Help with identifying a cartridge chit?

[Diamondtreo]

A friend of mine received a Springfield 1903 from his dad along with a few bandolliers of surplus ammo. Tucked inside ine of the pockets in each bandollier was a chit identifying Twin Cities Ord. Plant as the originator and lot number is listed on the other side.

Is there a way to determine when these cartridges were manufactured? Ok, I just thought of looking at the headstamp on the cartridges, however all I have in front of me is the chit - my friend has all the ammo.

Thanks in advance, John

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[jonnyc]

Easiest way is to call your friend re: the headstamp.

[smellie]

Pretty sure this would be CORROSIVE ammunition in any case.

Twin Cities Ordnance Plant (TW headstamp) made a lot of stuff in War Two but they closed relatively early. Primer at that time was the FA 70, which was a Chlorate primer and thus corrosive.

Brass will be okay, though, once it is annealed. OR, and this could be fun, you can pull down a few rounds, pop the primers and reload the cases with the original charges. This will show you just HOW GOOD this stuff was when it was made. It's always the primers that deteriorate faster than anything else.

I have done this with that junk Turkish 8x57 and find I am getting groups just a hair over 1 MOA!!! Johnny Turk really knew what he was doing and so, I expect, did the guys at Twin Cities. Give it a try. You just might surprise yourself.

US only went completely to non-corrosive smallarms primers in 1953, late in the year. Stuff dated 1954 and later is all noncorrosive. The only exception to this is M-1 Carbine ammo, which was ALL noncorrosive right from Day One.

Hope this helps.

[Bruce McAskill]

If it's M2 ball ammo then it is corrosive. TW started using non corrosive primers in Dec, 1951 with lot #19362

[Maple_Leaf_Eh]

Silly lingistics question - "chit" is a name for a notice or a slip of paper, a small form. A member in good standing might run a mess chit or bar tab. A soldier on course whose dress or inspection was below standard might get a red chit. I always thought it was an India word brought into the British army, that was so useful the Canadians absorbed its use. And, here we see another use of the word by Americans. So maybe this word came into use much longer ago.