Butt disc-steel vs. brass

[Steve H. in N.Y.]

Did a steel butt marking disc have anything to do with the status of a rifle (i.e. cadet use, DP) or was it simply a matter of brass being in short supply at the time?
Anyboby want to take a shot at this one?

Information

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[Peter Laidler]

Status made no difference. Steel replaced brass on the grounds of expense early in the war. You can track it to 1941ish according to the equipment regulations. But by this time the practice had pretty well ceased anyway but it remained for equipment that retained the recess, such as the Enfield revolvers.

[Brit plumber]

A quick google search suggest CBRC may be the Ontario Regiment but theres no suggestion how this abbreviation came about. Its probably somthing completely diffrent.

[Amatikulu]

R.C.A. is normally associated with the Royal Canadian Artillery

In this case, and I'm guessing, it could be a strange format indicating C Battery of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. The H for Horse not being used

[Steve H. in N.Y.]

Thanks for the replies. Just to make sure that I understand Peter correctly, the use of steel discs only began early in WWII?

[Peter Laidler]

I knew this question would arise Steve in NY. The steel discs are mentioned in the old ER's (Equipment Regulations) of 1940 under 'changes' etc but I've been told that they were used from the 20's. But unless there is documentary proof of this, I suspect that it's the WW2 era. If it's the 20's, I also ask the question, '.....why bother, the need to save strategic raw material like brass is over..........' But certainly, brass and steel were used on the .38" Enfield pistol

[5thBatt]

I have a 1923 dated steel butt disc, will post a pic tomorrow as i left the lead at work

[Kev G]

Ian Skennertons 'The Broad Arrow' p83 makes reference to steel butt discs -
"Steel butt marking discs were used instead of brass to indicate a Drill Purpose status of an arm (sometimes also encountered with an E.Y. or D.P. marking) but these are often devoid of unit marks"

Last 2 LoC's on butt discs FWIW





ATB Kevin

[5thBatt]

The pics i promised
Attachment 18270Attachment 18271

[Peter Laidler]

1923, that's good enough for me! but steel or brass isn't indicative of any status or anything else other that it's steel or brass/supply and demand.

If I find the page that was referring to in my ancient copy of the ER's, I'll scribble a pencil endorsement to the effect that it came about in the 20's. As a matter of interest, I found the old ER's in a tatty old box. It's a simple typically wartime booklet, soft bue cover and about 1" thick and a good 30 percent relates to unit Armourers. I was going to throw it out until I started to absent mindedly browse through it, but it's full of priceless info, including all about DP rifles

If you note KG's List of Changes in War Material above, these are the LoC's that are referred to, The B1 relates to the Ordnance category (rifles) then when you see 57 over general over ?195, that is the ACI that authorises it to be published and under that, the 270 over vocab over 181, that is the authority for Ordnance to do their thing and change the Vocabulary of Army Ordnance Stores number - or whatever else the blanket stackers seem to do all day. The 70 over MG over 304 is ther to tell the Ordnance people that it also relates to machine guns on the assumption that in 1940, Lewis guns weren't classed under the C1 Ordnance group

There, another load of rubbish that you didn't know about