.303 surplus ammo....Kinda interesting

[JeffinNZ]

IIMO, Brit primer technology was markedly inferior in long term storage capability compared
to US military or US commercial. Bill

Which is an interesting observation when you consider how incredibly well the CAC 1950's vintage NZ manufactured ammo is still shooting and I imagine that CAC were running on British components.

Of course it's worth considering that GI ammo was not being made for long term storeage at the time. It's life expectancy was pretty short.

[bruce drake]

I have LOTS of .303 ammo that hangfires, misfires, etc. Thousands of rounds to pull down
for bullets, sad to say.

IMO, Brit primer technology was markedly inferior in long term storage capability compared
to US military or US commercial. I have shot a lot of really old ammo and by far
the most unreliable priming is British or British territories (Pakistan, for example) where
I assume (may be wrong) the Pakistanis are running old British ammo plants.

Bill

Bill,

I'll be in the Kansas City area in mid June. PM me and we can discuss what it would take for me to take those surplus rounds off your hands.

Bruce

[Stephen Cohen]

I should have included in my above post that when I snapped the primers on the "hangfire" cases before I tossed them in the scrap bucket, it was obvious why they were hangfires. They were no louder than a toy cap, and some even made more of a fizzing sound than a pop. Whatever may have been lacking in the priming compound probably wasn't helped by possibly improper storage of ammo loaded in England and sent to some countries with hot or damp climates. I'll bet .303 surplus imported from Great Britain, Canada, or Australia (hot but probably properly stored) was more surefire than that imported from some of the other countries.

I was still useing 303 ammo dated 1944 to 45, when shooting military shoots back in 1972, clubs were gov sponsored back then and cant say I ever had a misfire, the ammo came in cans packed in bandolers and was pristine condition. I dont remember the markings but I do remember some ammo was for machine guns alone and were too hot for rifle use.

[Multigunner]

I was still useing 303 ammo dated 1944 to 45, when shooting military shoots back in 1972, clubs were gov sponsored back then and cant say I ever had a misfire, the ammo came in cans packed in bandolers and was pristine condition. I dont remember the markings but I do remember some ammo was for machine guns alone and were too hot for rifle use.

I'd heard that Australia prohibited use of MkV8z ammunition in their Lithgow No.1 rifles. I've seen many claim that MG ammo was not loaded to a pressure any greater than that for infantry rifles, but the acceptable chamber pressure standards seem to have been much wider for MG ammo due to the sturdy mechanism of the MGs in use at the time.

The British had at one time prohibited use of Mk8z in the No.4 rifle, but this was most likely due to extremely poor accuracy of the boat tail bullet from a barrel whose throat was eroded by previous use of Cordite. The Smokeless Powder used for Mk8z and Mk7z don't give enough initial punch to bump up a milspec FMJ bullet very well, and boat tail bullets bump up through acceleration rather than application of force on the small exposed lead base. Boat tails bump up near the middle of the bullet rather than expanding from the base forwards. Less bearing surface is also a factor.

Mk7z is still manufactured by the Indian Ordnance factory, for use in BREN guns and Vickers guns still in their military's inventory, but is ordinarily not available to civilian .303 owners.

Also I've run across mentions of suspect Australian milspec ammo being broken down and reloaded using fresh primers. They would examine cordite drawn from the cases and discard any darkened strands. Any darkened strands were replaced and a over the charge wad carefully inserted before the bullet was re seated.
Sometimes remanufactured .303 ammo was reloaded without replacing the card wad, these could burn out an MG bore very quickly.

I ran across records of money being appropriated by the Canadian house of commons for the remanufacture of millions of rounds of .303 ammo given to Canada by Britian. The ammo as received was found to be defective in some way and was judged unsafe to fire.
Remington had to recall and reprime hundreds of millions of .303 ammo during WW2 because primers supplied by a sub contractor were defective. Could be the same ammo Britain gave to Canada.
Not sure but I think the primer cups were too soft and blew out. There was a U S Congressional hearing over this and other bad ammo produced during WW1.

CAC ammo has a very good rep.

[PAT303]

I have LOTS of .303 ammo that hangfires, misfires, etc. Thousands of rounds to pull down
for bullets, sad to say.

IMO, Brit primer technology was markedly inferior in long term storage capability compared
to US military or US commercial. I have shot a lot of really old ammo and by far
the most unreliable priming is British or British territories (Pakistan, for example) where
I assume (may be wrong) the Pakistanis are running old British ammo plants.

Bill

Many many times British 303 ammunition has been dug up from French fields after 90 years underground and fired without issue,allot of cordite has been brought up from the sea and burned just as intended so I'd say British ammunition was as good a quality as ammunition could be. Pat

[PAT303]

We used Mk8Z ammo in our rifles without a problem,we used to trade Mk8 ammo for Mk7 ammo on the ranges as some blokes thought Mk8 shot better at 1000yards because of it's BT spitzer.My No4 shot heaps of it,I used to take the tip off and it expanded like soft points,the fibre tipped Mk7's were like a fragile varmit bullet with the nose removed. Pat

[303Guy]

Perhaps it was the storage conditions that were more favourable with buried ammo. No extreme heat or cold. But 90 year old ammo that hasn't split the necks? Does temperature swing play a major role in neck embrittlement? Not all old cartridges split their necks prior to firing and some split on firing But some do split prior to firing. That won't affect the cordite due to the bitumen sealed wad.

[Stephen Cohen]

Another interesting round we had as young lads, was armour piecing ammo, it would punch a hole through an axe head but very hard on barrels.

[NuJudge]

Several years ago A dealer in Florida had a lot of 1937 Greenwood and Bateley .303, on clips, in these little crates. I opened one and shot some of it. There were slight hangfires, which did not bother me. The neat thing about it was the clips it came on: in the first box I opened, there were Mk III, II, and even one Mk I clip. I've seen idiots buy a Mk I clip for $50 on auction sites.

All the rims were stacked, not the three-up, two-down I expected.

I wish I'd bought a lot more of it.

[3006guns]

I just had a similar experience with about 400 rounds of .303 that had been stored for many, many years. We shot about 50 rounds and most went off....but were the most inaccurate ammo I've ever fired in my life. We were using two Enfields of proven reliability but our groups looked more like patterns at 100 yards. Had several hangfires and a few that simply didn't do anything.........counted to 30 before ejecting those.

We finally pulled the remaining rounds down in order to salvage the bullets. Most of the cordite was burned off but we saved enough for demonstration purposes in the future. What a pity.........that ammo was a good bargain back in 1967!

[Multigunner]

Cartridges left exposed to the elements for decades would not be fireable no matter who made them, brass can corrode even sitting on a shelf for decades and often if still in its orignal box.

Ammunition cases if unopened might protect buried ammo for decades, and under ground it would stay cool.

I've heard of cordite charges or quick firing gun cartridges being brought up from the sea bottom and still burning if ignited.
One major advantage of cordite was it was water proof, but unfortunately that meant fire suppression systems had little effect if a ship's magazine caught fire. Several british and japanese ships blew up because of this.
The single base powder used by the U S N had to be kept dry, but a fire in the magazine could be put out if handled promptly.
Also Cordite cooks off pretty quick compared to single base powder. The British had to redesign a Colt aircraft MG for use with Cordite ammo, they switched it from closed bolt to open bolt because of cook offs when the barrel got hot from extended firing.

[lemming]

Multigunner -

You wrote -

"Surplus MkVII bullets are at this time used to manufacture a match grade .303 ammunition for use in UK military service rifle matches."

I'm in the UK, and would dearly love to get a supply of .303 ammo loaded with Mk VII bullets, since my No 4 shoots Mk VIIs extremely well but sprays boat-tails (used in all commercially loaded 303 ammo available in the UK) all over the place. Since I used up the last of my Kynoch remanufactured South African surplus, my scores in 303 matches have gone all to pieces.

So, can you please tell me who you were referring to? I'd like to put some business their way!

[PAT303]

At the Melbourne Olympics the Australian shooters used P14 rifles fitted with Oz made Slazenger barrels loaded with Mk7 bullets without cores,just the jackets to shoot the free style event.A well know American shooter used one of our rifles after the event to shoot a five shot group at 200 yards that measured 5/8 of an inch. Pat

[Multigunner]

Multigunner -

You wrote -

"Surplus MkVII bullets are at this time used to manufacture a match grade .303 ammunition for use in UK military service rifle matches."

I'm in the UK, and would dearly love to get a supply of .303 ammo loaded with Mk VII bullets, since my No 4 shoots Mk VIIs extremely well but sprays boat-tails (used in all commercially loaded 303 ammo available in the UK) all over the place. Since I used up the last of my Kynoch remanufactured South African surplus, my scores in 303 matches have gone all to pieces.

So, can you please tell me who you were referring to? I'd like to put some business their way!

I read of these recently in a online issue of a UK shooters magazine.
They use surplus MkVII bullets, not pulled down bullets bought from a former supplier of Military Ball ammo. I don't remember what company made the bullets.

One odd choice of components was the use of Seller & Bellot cases which are widely considered the worst .303 cases out there, at least for reloading purposes.

I may be confusing the Kynamco blended powder with the powder used in these loads, but then again Kynamco may be the company loading these.
Kynamco took over the remains of Kynoc's business and manufactures many sporting cartridges that use blended powders to duplicate the pressure levels, barrel time, and other properties of the original Cordite loadings of those cartridges. This division of Kynamco mainly specializes in obsolete double rifle cartridges and similar African Game cartridges for classic British sporting rifles.

The Military match grade MkVII ammo, really a MkVIIz ammo, shouldn't be hard to find if its still in production.


PS
The ammo I read of is obviously not Kynamco MkVII Matchgrade. Kynamco's so-called MkVII Matchgrade actually uses the SMK boatail bullet, which makes it at best a Mk8z clone.
http://www.new-kynoch.apt-sites.com/

I'll see if I can find the article about the true MkVII bulleted ammo.


Looks like Kynamco may or may not have the MkVII bulleted ammo.

