1953 M3 AC .50 Caliber MG - Canadian Issue

[Flying10uk]

Has anyone ever witnessed the person taking the declaration not believing the person making it and it has ended up in a full search off the person? I only ever remember in the cadets the sergeant who normally took such declarations asking for it to be repeated once or twice when he wasn't 100% convinced.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[browningautorifle]

it has ended up in a full search off the person?

No, not even once, and I did a space age in the regular force taking those declarations. Anything that was found later could be turned in with impunity. Everyone was adult and paid to know the penalties. Take your chances and pay the man...

[Brit plumber]

I have received the old "check your pockets, check your shoes and if your happy, give your declaration" and almost pretended to go through the motions and actually found 2 live rounds in a pocket. Funny thing is, I even shot 28 rounds and thought to my self, you idiot, you only loaded 28 rounds. Never occurred to me that I may have left 2 in my pocket.

[Flying10uk]

I only ever remember one cadet pinching one .22 spent case which he later bragged about to the rest of us. We all thought that he had committed the crime of the century but no one grassed him up.

[Peter Laidler]

Yep, it's correct here too Jim (thread 13). You could always hand in any range ammo or pyro later without sanction. This was always a tacit sort of thing until it was written into the rules formally following a ragged trial where the driver of an Army lorry was hauled up because.......... anyway. I also learned that while it was an offence to just take an odd shell case, it was acceptable for the RCO to GIVE you one for some specific reason, such as it was the first round that you ever fired or the case that won the shooting match for the Battalion.......... You know the sort of thing. I never tried it but I did let some of the newly trained Vickers gunners keep a couple of cases after a days training for a Vickers demonstration shoot in 2003 or thereabouts

[Flying10uk]

Someone that I know who use to be in the Royal Navy told me that from time to time you got people trying to pinch the spent 4.5" shell cases from the main deck gun which are not the easiest thing to try to conceal. He said that people did get caught occasionally and did get into trouble. He went onto say that if you wanted an empty case all you needed to do was ask in the correct manner and through the right channels and sometimes it was permitted.

[muffett.2008]

Funny that, We'd slip the followers out of the 303 magazines and drop a couple of rounds in and replace the follower.
They'd check our pockets, but never the rifle.

[CINDERS]

I used to put them point down my Jungle gaiters into my boots bit uncomfortable but you could turn out you JG pockets or your battle dress pockets with impunity as when we stripped the bandoliers a few always found there way into your pockets then a trip to the loo and that was that I got about 50-60 rounds that way over the course of 2 years no one ever sat there counting the empties with 20 303's in use! I gave most of them to my Uncle who had a Metford 303.

[browningautorifle]

When we did shipboard duty and happened to be doing a shoot at sea...the 3"50's or 3"70's as the case may be... A man would try to grab a case for later but the sailors would take them and toss them overboard. We simply weren't allowed. Later they started returning them to store. We still couldn't have one though.

[Brit plumber]

Well currently we can get larger cases quite easily as long as they are certified FFE which is easy for us Armourers. Larger shells that have scrap value can be bought for scrap value. In the FI they guys etch the naval shells with images and sell them complete with FFE cert and receipt from SCAF (Accounts Flight). The guys who buy them never have issues getting them home with the correct paperwork.