Unknown ammo clip found

Hi all,

last weekend I found this ammo clip in Germany. Can anybody please ID it? I think it is from WW2.

The 8 cartridges are empty though non-fired. Calibre is some 6.85 mm / 0.27".

Regards,
Thorsten

 

Looks like an en-bloc clip from a U.S. M1 Garand rifle.
The only caliber .30 cartridges I've seen with that much roll crimp on the mouths are blanks.

JT

How did you measure the caliber at .27?

 

Agree that the clip definitely appears to be M1 Garand.

 

Thanks guys!

@jacobtowne: I used a digital caliper. Does "blank" mean that the cartridge had no bullet and was just used for exercise purposes?

Greetings,
Thorsten

 

Yes, it makes a bang but there is no projectile. What I meant by my question is what dimension did you measure?
JT

 

Hello jacobtowne,

as no projectile was available I determined the calibre by measuring the inner diameter of the cartridge opening. We call it "cartridge mouth" in Germany.

Just had a closer look at the cartridges. The cartridge mouth is bent slightly inwards so the diameter decreased. There are traces of red color in the cartridge mouths. Some cartridges even contained small red disks, apparently made of wood or thick paper and painted red. These disks are some 7.5 mm in diameter and some 0.6 mm thick. Can you confirm blanks were constructed that way? To sum it up, I think the cartridges in the clip were indeed blanks and these small red disks were used to seal the cartridges.

Apart from the cartridges in the clip I found several single cartridges. None contained a bullet. Most were unfired. One cartridge had the firing cap removed and was exploded. A big hole is gaping in its side. Maybe it was exposed to fire.

One single cartridge was fired. This cartidge had a calibre of 7.6 mm and a length of 63 mm so it meets the specs for the Garand given in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garand . Stamped into the bottom of the fired cartridge there are 4 letters with a 90 degree angle between them. They are "T", "W", "I", "S". This fired cartridge shows no red color and the mouth is hardly bend inwards so I think it belonged to a real bullet.

The bottom marking of the fired cartridge differs from those of the non-fired cartridges. They show "EW 42" or "FW 42". As 42 is probably the production date they belong to WW2.

The occurence of both blanks and fired live catridges is somewhat mysterious. US Soldiers in WW2 had hardly taken blanks into action. US soldiers on a post war manouvre had not fired a real bullet (I hope) at this place outside any military training ground.

Regards,
Thorsten

 

Hello Thorsten:

Yes. I have a full clip of .30 blanks for the Garand rifle, and the case mouths are sealed with red lacquered discs.

Headstamps:
EW is Eau Claire Ordnance Plant. 42 is 1942.

TW would be Twin Cities Ordnance plant. The other two figures should be numbers indicating the year of manufacture.

The inward roll or bend in the case mouths is a crimp to hold the disc in place. Measuring the inside diameter of a crimped case mouth will not yield accurate information as to caliber.

Those sound like nice finds.

By the way, here are the dimensions of the .30-'06 case. They're English system, so you'll have to convert to metric.

Neck diameter - .340
Shoulder diameter - .441
Base diameter - .470
Rim diameter - .473
Case length - 2.49

JT

 

I should add that my blanks have headstamps from various plants and years such as DM 45 (Des Moines Ordnance Plant 1945), LC 44 and 45 (Lake City), and SL42 (Saint Louis).

I also have one stamped TW55 - Twin Cities 1955.

JT

 

Thanks for the info jacobtowne! Another find identified.

Greetings,
Thorsten

 

Some more recent finds are shown here

http://www.ww2forums.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000495