I found this

Kynamco .303
MkVII 174gr FMJ

Load data printed on the box :
Powder charge 39.3 grns
Sellier and Bellot Case
Bullet - 174 gr RO
Primer Boxer
Velocity : Muzzle 2489 ft/sec and 100mts 2406 ft/sec
Energy : Muzzle 2400 ft/lbs and 100mts 2238 ft/lbs

Not sure but "RO" may mean Royal Ordnance.

[lemming]

Multigunner -

Many thanks! That's exciting news. I've been using Kynamco's remanufactured South African surplus for the last 5 years or so - used up my last box at the end of last season - and was considering selling the rifle because I could no longer get ammo; nothing with a boat-tail bullet works worth a light in my no 4.

I'll contact Kynamco and see what they say

Thanks again!

[303Guy]

Bullet - 174 gr RO
Primer Boxer
Velocity : Muzzle 2489 ft/sec

That's curious. Technically that would be out of spec and shouldn't match the sight graduations. Standard Mk VII velocity is 2440fps. I'm wondering why they would have done that.

Multigunner, you say the boat tail makes it at best a Mk VIII but surely the boat tail is not what qualifies it. South African Mk VIII did not have a boat tail and weight 175gr but it did produce a higher muzzle velocity. It wasn't called Mk VIII either, it was R1M2 but it's velocity was quite a bit higher.

[bruce drake]

Multigunner -

Many thanks! That's exciting news. I've been using Kynamco's remanufactured South African surplus for the last 5 years or so - used up my last box at the end of last season - and was considering selling the rifle because I could no longer get ammo; nothing with a boat-tail bullet works worth a light in my no 4.

I'll contact Kynamco and see what they say

Thanks again!

I own a Winchester P14 and I saw the difference in results between a Flatbase and Boattail this weekend when I went from a 2 inch group with a 150gr Flatbase bullet to a 6 inch group with the 174gr Sierra MatchKing...

[Multigunner]

That's curious. Technically that would be out of spec and shouldn't match the sight graduations. Standard Mk VII velocity is 2440fps. I'm wondering why they would have done that.

Multigunner, you say the boat tail makes it at best a Mk VIII but surely the boat tail is not what qualifies it. South African Mk VIII did not have a boat tail and weight 175gr but it did produce a higher muzzle velocity. It wasn't called Mk VIII either, it was R1M2 but it's velocity was quite a bit higher.

It depends on whether the original muzzle velocity specs were actually at the muzzle or a distance from the muzzle. I've seen muzzle velocity specs for other cartridges that have a side note that states the velocity reading was taken at 25 feet from the muzzle.
If Kynamco used a very different method of measuring velocity than that used back in the day, there might be a recognized difference.
Could also be a typo by the guy who posted those specs.

He later broke down some rounds to be sure of the bullet type and his photos show the classic MkVII bullet of WW2 manufacture, with crimping groove rather than the earlier staking groove.

Another poster said that Kynamco bought 250,000 NOS bullets from Radway Green, but had used all these up by now.



The Mk8z ammo is designated by the bullet type. The Mk8z bullet is a solid lead core boat tail bullet. Original specs call for a stepped boat tail which some manufacturers have begun making again in recent years as if it was a new invention. More like rediscovered.
The z is a sideways N that denotes Nitro-Cellulous powder as opposed to the Cordite used by the MkVII, ammo that has a MkVII bullet and single base nitro-cellulous powder is MkVIIz.
Near as I can tell ammo with a solid lead core but otherwise the same as MkVIIz is listed as Mk7z by the Indian Ordnance factory.

[MtGun44]

Not trying to be mean about Brit ammo, and the particular batch that is a burr under my
saddle now is made in Pakistan, and probably unfair to blame the Brits, although my
assumption (you know what they say about "assume") is that the Pakistanis made it
on British machinery to their specs, but maybe not.

Also, clearly storage conditions are a critical factor.

That said. I have been buying surplus military ammo since the middle 1960s and have
bought a LOT. Sad to say, it is a long term observation that a very large percentage of
the .303 ammo has been unreliable due to priming failures. Real British ammo, and
that made in Pakistan, both. I also have a small batch of old Italian ammo that seems
to be fine, and a BUNCH of American, Yugo, Romanian, German and Portugese ammo
from 1940s on in stock and it all works fine. I burned up a bunch of WW2 ammo over the
years, mostly US made and it all went bang at about 100%.

I always wondered if the British ammo was made under some duress or maybe to emergency
standards that somehow affected the primer life.

Just my observation.

Maybe the Aussies and NZ folks are smart enough to keep all the good batches and send
the crappy old misfiring stuff to us stupid Americans?

Bill

[lemming]

British-made 303 surplus is definitely starting to show its age. At our club, we call it flintlock ammo (click-fizz-boom) Hangfires are the norm, not the exception. Even our club champion, who's been using Radway Green since the 50s, has now switched to Partizan. (He still wins all the silverware...)

That said, if someone were to offer me a thousand rounds of the stuff at a penny a round, I wouldn't say no. You can always pull the bullet and reseat it in a modern Boxer-primed case ahead of a modest dose of BLC-2.