Ammunition

Further to yours Beery....... But surely there obviously IS a demand for .303" ball to Mk7 spec, due in no small part to the amount of .303" shooters. I'd hazzard a guess that there'd be a lot MORE shooters if UK made ammo to Mk7 spec was manufactured here and easy to buy, relatively cheaply across the counter.

It's like going to your hardware shop and asking for, say, a box of 2" No8 round head wood screws. And he says '....ain't got none........, there's no demand' You'd say '....there is, I want a xxxxxxg boxfull....' I dare say that you, like me, would be saying some other choice phrases too.

It's time the NRA got in contact with HXP and asked them for a quote for 1,000,000 rounds. Or India. 1,000,000 rounds of .,303" ball will fit into the back of a Bedford 3tonner. Just a minute....... I said the NRA. There again....., maybe not!

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Originally Posted by Brian Dick

MEN headstamp from Germany

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Not .303 but the 7.62mm MEN is excellent stuff, I use it for testing etc.

The FNM I shot was all Boxer primed and I'm still reloading the brass. Their 6.5 Swedish was also very good. As to Peters point it is a great shame that no one took the lead in the U.K. to at least find out how much 303 was being sold / reloaded in the U.K. The last time I asked if it could be done all I got was crap about the 'Data Protection Act' / Commercial Confidentiality'.

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

1. surely there obviously IS a demand for .303" ball to Mk7 spec,

2. It's time the NRA got in contact with HXP and asked them for a quote for 1,000,000 rounds. Or India. 1,000,000 rounds of .,303" ball will fit into the back of a Bedford 3tonner. Just a minute....... I said the NRA. There again....., maybe not!

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1. There is now Peter. At the time that the UK stopped making .303 there was millions of rounds of surplus (Which the MoD sold off and then had to get HXP to make some more.) plus hardly anyone shot .303. With the advent of Historic Shooting over the last thirty years(largely thanks to the HBSA), demand increased beyond the supply of surplus.

2. As a long-time (should that be long-suffering?) member of that body, I would not trust them to get ANY kind of commercial contract right. They have never managed to do so in the past without huge losses.

About PrviPartizan, FNM of Portugal etc.

Prvi Partizan was the name given during WW II ( First Partisan Factory) under the Communist Tito regime. its head stamp cvaried, but by the 1960s, it was using "PPYU" ( Prvi Partizan Yugoslavia) or "nny" ( the same in Serbian Cyrillic Alphabet.) The ammo made in the 1960s to 1980s, was Berdan (.217"/5,5mm) Corrosive, and Nitro Powder Loaded. The Crates were marked in Serbian " For Rifles, MGs and Machine-Rifle "Bren". THis ammo was equivalent to a Mark 7z Loading ( flat based bullet,)..PPYU headstamp.

In the 1980s, they started making a "Mark 8z" Loading, using a Boat tailed bullet, again Berdan primers, etc... The headstamp was either Cyrillic or Latin. The Yugoslavian Army still had Brens on Inventory ( British Mil aid during WW II) as well as supplying a lot of "non-aligned" nations in the Middle and Far-east with .303 ammo.

Ammo which made its way either directly from PP, or through other surplus routes, was basically mark 7z and 8z, Military spec loads.

A fter the fall of the Yugoslav Federation, the Factory changed to a "commercial " operation, and besides starting to use Boxer Primers ( they had already used some for Particular contracts for Hansen's Ammunition, USA, and Century Arms as well., whilst still "Yugoslavia")..they now became "Prvi Partizan Uzice" ( pr. Usitse), the Town where it is located. The .303 continued in its Military specs, although with a Boxer primer (Noncorrosive).

FNM: Fabrica Nationao de Municoes ( Portugal)...Having started as "Arsenal do Esercito" back in pre 1900 times, it developed via some different names etc to FNM in 1949.
its major ammo products were 8x56R Kropatschek A mmo, 6,5x58 Port .M1904, 6,5x53R Mannlicher ammo, 7,7 M1923 (aka .303 mark VIIZ) from 1922 to 1937, under the AE headstamp, with .250 berdfan primers, ( british design) and the Roth Berdan Anvil ( single Flash Hole); in 1937, RWS/DWM helped AE retool for making 7,9mm ammo ( for the M37 mausers and the M04/39 Vergueiros etc; and introduced the .217 Berdan twin hole priming arrangement. Portuguese .303 ( used by the Navy, for SMLE rifle, Lewis and Vickers MG, and by the Airforce for Lewis, Vickers and Browning MGs; by 1949, had changed over to the .217 primed case ( FNM continued making Service .303 till the 1970s). When CAI and ealrier Interarms contracted FNM to make Milsurp ammo for them, FNM began also to make several other calibres both for Military sales and for "Surplus" sales.
The end came in the early part of the first decade of 2000s, with the Factory closing under a Socialist gov't, and the Plant destroyed under UN "anti Arms" Regulations. Portugal now "buys in" all its ammo requirements ( as does France as well).

The gradual amalgamiation of ammo factories through-out Europe ( all the French Gov't Military factories are gone, Spanish Santa Barbara is owned by General Dynamics; Portugal FNM has ceased to exist; Most of the Swiss and German Plants are consolidated under RUAG, the Scandinavian Plants under NAMMO, and such oldtimers as Sellier & Bellot are now owned by CBC-Magtech of Brazil. FN of Belgium, having been part of GIAT ( the French Gov't Combine) is now independant again; and the French Ordnance company Thales owns ADI and several other former "national" Ammo Factories... Even the former Soviet Factories are now "re-grouping" for the purposes of Exports to the West...The Only Country which maintains strict Gov't Control and Ownership and self reliance of its arms and ammunition Industries is PR China ( it is part of the Constitution..."the Party controls the Gun").

When countries are so *****-whipped that they destroy existing Ammo plants before starting a new one ( UN Regulations), or actually destroy their own capacity to make ammunition ( again, a UN "buyback"), it shows how the world has become "Socialistically Politically Correct"

The opposite side of the coin is that those countries ( or whatever Political Persuasion) who maintain and expand their Ammunition programs ( Iran, etc.) & don't "Kowtow" to the UN or other "Peace Bodies" and maintain their independance ( Israel comes to mind???) ...Most Latin American Countries still maintain their own ammunition Plants to some degree, although some of the more "liberal ( ie, in a Left-Wing sense) have down-sized their ammo capacity ( ie, Argentina, Chile, etc. )

Doc AV

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Originally Posted by Robert303

The FNM I shot was all Boxer primed and I'm still reloading the brass

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Your not the only one Robert, I emptied a shop of all .303 many years ago, about 300 rounds total, cases still in use today.

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Originally Posted by WarPig1976

FYI, .311 can be used on 7.62+54r "Russian" and 7.7 "Japanese"

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and 7.65x53 Argentine/Belgian/Peru

DocAV, excellence, as always. Thank you!