Very early Model 1903 cartridges

[Rick the Librarian]

I remember a few years back, when you could pick up baggies of old cartridges at gun shows for a few dollars. Going through them provided a good evening's entertainment.

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[ismith]

A buddy of mine got into metal detecting years ago and found a pocketful of old spent M1906 blanks with '04 and '05 dates not far from FT Harrison here in Montana. They weren't gold nuggets but he knew I would like them and I believe I have them stashed somewhere in my reloading pile.

[browningautorifle]

a pocketful of old spent M1906 blanks with '04 and '05 dates

I found a couple of clips up in Ft Lewis in a field firing area that had been all torn up. The troops brought me an M1 clip with eight AP cartridges from the Korean war era that came apart in hand. The M1909 clips were good because they were brass and the blanks were unfired but had been in the water table since they had dropped. One clip had a ding in it that precluded them being loaded so discarded. I think they had early '30's dates. I did find a pile of fired .30 cal cases marked for the U.S.C.Co. and one live cartridge which I still have. Dated 1918...the cases lay where they had been fired way back then.

[RCS]

I have some early 30-06 blanks which some were made from 30-03 cartridge cases that were shortened. The paper bullet did not last long as a blank.

Also shown are some factory hunting cartridges in 30-03 and Winchester chambered their Model 1895 in 30- 03 until 1912