This makes me wonder if these cases could have been reloaded many, many more times if they had been annealed after each firing thus preventing the work hardening of the necks.
The primer pockets were getting large and I was afraid of having alibi's due to dropped primers. That is why the last time I used these cases was during Rattle Battle at Camp Perry. If you are a competitive shooter, alibi's ruin your scores.
All of this has reminded me of what we used to do in an effort to make our M85 .50 cal machine guns run. The linked rounds were loaded into a tray in the TC cupola. Then we'd squirt 30wt engine oil all over them before we'd make a qualification run down Tank Table 8. We never blew up a machine gun.
There are many who would not believe you, or, would insist that pouring oil over those rounds would have "
unpredictably and dangerously raised pressures and bolt thrust. These people, whom I call Hatcherites have raised Townsend Whelen and Gen Hatcher to God hood and implicitly believe as infallible, these statements these men made
This is what Townsend Whelen said in 1945
“Small Arms Design”, 1945, Townsend Whelen
Pg 332
Cartridges should never be greased or oiled, and the bullets should never be greased. Grease on the cartridge or in the chamber creates excessive and hazardous pressure. It operates to reduce the size of the chamber and thus increases the density of loading and the pressure. Also there is no adhesion of the case in the chamber, and when fired the case slips back easily and the bolt head receivers a greater rearward thrust. This does not apply to rim fire cartridges.
There is an variant of a section in
Hatcher's Notebook where he claims that
1. Grease increased the bolt thrust dangerously; and 2.as if that weren't enough, grease increased the chamber pressure dangerously. Hatcher wrote his book,
Hatcher's Notebook in 1948. This is after he was the Head of Ordnance in WW2 and built over 150,000 Oerikon machine cannon which used greased ammunition. Through my own research, I was able to find that Hatcher knew of oilers and the need for oilers.
Army Ordnance Magazine, March-April 1933
Automatic Firearms, Mechanical Principles used in the various types, by J. S. Hatcher. Chief Smalls Arms Division Washington DC.
Retarded Blow-back Mechanism………………………..
There is one queer thing, however, that is common to almost all blow-back and retarded blow-back guns, and that is that there is a tendency to rupture the cartridges unless they are lubricated. This is because the moment the explosion occurs the thin front end of the cartridge case swells up from the internal pressure and tightly grips the walls of the chamber. Cartridge cases are made with a strong solid brass head a thick wall near the rear end, but the wall tapers in thickness until the front end is quiet thin so that it will expand under pressure of the explosion and seal the chamber against the escape of gas to the rear. When the gun is fired the thin front section expands as intended and tightly grips the walls of the chamber, while the thick rear portion does not expand enough to produce serious friction. The same pressure that operates to expand the walls of the case laterally, also pushes back with the force of fifty thousand pounds to the square inch on the head of the cartridge, and the whole cartridge being made of elastic brass stretches to the rear and , in effect, give the breech block a sharp blow with starts it backward. The front end of the cartridge being tightly held by the friction against the walls of the chamber, and the rear end being free to move back in this manner under the internal pressure, either one of two things will happen. In the first case, the breech block and the head of the cartridge may continue to move back, tearing the cartridge in two and leaving the front end tightly stuck in the chamber; or, if the breech block is sufficiently retarded so that it does not allow a very violent backward motion, the result may simply be that the breech block moves back a short distance and the jerk of the extractor on the cartridge case stops it, and the gun will not operate.
However this difficultly can be overcome entirely by lubricating the cartridges in some way. In the Schwarzlose machine gun there is a little pump installed in the mechanism which squirts a single drop of oil into the chamber each time the breech block goes back. In the Thompson Auto-rifle there are oil-soaked pads in the magazine which contains the cartridges. In the Pedersen semiautomatic rifle the lubrication is taken care of by coating the cartridges with a light film of wax.
Blish Principle….There is no doubt that this mechanism can be made to operate as described, provided the cartridge are lubricated, …. That this type of mechanism actually opens while there is still considerable pressure in the cartridge case is evident from the fact that the gun does not operate satisfactorily unless the cartridges are lubricated.
Thompson Sub-Machine Gun: … Owing to the low pressure involved in the pistol cartridge, it is not necessary to lubricate the case.
“Blow-Forward” Mechanism: We have seen above (blowback mechanism)
that some method must be provided to hold the breech block against the barrel when the gun is fired, because otherwise the pressure of the powder gas pushing back on the cartridge case would drive the breech block back away from the barrel and let the cartridge out while the explosion was going on. With the blow-back gun the breech block is allowed to move in this manner, but is made heavy enough so that the movement does not occur too quickly.
Instead of allowing the breech block to move back, it would be quite possible to attach the stock and al the frame-work of the gun firmly to the breech block and then allow the barrel to move forward when the gun is fired instead of allowing the breech block to move back. Several automatic pistols, notably the Schwarzlose, have been constructed on this principle.
In 1917 an inventor appeared at Springfield Armory with a machine gun made to fire the Krag army cartridge, having the framework of the gun solidly fixed and the barrel loosely mounted so that it could move forward against the action of a spring when the gun was fired. This gun operated, but it was necessary to grease the cartridge case to prevent the front part of the case, expanded by the pressure, from sticking to the barrel as it moved forward.
One trouble with this system is that it greatly accentuates the recoil. The normal tendency of the explosion in the cartridge case is to push the bullet in one direction and the cartridge and breech block in the other. When there is no provision for locking the breech block to the barrel but instead it is attached to the framework and stock of the gun, and the barrel left loose, it is obvious that the explosion drives not only the breech block but the stock to which it is attached back against the shooter’s shoulder with a considerable amount of violence.
This inventor had besides his machine gun, a semiautomatic shoulder rifle built on this principle, though the mechanism was only crudely worked out. He demonstrated this gun by firing a number of shots with it and then allowed the Armory officials to fire it. I fired one or two shots with it and the kick was so terrific that I felt as though a mule had landed on of his hind feet on my shoulder. I seemed to be kicked back two or three feet from where I was standing and tears actually ran out of my eyes from the blow, which marvel as to how the inventor, who was a frail, pathetic looking man, managed to shoot it without any signs of discomfort. After showing his model he returned to a nearby factory to complete the mechanism but a few days later we were distressed to learn that he had taken his new gun and deliberately blown his head off with it. Probably the kick was too much for him after all.
that was written in 1933, and yet, I believe that all through his career, Hatcher believed the contradictory statements he made in 1948. Which to repeat are:
1. Grease increased the bolt thrust dangerously; and 2.as if that weren't enough, grease increased the chamber pressure dangerously. This is a good example of the infinite self deceit that humans will do to themselves to identify with, and fit in with a group. Hatcher knew better and yet, he did not know better.
Hatcherites of course, don't know anything but what Hatcher and Whelen told them, they don't know the history of firearms, not really, they could not design a locking mechanism. But they are certain that your pouring oil over 50 caliber rounds would be dangerous and irresponsible.
