Bren Blanks

[CINDERS]

These are '67 vintage Radway Green L Mk 10 Z the blue (what it looks like under the light) is a dye I guess was to denote what the projectiles were and not ball ammo
I have a 48 round packet of these 303 Bren only blanks they have the wooden projectile that was shattered by a device attached to the brens muzzle if I am correct. If not those in the know will correct this. Thought those that have never seen them may like to view them.

May I ask a question why oh why did the brits go for odd ball no.s in their packaging like a 48 round packet or a 32 round packet when the bulk of their rifles weapons they used had 10 shot mags.
Why not 50 or 40 round packets I find it rather bizarre perhaps it is a British thing I should have asked my father whilst he was alive being a Briton he may have known after having served in WWII.

Information

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[browningautorifle]

Apparently it was the size of the outer case that drove the numbers in the boxes. The original outer case was a given size and when you determine how many inner boxes of such a size there are...and how many rounds go into them... It comes out odd. We had another thread here about this once.

[Peter Laidler]

We always had the fear of god put into us about the dangers of finding this bulletted blank ammo on the training areas and loading it into our bog standard rifles instead of the normal short crimp blank issued to us for our rifles. I remember being shown how a bulletted Bren blank would blow seven bells out of an old bucket etc etc and how it would kill our friends at a mile or so............ All a load of old bol........... er....., rubbish now I know.

But at what distance would the wooden bullet travel from a rifle barrel before it broke up into harmless pieces?

The puzzling thing about Cinders ammo is how did RG bulletted blank end up in Oz? I certainly don't remember RG bulletted blank there - or any bulletted blank.

[browningautorifle]

But at what distance would the wooden bullet travel from a rifle barrel before it broke up into harmless pieces?

If only we could do a step back in time, with the authority we once had...to carry out a proper test of this. Warminster or Gagetown... And do a proper test.

[Flying10uk]

In the Cadets we were warned regularly that standard .303 blank rnds were dangerous at close range when fired from a No4 rifle or any other rifle, I guess. I remember on one occasion an officer decided it would be a good idea to give a practical demonstration to illustrate this to us; he placed an empty cardboard ammo box on a tree stump and then fired at it, at close range. It had fairly spectacular results and gasps of surprise from most of us Cadets.

[gsimmons]

Someone did a YouTube video firing 7.5x55mm bulletted blanks at a cardboard backer. He shot at 1-4 metres. 2 metres and less a few of the splinters went through the cardboard. Over 2 metres splinters were sticking in the cardboard but not penetrating it. At 4 metres the splinters weren't penetrating the cardboard. The bullets were coming apart at the muzzle. Still not something you want shoot at anyone. I know it's not .303, but I'd think it would be similar.
YouTube video is Bloke on the Range.

[CINDERS]

As to the RG coming to Aus Peter I cannot say how it would have traveled here the only plausible solution is our Army acquired it for practice for the Brens then still in service rather than waste good ball ammo as I think at that point there were no more factories here producing Mk VII ball ammo. Also being a cartridge collector who knows really how it got here as I have packets of stuff that how they got here who knows one instance a full unopened 10 round packet of Kynoch .33 BSA now this cartridge was only produced for 3 years 1925 ~ 1928 it was a dismal flop due to poor bullet BC so was scrapped plenty of horse power but quickly ran out of sting. How did it get to AUS and who would have had one of those rifles capable of shooting the round!

I give up asking where stuff comes from if I need it to fill a niche then I buy the product not the story though in some cases the story is worth getting? What a conundrum.......

[Peter Laidler]

We still had some rather large stocks of that blue bulletted blank stuff well into the early 90's. I arranged (or tried....) for it to be side-loaded to the CTT's for use by Cadets who still had .303" Brens. I don't know whether it succeeded because by then a lot of them had L4 Brens and the LSW's were coming on-stream to them too. But I understand that it was a valuable 'trading' commodity amongst the training teams.

I know someone who MIGHT be able to answer this...............

[bombdoc]

Officially .303 bulleted blank was declared obsolescent sometime in the late 60s... However stocks were kicking around much later. The main culprit were cadet forces which seemed to have squirreled away a huge stack of the stuff..! Needless to say it was never on their books or present in their stores during the annual ammunition inspections, but somehow made appearances on "field days" and camps... There were never any incidents or accidents... No Siree!

Bulleted blank was meant to be fired through "shredder" barrels which ensured the breakup of the projectile at the muzzle and were also not supposed to explode when hit with a ball round.. Peter L will no doubt give a better explanation.. I do know that the shredder barrels were the bane of the armourers life! The reason for using bulleted blank with the BREN was that the round needed a bullet profile to feed through the breech mech. The Lee Enfield and the Vickers would work with the simpler crimped blank. The root of the problem goes back to the method of manufacture of cordite filled .303... You need to appreciated that .303 was loaded with stranded cordite that was cut to length in the loading machine and then fed in to the case BEFORE the neck was formed. It was therefore impossible to use a lengthened case with a projectile profile as was used with the later 7.62x51 round (which was powder filled).

There were some earlier attempts at adding a thin brass shim projectile shaped form to the end of the short crimped cartridge, but these were abandoned as being too delicate and the risk of producing fragments..

As reported above a mate of mine in the land of cuckoo clocks has done some trials using swiss bulleted blank of a similar form. They break up at the muzzle, however as wood is a naturally variable material, estimating a safe danger zone is difficult, hence the shredder! The UK wooden bullets were made on an automatic lathe out of beech doweling, and yes, they were stained blue to denote a "practice" role...

A final note of warning.. do not confuse bulleted blank which is designed to just make a bang, and short range plastic bullet ammunition which has a plastic projectile. Visually they are very similar with a plastic body and a metal base. PB ammunition is however lethal up to 50m and dangerous at longer ranges. It is designed to be used with absorbent targets in close quarter battle ranges... be warned!

... your friendly Bomb Doctor!