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Hi
Has any one come across one of these gauges before and if so do you know the history or any other information regarding it. I certainly would appear to have been professionally made for the .303 Rifle English No4 but my micrometer measures it at .0765 I assume the 77 marked on it is for .077 making it thicker than my field gauge which is .074 so why the extra thickness? Markings on it are
Fucile Inglese No4 RS (eccez) m/m 2 FAET 77 BDS
Thanks
Terry
If the gauges are of military origin, its possible that the Italians set their own headspace specification - entirely feasible if they planned to make and use their own ammo to a certain spec, or if they didn't want to bother with creating a maintenance infrastructure for these limited use (to them) rifles. If UK wartime field gauge was 0.084, then there is clearly a margin to be used if the rifles do not have to remain in an "80%" or so state for front line use.
They may have set a convenient (to them) METRIC standrd for headspacing the Number 4 Rifle.
2mm is .07874".... and this is very close.
Hope ths helps.
.
I confirm: we italians produced some lots of .303 ammo. Probably rim was thicker or...i do not know.
I have a funny feeling that the UK MoD had a huge batch of Italian made .303" ammo at one time. In fact, I seem to remember some doing the rounds in the 70's. I also seem to recall that some of it was also made into Armourers dummy too. Can someone add to this? I could be wrong or mistaken here and I'm not an ammo nerd, but........... Go on, someone remind me
If this is in fact correct, then you can be rest assured that it will have conformed to the correct headspace/rim thickness spec
Could just mean 7.7mm.
A bunch of these Italian gauges surfaced here a few years ago in the hands of a French dealer.