Bullet: How Old?

Kettleson

Hi all.

I was wondering if its possible to say how old a bullet is, army issue etc? (Found on Rosses Point Beach Sligo).

Thanks

Photos attached.

Hedgemeister

can't tell from the pics whether it's an old 7.62 or .303 but 'tis a blank round either way & were used on tactical training or Funerals.
Sorry I couldn't be more specific.

Kettleson

Thanks Hedgemeister,

So not fired in anger then:D. Probably training on the beach? Seems to be a few decades old?

Hedgemeister

Naw, 'tis just a training 'blank.' They were notoriously unreliable in the FN rifle, sometimes failing to 'go off' and hardly ever powerful enough to re-cock the mechanism even with the proper blank firing attachment.
Done a funeral party once in Cork where five of those blanks failed to fire, out of a Firing Party of six!

Owryan

Not a .303 as its rimless , looks to be a 7.62 blank round

insignia33

Its definitely not 303 the rim would be a dead give away.

Can you get some measurements?

Kettleson

Thanks guys.

Lenght 6.5 centimetres

Width: 1 cm

Base 11mm
Shoulder Neck 8mm
Case 40mm
Rim thickness 1.5mm

(I'm guessing at bit at what I'm measuring).

claypigeon777

Looks big enough to be a blank 7.62mm rifle round. The Irish Army replaced the .303 bolt action Lee Enfield with the Belgian automatic FN FAL 7.62mm in the early 1960s. The FN was replaced by the 5.56mm Steyer AUG around 1989. That looks like its in poor enough condition but I presume it has been attacked by salt water. So it could be anywhere from half a century to almost 25 years old. Of course the same round is used by the FN MAG machine gun which is still in use. Not sure how quickly a bullet deteriorates in salt water but I imagine it decays fast enough.

claypigeon777

Kettleson wrote: »

Thanks guys.

Lenght 6.5 centimetres

Width: 1 cm

These are the measurements for a 7.62mm X51mm NATO round.

Bullet diameter 7.82 mm (0.308 in)
Neck diameter 8.77 mm (0.345 in)
Shoulder diameter 11.53 mm (0.454 in)
Base diameter 11.94 mm (0.470 in)
Rim diameter 12.01 mm (0.473 in)
Rim thickness 1.27 mm (0.050 in)
Case length 51.18 mm (2.015 in)
Overall length 69.85 mm (2.750 in)

Kettleson

Presumably if it was fired on the beach it would have been part of some supervised formal army training activity? I mean is it possible that a civillian could have been using them?

claypigeon777

Kettleson wrote: »

Presumably if it was fired on the beach it would have been part of some supervised formal army training activity? I mean is it possible that a civillian could have been using them?

It could have been a group of soldiers or FCA on some sort of exercise or patrol on the beach. I don't know what the rules are in the military but I would imagine they have a rule about keeping track of bullets so if someone lost a blank and handed back their weapon and ammo and was one short they probably got pulled up over it.

Owryan

claypigeon777 wrote: »

It could have been a group of soldiers or FCA on some sort of exercise or patrol on the beach. I don't know what the rules are in the military but I would imagine they have a rule about counting your bullets so if someone lost a blank they probably got pulled up over it.

As a rule brass would ve been picked up after an ex but highly doubt anyone got into trouble because 1 cartridge was missed.

Kettleson

claypigeon777 wrote: »

It could have been a group of soldiers or FCA on some sort of exercise or patrol on the beach. I don't know what the rules are in the military but I would imagine they have a rule about keeping track of bullets so if someone lost a blank and handed back their weapon and ammo and was one short they probably got pulled up over it.

Really! Fascinating...someone could have got a bollicking for a bullet I found years later..:D

Not knowing much about these things I though the shells were just discarded?

claypigeon777

Owryan wrote: »

As a rule brass would ve been picked up after an ex but highly doubt anyone got into trouble because 1 cartridge was missed.

