8mm rounds from Arab country

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Bart Noir

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I find I own a 50-round belt of machine gun ammo, this being the WW2 German style of belt. The headstamps have Arabic symbols and numerals.

At first I thought I had 7.5 MAS made in Syria, since I knew that 7.5 French was made in Syria and I knew that the French copied the machine gun feed design from the MG42. So I assumed that they also copied the belt links.

But when I measured I found I have 7.9x57 rounds, also known as 8mm Mauser.

This is not Turkish ammo since this is not the Turkish script on the headstamps and certainly not the Western numerology that Turkey adopted after WW1. The cartridges are not old enough to be pre-Attaturk. The numbers on them translate as 58 or 75, depending on which side is up (I can’t yet figure this out).

So what is the story behind 8mm being made in an Arab country?

Bart Noir
 
The Arabs also used a number of firearms in 8mm; for example the Egyptians used both the FN-49 and Hakim in 7.92, and the Iranians built their own version of the Mauser bolt-action for a while. I'm sure they would have used whatever they could get, when it was available.
 
You are so right about a pic. I need to do that, after reading those stickies about how. Oh, first have to get a close up pic but that shouldn't be too hard. A vice, lots of light, and a macro setting, right?

Bart Noir
 
If you have a scanner, you should be able to get a decent pic of the headstamp by standing the round up on the glass, scanning it, then cropping it down to size.
 
Could very well be Syrian. I have both 7.5 MAS and 7.62 NATO from Syria, wouldn't surprise me if they made some 8mm also.
 
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