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Dummy rounds?

ajf.350d

Well-Known Member
Looking on Specialist Auctions and egun notice several items listed as dummy rounds.
For example:
http://egun.de/market/item.php?id=3188680

What exactly are dummy rounds?
Are they genuine rounds produced for the military, presumably for training/classroom use, or are they made purely as a 'collectors' item, such as the items found in museum shops etc?
The cases look genuine, so is it just the projectile that is the 'dummy'?

Thanks again for any advice :)

Andrew
 
Andrew

Dummy or Drill rounds are made for all sorts of reasons. Training, function testing, testing machinery operations, gauging, etc. There are also some that are made for collectors or as souviners for special occasions. They are usually made from reject cases and bullets so they are as "genuine" as you can get without being live. Inert cartridges are similar but are typically live rounds that have had the powder removed and the primer removed or rendered safe. These are made by collectors who cannot legally possess live rounds.

Ray
 
From a Canadian Military perspective:

DUMMY AMMUNITION - Inert ammunition items that are representative of operational or practice items in that they conform generally in size, shape and weight. They do not contain explosives. They may be empty or be filled with inert material and may be constructed of materials different from those of the items they represent. Dummy ammunition is used for instruction and for training in assembly and disassembly, handling, loading and unloading weapons, cycling weapon feed systems, throwing grenades, mine laying, preparing demolition charges, placing booby traps, and other similar drills. It is not designed for projection by an explosive charge or by mechanical means. Dummy ammunition is coloured bronze and is marked conspicuously in two places with the word "DUMMY" in black. Where it is not practicable to apply body colour or other means of positive identification, dummy items may have holes drilled or fluting placed in the areas normally containing explosives. When space permits, these items are also metal stamped or stencilled "DUMMY" in black or white lettering as appropriate for the particular background. Dummy ammunition was formerly classified as drill ammunition.

DISPLAY AMMUNITION - Inert ammunition items that are representative of operational or practice items in that they conform in size, shape and appearance, and are colour coded and marked to simulate their operational or practice counterparts. They do not contain explosives. They may be full section, cut-away or sectioned to expose internal arrangements of component parts. Display ammunition is used for instruction purposes and for display, eg, in museums. It is never used for drill. Display ammunition is marked conspicuously in black or white with the word INERT. This marking is generally at right angles to the other markings. Where appropriate, the word INERT may be metal stamped in lieu of being stencilled.

The cartridge shown on the link you provided would be considered Display Ammunition since it has colour coding on the projectile. The military generally has a large quantity of Dummy Ammunition so soldiers can practice various skills such as loading there rifle magazines, laying mines, etc. They generally have a very limited number of Display Ammunition which are held at training facilities and some units for refresher training. Often Display Ammunition costs much more than the live item. When I was in the infantry we had several hundred Dummy 5.56mm cartridges to practice loading magazines, machine gun drills, etc, but we only had one or two Display cartridges representing ball, tracers, armour piercing, etc which they used to test us on colour recognition.
 
. . .The cartridge shown on the link you provided would be considered Display Ammunition since it has colour coding on the projectile. . .

Ammocat

I can't read any of the description on the ad, but I would assume that the cartridge shown is being advertised for collection purposes and is more likely what I would describe as Inert. Collectors do not usually use the term "Display" to describe their cartridges. JMHO, and I'm probably being nit-picky.

Ray
 
Andrew

Dummy or Drill rounds are made for all sorts of reasons. Training, function testing, testing machinery operations, gauging, etc. There are also some that are made for collectors or as souviners for special occasions. They are usually made from reject cases and bullets so they are as "genuine" as you can get without being live. Inert cartridges are similar but are typically live rounds that have had the powder removed and the primer removed or rendered safe. These are made by collectors who cannot legally possess live rounds.

Ray

Ah!Ray your post brings me nicely into this query and I think you are the chap who would know! there were a small series of dummy/drill 7.62 Nato rounds made for workers of FA with the begining and end of the factory? for the life of me I cannot remember what they were called:hmmmm:
Anyway where any of these made with a 'de-milled' head/headstamp?you can just about see the remains of a headstamp
Cheers
Tonyus drill 762.JPGP2280002.JPG
 
Tony

Those dummy cartridges were labeled "Commemorative". They were headstamped FA 1816 (+) 1977. They are found both chrome plated and unplated, and with drilled holes and without holes. Among collectors they are known as 7.62mm Tombstone Dummies.

I have never seen one with the headstamp milled away and since that would completely destroy their purpose I would doubt that Frankford Arsenal would have done that. But, those cartridges were manufactured at the time that Frankford was being shut down and they ran into several problems with their production. So, I guess anything could have happened.

There were also chrome plated souvenir dummies given to shooters at the 1967 National Matches. They also had two holes drilled in the case and were headstamped LC 67 NM.

I wonder if your cartridge is not one privately made for some other purpose such as a key ring or simply a souvenir? The primer and sharp shoulder seem to indicate it was made from a fired case and maybe the headstamp was removed to hide its origin, maybe for copyright purposes or some other legal reason?

Just a guess on my part.

Ray
 
Last edited:
Many thanks Ray,
Tombstone yes that's the one,thanks for the memory jog,seem to remember there were also a few rescued ones from the scrap bin without bullets or chrome,scraped because the headstamp was too shallow to be seen clearly after they had been chromed.
Had this one for a while and It came in a icecream tub full of SAA bits and bobs,paid 5.00 for the lot and couldn't wait to get home with because of the 1918 13mm T-Gew round in it!

Cheers
Tony
 
The story is that Frankford ran out of the good dummies, and they had already shut down the machinery to make 7.62mm cases, so they slavaged those that were discarded and used them too. It's ironic that they are now probably more valuable the perfect ones.

Ray
 
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