Finn capture Imperial Russian ammo can

[917601]

I purchased a few of these SA marked captured Russian riveted ammo cans and filled the 200 round Maxim belts with 1933-1940 dated Finn 7.62x54R VRT marked rounds....the belts are 14 ft long, packed in cosmoline ( a messy job cleaning out the cosmoline).Internet info on the cans is very general. One riveted can is marked 1916, the other two are riveted with no dates. Any information on the cans, when were the riveted ones discontinued? When was the cloth belt design dropped in favor of metal? In any case, I assembled them as an unusuall display for my gun room. I am hoping the 30's dated rounds can be considered historically " correct". Lastly, I can find no pictures of " starter tabs" which I assume are missing from these belts. Many thanks. See pics.

 

[Slick]

http://blackrivermilitaria.com/belts.html

http://www.smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=1511

Maybe find a starter tab via the above links.

*UPDATE*After looking through a few online sites I'm beginning to think that your examples never had starter tabs.

 

[Tmine35]

The metal belts are Finnish. They never had any starter tabs. During WW2 Russia still used a lot of canvas belts. Finns started to use metal belts in 1930's. However we still made canvas belts during WW2, due to production problems.

The riveted cans without date can be early Finnish as well. We had different types of cans.

 

[917601]

Thanks for the replies. So, I can take it the belts loaded with my 1933-1940 VRT 7.62x54R cartridges is historically correct?

 

[Tmine35]

Definitely historically correct. In WW2 Finns used the same.

Just one point: in Maxim Finns used heavy ball, not the light ball which often are nickel color.