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.450 Maxim Box - Can anyone confirm?

Millsman

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I bought this box a couple of years ago and at first thought it may have been a high capacity .303 box for the Royal Flying Corps as it is two inches deeper than a standard .303 box and the leather handle is on the end not the lid. Some pals on another forum have said its a .450 Maxim or Gatling box and the round guide image on the floor of the box is the right shape for the Maxim / Gatling round. The Royal Flying Corps did some tests with the .450 Maxim but found it unsuitable for aerial use.

The box could date from the 1890s through to about 1915 and I wonder if it was left over from the RFC tests.

Has anyone seen one before?
 

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Well it certainly looks like the box in the image, to bad we can't see the lid -
But now we can. Yours seems the same except the white arrow is on the lid of these, not
the bottom which seems very odd ?
From "The Devils Paintbrush" Dolf L. Goldsmith.
(The Royal Armories might be intersted in it for thier collection, I passed a box for the lightweight Maxim to them
a couple of yeatrs ago.)
 

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