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.303 Rounds ?

siegfreid

HONOURED MEMBER RIP
Premium Member
Can anyone give me any information on these .303 rounds ? The top 4 are , I assume , wooden headed dummies with head stamps of R/|\L II & the inert round beneath has a head stamp of B15 VII . Thank you .

mvc-912s.jpg
 
The top four are the Dummy Dril Mark III which was introduced in 1903 and continued in service until WWI. Originally these rounds were tinned and later had the bullets dyed red. Reject cases were largely used so many different headstamps will be encountered. When the spitzer Ball Mark VII was introduce in 1910 a new pointed wood bulleted drill round was introduced as the Dummy Drill Mark IV with a pointed red wood bullet. It proved to be too fragile and so the Mark III was reintroduced until metal covered drill rounds were introduced later in the war.

Your fourth round appears to be one of the expedient wood bulleted blanks introduced during the war for practice with Lewis guns. These were never officially introduced but there is documentary evidence that they were used and are quite often encountered.

Regards
TonyE
 
Ah..I'm glad these have 'come up'....TonyE did they revert to useing natural (un coloured) wood bullets for these drill rounds during WWI? as I have a 1909 dated case with red wood bullet and a 1917 dated case with a natural coloured bullet,it's not a faded red bullet as curiosity did get the better of me and took it apart to check for this.(not recommended as they are a bugger to get back together again!)

Cheers
Tony
 
I have not found any documentary evidence that plain wood bullets were reverted to when the Drill Mark III was reintroduced, but I agree they do crop up now and then.

One can find Drill mark III rounds in just about any combination of tinned case, red or plain wood bullets and with and without holes in the case. The different versions would make a small collection in their own right!.

Regards
TonyE
 
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