How was .303 British clipped in chargers during WW2?

[clancey2651]

Our reenacting group does British Airborne, and we were trying to find some information on how the British used to load their charger clips with .303 ammo. I have seen a couple of photos where it showed first round back, next round forward, middle round back, next round forward, last round back.

We tried this with our blanks and the first charger fed fine, but the second charger puts the rim of its first round behind the last round loaded from the previous clip.

Can anyone provide any guidance to us here?

 

[TonyE]

Charger loading

It is as you say. The first, third and last rounds should have their rims touching the base of the charger and the second and fourth rounds should have their rims resting on top of the rims of the rounds on either side. thus:

_-_-_

That way when you load the ssecond charger it should all sort itself out.

Otherwise I can't offer much advice.

Regards
TonyE

 

[clancey2651]

We shall have to check it out and see what we are doing wrong then. It sounds like a case of operator error. We colonials don't always have a good grasp of stuff with moving parts you know.