Since 1922 many IRA members purposely joined the Irish Army to get military training and opportunistically nick weapons and ammo. For much of the history of the state there has been an official state of emergency so I would imagine during the Troubles the military was very pedantic about missing bullets. Maybe I'm wrong?

claypigeon777

Kettleson wrote: »

Really! Fascinating...someone could have got a bollicking for a bullet I found years later..:D

Not knowing much about these things I though the shells were just discarded?

That's not a spent shell. That's an intact blank. So I wouldn't go hitting it with a hammer of anything. You should actually report it to the Gardaí.
For all you know there could be more live rounds on the beach and perhaps a cache of bullets and weapons left over from the Troubles. The west coast of Ireland is where a lot of guns and ammo was smuggled ashore by republicans. Sligo is not too far as the crow flies from the north. So who knows?

Hedgemeister

In my day there was never any hassle over blanks, or their empty casings, let alone picking them up afterwards. I was on literally hundereds of Ex's / funeral parties & never seen it done. They were left for the kids to pick up as souveniers.
Not that many blanks were issued for excercises.
Lucky to get 10 per man to share, and some bods got none at all.
Training for my last trip o/seas (74 Inf Bn UNIFIL) we were told that no blanks were available because they were 'earmarked for an FCA excercise' so we spent a lot of in the Glen and Kilworth shouting Bang Bang at each other.
Sometimes, priorities were not the strongpoint of the Army.

Owryan

In the second pic it looks to me the percussion cap has been struck , is there a small indentation in the base of the cartridge ?

Also its a blank round which is a different beast to an actual live round. I never once had to account for every blank I was issued with.

Kettleson

claypigeon777 wrote: »

Since 1922 many IRA members purposely joined the Irish Army to get military training and opportunistically nick weapons and ammo. For much of the history of the state there has been an official state of emergency so I would imagine during the Troubles the military was very pedantic about missing bullets. Maybe I'm wrong?

I was wondering about that. I've just posted up in Sligo Boards to see if the FCA or the Army trained on Rosses.

As kids we found an underground bunker possibly water treatment/processing unit out in the country.

Not sure of its exact use, but it was covered in grass and looked like part of a hill. You would never have known it was there. The entrance was a small man hole cover. We had to climb down a metal ladder to get in.

It was a big enclosure, must have been at least 20 feet high and the size of a large room, maybe 2 rooms and circular.

It had the outline of a man on the wall with plenty bullet holes in it. It has to be one of the most chilling things I've ever seen as I knew that it was being used by people who were practicing to kill people with def terrorist connections.

We didn't know it at the time, but it was under surveillance. One time we were there we got chased down a country lane by a guy in a car with a pair of binoculars in the passenger seat. We stopped eventually and he asked us who we were. But I'm guessing we were too young to have had any sort of connection, and he hadn't seen us in the underground enclosure, just near it. One time after we seen the same man watching the bunker in the same lane, well it was more a boreen than a lane, as it was not suitable for cars to drive on.

I heard a while after that some men had been arrested in connection with terrorist activity relating to the bunker.

Kettleson

Owryan wrote: »

In the second pic it looks to me the percussion cap has been struck , is there a small indentation in the base of the cartridge ?

Also its a blank round which is a different beast to an actual live round. I never once had to account for every blank I was issued with.

Yes there is a small circular indentation, which to my untrained eye would suggest it has def been fired.

claypigeon777

Kettleson wrote: »

Yes there is a small circular indentation, which to my untrained eye would suggest it has def been fired.

The firing pin probably struck the base but the tip of the blank still looks intact.

If it has gone off the cartridge would be hollow because the propellant would have exploded.

Kettleson

claypigeon777 wrote: »

That's not a spent shell. That's an intact blank. So I wouldn't go hitting it with a hammer of anything. You should actually report it to the Gardaí.
For all you know there could be more live rounds on the beach and perhaps a cache of bullets and weapons left over from the Troubles. The west coast of Ireland is where a lot of guns and ammo was smuggled ashore by republicans. Sligo is not too far as the crow flies from the north. So who knows?

