Remington .50 BMG WW2 (British Contract)

[MissingSomething]

OK, so I picked up a nice Remington made '41 dated British contract round. I was talking to the old guy who told me a story about it... now... it has me wondering...

He told me that this round was painted green (tip) because it was designated for "training use only". He stated that the guy he got it from used to work in the Canadian Small Arms Training Center at Longbranch in Ontario, CAN. and that they got some of the British destined ammo to do quality control testing.

As far as I know the green tip indicates that it is AP and for use in aircraft / anti-aircraft. Any truth to the story?





I also got a nicely painted .50 Vickers round as well with the same story...
This has some nice stab crimps as opposed to the usual point crimp.

 

[TonyE]

I will post the same reply here as I posted to you on the IAA forum.

The green tip on the British contract .50 BMG looks very suspicious to me. All the similar rounds I have seen use a much darker green and nowhere near as neatly applied. Having said that, the tip is reminiscent of some of the Canadian .50 Vickers rounds made at Three Rivers (see below).

"TR" is the monogram of Three Rivers Arsenal in Canada. They used "universal" cases on .50 Vickers so that the same cases could be used for any load. The same concept was used for the "DI Z" .303 cases. Your round with the blue tip is an Incendiary B Mark IZ.

Picture attached of other examples and also of typical tip marking on the British Browning AP.

Regards
TonyE

 

[MissingSomething]

Thanks for the repy..... I have not seen any other .50 BMG tips in green so I have no idea.... I was given the story that they were painted for "training use". I would have thought it odd that they would paint then after the fact for training.

It does appear that the paint is original as tumbling and cleaning would have taken the primer color off as well...

The .5 vickers round actually has green paint.. it may look blue because of the photo and lighting.

Both together, .5 vickers left, .50 BMG right: