.45 contract labels

[TonyE]

In 1940 Britian took over a delivery of Thompson guns that had been ordered by France because France had fallen whilst the guns were in transit. Subsequently we ordered many more Thompsons ourselves.

Ammunition for these guns was ordered from Winchester, and whilst the early deliveries were probably packed in Winchester commercial boxes, later special packaging was used.

In addition to ball ammo, Winchester also supplied drill rounds with blackened cases and a heavy knurled cannelure round the case. Unfortunately, although I have the drill round, I do not have a label for it.

Regards
TonyE

[khanmak]

A nice collection of labels - the .50 info was particularly interesting!

I assume the early .50 ammunition was purchased specifically for the few early Flying Fortresses we purchased, cant think of any other weapon system that we had that used .50 that early in the war?

Cheers

Mark

[ydnum303]

Yes, all very nice, Tony, especially the .50 Calibre ones, which seem very difficult to find these days. The others seem to turn up fairly regularly, though (although the 9mm Proof box is hard to find).
Roger.

[TonyE]

Mark - yes, I guess that the early Fortresses among others were the reason for these purchases.

Roger - I am still looking for a Remington drill round box, but as you say, they are hard to find. What I am unsure about is whether there was a special "British" box for incendiary rounds. I know we purchased some but they may have been packed in US military boxes. The American incendiaries were not liked by the Ordnance Board which was why the priority was to develop the Spennymore loaded British incendiary which was a scaled up .303 B Mark VI, complete with small slder filled hole in the nose.

Cheers
TonyE

[Pietje]

Does some one know the size of the packages as posted by TonyE ?