Indeed, I've been told that people have seen rifles/arms dumped in a rocky isolated inlet near here, a good while ago, but never seen them myself. And I didn't know if that was BS, but would not be at all surprised.

I'm sure the sands and fields have plenty more things to reveal in time.

tac foley

It's a fired and fail-to-function 7.62x51 NATO blank round. You can see the NATO code stamp - a small circle with a cross in it - quite clearly.

This round was made probably made by MEN, the NATO-deliverable ammunition supply branch of RWS over in Troisdorf, Germany.

We shoot the ball ammuntion here in UK as military surplus ammunition - it's great stuff, too, in spite of only being 150gr - and very accurate.

We pay our club £50 per hundred, and in some cases it's actually cheaper than reloading.

tac

Kettleson

@ tac foley.

Thanks for that. Could you suggest age? It looks me to be 30 years old plus?

Sorry lads, I should have also said that I picked this up about 10+ years ago and only stumbled across it again today. So the ageing/erosion process would have been halted then.

My original thought was that it might have been from the 20's era, but I now consider that highly unlikely. And not sure how long a bullet can remain intact in sand in a tidal area.

PS: not sure how that winking icon in the title got there...nothing intentional

Kettleson

Is the NATO stamp the one at 6 o'clock on the base?

claypigeon777

Kettleson wrote: »

Is the NATO stamp the one at 6 o'clock on the base?

This should be a good comparison photo.



The bullet shell on the left is a .308 Winchester rifle round while the bullet shell on the right is a 7.62mm NATO with the stamp on the base.

Kettleson

@Claypigeon.

Mighty!!

Def looks like the NATO stamp. But no other markings apart from the circle and cross?? Maybe an earlier issue?

Apologies to string this out, and excuse my non-knowledge, but did/do the Irish Army use NATO ammunition? Or I guess is ammo manufactured on behalf on NATO and issued to member countries?

I'd be really interested to see if we could identify an age and use.

tac foley

claypigeon777 wrote: »

This should be a good comparison photo.



The bullet shell on the left is a .308 Winchester rifle round while the bullet shell on the right is a 7.62mm NATO with the stamp on the base.

Good pic - BTW, the word you seek is 'headstamp. The 'bullet shell' is called a cartridge case. The 'R - P' is Remington-Peters, a US civilian ammunition manufacturers. The RHS cartridge case was made by Western Cartridge Co., one of the largest US NATO stocklist ammunition makers, part of the Olin Corporation.

tac

tac foley

Kettleson wrote: »

@Claypigeon.

Mighty!!

Def looks like the NATO stamp. But no other markings apart from the circle and cross?? Maybe an earlier issue?

Apologies to string this out, and excuse my non-knowledge, but did/do the Irish Army use NATO ammunition? Or I guess is ammo manufactured on behalf on NATO and issued to member countries?

I'd be really interested to see if we could identify an age and use.

Of course they did. Ireland has no ammunition manufacturing of any kind, let alone one that could make the millions of rounds a year needed to sustain an army, even a comparatively small one. Here in UK, NATO spec ammunition has been made for years - billions of rounds of the stuff. Every NATO nations has its own makers, and they often supply each other when something is going on that needs a lot of ammuntion fast, like Afghanistan. Belgium has a minimal FOG there, but supplies millions of rounds of ammunition up to and including 155mm artillery rounds.

Your blank round will be dated, IF you can clean it very carefully.

tac

Kettleson

Thanks Tac.

The date is/should be on the headstamp?

red sean

Kettleson , I wonder would this have been washed up at Rosses Point having been "fired" at the Army range at Finner further up the coast?

Local-womanizer

red sean wrote: »

Kettleson , I wonder would this have been washed up at Rosses Point having been "fired" at the Army range at Finner further up the coast?

Doubt it, the range on finner isn't near the beach when your actually firing.Prob just an exercise on the beach