Old ammo... can anyone identify?

[KelBench400]

Notice the .45ACP and 44Mag for scale

Not sure what is going on with these




Big rimfires?




Wooden bullets?



A bunch more unidentified rounds (third from right is a 44 Colt, which I have never heard of)

 

[Mt Shooter]

the triangular one is a tround

 

[KelBench400]

Thank you. I do seem to remember hearing that name at some point. Time for a Google search.

I expect some of the other rounds are very old. I have three rifle rounds that are headstamped with dates in the 1890s.

 

[foghornl]

I'm thinking those in the first pic are "pin-fire" rounds.

A bunch of rim-fire rounds

Never heard of .44Colt, either.

If you look at some of the Mil-Surp ammo sellers, there is some 7.62x54 Soviet ammo loaded with a wooden and/or plastic training round.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Where did you get all this?

 

[Jim K]

The first three are pin fires. The big ones are probably 12mm, the small one 7mm, but without measuring, I can't be sure.

The wood bullet blanks are, well, wood bullet blanks, very common in other countries. The wood bullet is hollow and has powder in it so will feed with no problem but will blow up on exit from the barrel.

The three-sided round is a "tround" made for the Dardick gun.

The other rimfires are various calibers. The one with a round ball in the case is likely a .32 Extra Short, made for guns like the Protector Palm Pistol, which needed a very short round.

The .44 Colt center fire was made for the Richards and Richards-Mason conversions of the 1860 Army; the .44 Colt rimfire was made for the 1872 open top revolver. 1863 (the quantity, not the model) Single Actions were made for the .44 Colt RF.

Jim

 

[Brad Johnson]

The three-sided round is a "tround" made for the Dardick gun.

Last I saw, trounds were going for around $50 a pop in unfired condition.

Brad

 

[mattsb2000]

http://www.gunbroker.com/auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=89791613

Interesting

 

[Wolfgang2000]

The wooden bullets look like old Jap rounds from late in WW2. Hard to tell without seeing the base.

 

[TexasRifleman]

The wooden bullets are blanks. There was a blank adapter, basically razor blades, that shredded the balsa bullets as they were fired.

I have fired them through a BAR so they were available in .30-'06 among other calibers.

 

[mekender]

the first 3 look kinda like the civil war era percussion cartridges, something like what a Maynard carbine would fire...

 

[KelBench400]

Where did you get all this?

My wife's father passed away a couple years ago. We recently went through some of the stuff he had stored in the basement. These all came out of a cookie tin that likely belonged to my wife's grandfather. He owned or worked in a gun shop. I've got a decent amount of random cartriges. I could identify most, but not these.


In the second picture, the base of the round furthest to the right says Paris on the bottom. Not sure if that's the manufacturer or the city.

 

[DF357]

The first 3 are pin fire, used during the Civil War in guns such as this French 13mm K. LeFaucheux.

 

[SDC]

Here's my best guesses, but you really need measurements and close-ups of any headstamp markings to be sure of any of these:

1st and 2nd picture, L-R: 12mm Long pinfire, 5mm or 7mm pinfire, 12mm pinfire; the two larger rounds may have some letters showing the initials of the manufacturers on the base.

3rd and 4th picture, L-R: I'd need measurements and case lengths to give even a close guess, but they look like a 56-50 and 56-52 Spencer, and 38 Extra Long Rimfire.

the 5th picture is of various wooden blanks (30 Carbine, 8mm Mauser and 6.5x55 Swedish), that are usually used for either salute firing or launching grenades.

the 6th and 7th pictures likewise show a bunch of cartridges that I'd need measurements of to be able to give a definite answer on, but the 9th and 10 cartridges from the left appear to be 32 RF shot and ball rounds; the shot bound has a hollow wooden bullet that contains shot, and it breaks apart when fired. The 12th round appears to be a 25 Stevens RF, with an expanding "copper-tube" bullet. The 44 Colt was introduced in 1871, and was Colt's version of the 44 S&W Special, but it's long obsolete. The big necked rimfire is a 41 Swiss, used in the Vetterli rifles, and the 38 Dardick tround you already know. Hope this helps some, and if you can get some measurements off the rest with a pair of calipers, we can let you know the rest.

 

[asknight]

Where did you get all this?

 

[VirgilCaine]

My wife's father passed away a couple years ago. We recently went through some of the stuff he had stored in the basement. These all came out of a cookie tin that likely belonged to my wife's grandfather. He owned or worked in a gun shop. I've got a decent amount of random cartridges. I could identify most, but not these.

Nifty.

 

[MilsurpShooter]

the picture you posted at 12:53pm, two on the right look like .45-70 Government. Usually fired by the 1800 series Springfield Trapdoor Rifle

 

[Wolfgang2000]

The wooden bullets are blanks. There was a blank adapter, basically razor blades, that shredded the balsa bullets as they were fired.

I have fired them through a BAR so they were available in .30-'06 among other calibers.
__________________

What you are saying may very well be true. However the Japs did load wooden bullets toward the end of WW2. They use them to shoot US soldiers, my cousin being one of them.

Whether those are Jap rounds or not, I can't tell from the photo.

What I can tell is that he has a very unique collection of rounds that is making a collector, some where, drool .

 

[Jubjub]

My uncle uses a Cimmaron .44 Colt 1860 Richards-Mason for CAS. The original was a loaded with a true .44 caliber bullet; the modern version uses .429 bullets. It's basically a .44 Russian with a small rim like the .45 Colt. Starline makes brass.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

From what I have been told (and my Dad served in New Guinea and
the Phillipines in WWII with the 6th Army Division), Japanese wooden
bullet rounds were for grenade launching purposes. When the Japanese
got down to short supplies and staged suicidal Banzai attacks rather
than surrender, they would use these blanks at bayonet-charge range,
giving a whole new meaning to point-blank.

 

[KelBench400]

Thanks for all the info.

I'll see if I can sit down and take some measurements this weekend.

The tall silver cased cartridges may be 45-70, but I don't think so. There were a bunch of .45-60, .45-70, and .45-90s in this collection. I don't believe those two were the same size. I'll double check though as there was a lot to go through.

 

[Rokyudai]

I have to sincerely tip my hats to those of you out there with the amount of knowledge you bring to these forums.

Thanks for sharing the pictures on THR!