad was shiny too.

Joe

[smlekid]

the MkVII and MkVIIz used the same bullet type 174gr flatbase the MKVIIIz used a boattail bullet which was only to be used in MG's I have spoken to a Korean vet who told me the MkVIIIz worked fine in there Mk111 rifles

[nicholst55]

I bought a bunch of .303 ammo from Sportsmen's Guide a few years ago - mostly '40s and 50s RG and Kynoch. I pulled down the worst of it to reuse the bullets, and wondered why I had problems obtaining enough neck tension to keep some of them in place. Then I miked all the bullets and found that some of them are only .306' diameter! No wonder they a) won't stay in place, and b) won't hit squat when they do fire!

Has anyone else encountered this?

[PAT303]

Pat,

The cards in the ammo I had were brown and didn't have anything in them. They left nothing on your fingers and were not slippery. I even tore or cut some up to see their composition. Perhaps some other wads were used too such as you describe.

Joe

Maybe they are just straight over powder wads,the graphite ones used to leave a black coating on the bore and like moly shooters either liked it or not.The graphite was never used with 4740 powder but during war time they could have done anything,production was the only concern. Pat

[Shiloh]

Free Mercury from mercuric primers amalgamate with the brass, rendering it useless. It will probably break if sized. Old black powder cases lasted a bit longer from the carbon residue of the burnt powder and the pressures were lower. The high pressures that smokeless propellant cartridges operate at, drive the now freed mercury deep into the brass.

Shiloh

[robertbank]

What Pat said. We still get lots of WW11 ammo up here and I just shoot it off. Stuff is very accurate or at least as accurate as the rifles will allow. The Cdn. Rangers still carry the LE #4, although rumour has it the guns will be replaced relatively soon by a bolt actioned rifle in .308. Some say the Remington. I gues finding decent LE in volume is getting harder and harder along with parts issues.

Take Care

Bob

[StarMetal]

Maybe they are just straight over powder wads,the graphite ones used to leave a black coating on the bore and like moly shooters either liked it or not.The graphite was never used with 4740 powder but during war time they could have done anything,production was the only concern. Pat

Pat,

Probably true with the war going on. No doubt lots of variations. These cards were just that, over the powder cards.

By the way I pulled one of the bullets when my wife and I first were married and drilled a small hole sideways through it to put it on her keychain. It's still there after over 30 some years. She liked it from day one because she liked guns & stuff, and it's a bright shiny bullet being nickle cupro jacketed.

Joe

[PAT303]

I wish I had a wife like that.I anneal old .303 cases before resizing,we still shoot alot of 303 wildcats here,25/303's are very popular and if you size without annealing they split on the first firing,anneal first and then size or reload if staying 303 and they last for a long time. Pat

[PAT303]

I bought a bunch of .303 ammo from Sportsmen's Guide a few years ago - mostly '40s and 50s RG and Kynoch. I pulled down the worst of it to reuse the bullets, and wondered why I had problems obtaining enough neck tension to keep some of them in place. Then I miked all the bullets and found that some of them are only .306' diameter! No wonder they a) won't stay in place, and b) won't hit squat when they do fire!

Has anyone else encountered this?

We had great amounts of South African 303 ammo here once and the crimp need's to be seen to be believed,it was so deep you could not get rid of it after resizing the case,it wasn't at the top but half way down the neck.It was deep enough that I'm sure it raised pressures as alot of people had trouble with it getting stuck in the chamber after firing. Pat

[stubshaft]

We had great amounts of South African 303 ammo here once and the crimp need's to be seen to be believed,it was so deep you could not get rid of it after resizing the case,it wasn't at the top but half way down the neck.It was deep enough that I'm sure it raised pressures as alot of people had trouble with it getting stuck in the chamber after firing. Pat


I bought a bunch of those at a gun show. They were almost as bad as the old stake crimp. Ended up shooting it in my 2 groove MK 5 and throwing the cases away.