French MAS stripper clips

I loaded up a couple hundred rounds of 7.5 MAS rounds the other day and put them into the aluminum stripper clips that the French used. The clips are so flimsy that one or two uses usually bends them to the point where the rounds won't reliably stay in the clips. I'm sure the intent was not to reuse them. Most of the clips are stamped with the manufacturer and date of production. I have one clip from January 1939 and one clip from January 1940. If only they knew what was coming May 1940!

Stripper clips were never meant to be re-used in any army. They were purely expendable; the French simply went the cheapest route. The U.S. did make some M1903 clips without the tabs that were to be used for training and could be re-used, but even those had a short life expectancy.

With clips now hard to get, many civilian shooters have the habit of pulling the clip out of the rifle and saving it before closing the bolt on the top round. In the military, the bolt was simply closed, popping the empty clip out onto the ground.

Jim

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Originally Posted by Jim K

Stripper clips were never meant to be re-used in any army. They were purely expendable; the French simply went the cheapest route. The U.S. did make some M1903 clips without the tabs that were to be used for training and could be re-used, but even those had a short life expectancy.

With clips now hard to get, many civilian shooters have the habit of pulling the clip out of the rifle and saving it before closing the bolt on the top round. In the military, the bolt was simply closed, popping the empty clip out onto the ground.

Jim

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Jim

I'm sure you are correct for almost all millitary organizations although the South African .303 ball from the early 60s that I obtained was loaded on recycled chargers. They were parkerized, some over pitting, and were clearly re-issues. I got these from sealed tins. Even the bandoliers were reissues. I also had .30 M2 Korean ball that was loaded into what looked like reissued en bloc clips although that is a bit of a different situation than a 5 rd clip. The French clips are so flimsy that even stripping the rounds into the magazine bends the clips. I think the French Ordnance parsimonious approach to clips probably put the Poilu at a disadvantage when the rounds fell out of the cheap little clip instead of going into the magazine.

You caused me to dig into my ammo cans to find my French ammo. Sure enough, those French MAS strippers are really flimsy. Mine are bright shinny.

But they are a perfect match for those simply beautiful MAS 36's.

You do think they are beautiful too, don't you?

Well, they are functional! I've found French arms to be robust and accurate. I will stay away from establishing the standards of physical beauty in firearms and women.

I didn't say the clips couldn't be re-used if serviceable, I said they were not really intended to be re-used. Like the ammo itself (and men's lives), the loss of clips was considered part of the cost of fighting a war.

I have a bunch of 7.5 ammo in those clips and while they are cheap, IMHO they are better than the Swiss cardboard and tin stripper clips. The modern approach is the engineering one - there is no need to make a product better than it has to be to meet the need. The old timers over-engineered everything, from handguns to railroad locomotives, because they couldn't determine the failure point without creating a failure.

Jim

I agree, and that is one reason why Japanese cars have been such a success, they are designed and engineered with exactly what is needed to meet the need and not an ounce more of anything. Their costs and reliability reflect this engineering.