A few years ago, a friend found a cartridge in an old box and later showed it to me. Based upon the size I immediately was reminded of the WWII German StG44. It looks like a steel case to me with a pointed bullet reminiscent of the AK round but smaller in height. It is unfired. The headstamp is Wa then either 51 or S1 or St, then 12 then 44. Can someone tell me a little more about it? Thanks!!!
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I don't really know how I recognized it but something'in my brain just said, "that is a 43/44 round" the second I saw it. Never handled the rifle or carrridge but just knew it!!!!!!
Yep. 'WA' is Hugo Schneider A.-G., Werk Leipzig, Germany. The '44' is the year it was made. The 7.92 x 33 is the original assault rifle cartridge. The AK was basically copied from the Stg 44 too.
Not really the AK and STG-44 have nothing in common really other than being intermediate cartridge rifles. That is a old myth that has been going around for years along the same quality as the Soviets can use our 7.62 rounds in their AKs but we can't use their ammo in our FNs.
It's the old well the Japanese could use our 30-06 in their 7.7 rifles but we could not use their ammo in ours. But there is quite a bit of truth in the Russians using the 8mm Kurz round to develop the 7.62x39 round. They captured the blue prints for this and for the Ultra 9mm pistol round that is all but the Russian Makarov. Of course the Russians claimed they developed all of these on their own and well before they captured the information in the 1945 time frame.
7.62x39 originally started as 7.62x41 in roughly 1943 and then went though development to eventually become the 7.62x39 round. Not saying there was no influence between the Soviets and the Germans as everyone tried to learn from everyone else, but to say the AK-47 is a STG-44 copy is completely false. Completely different operating systems that only externally can be mistaken for the same rifle.
The Polte Works had been heavily experimenting with "Kurz" rounds since the early 1930's. As Germany and the Soviet Union were "good fraternal socialists" at the time, there was a fair bit of information exchange. The Germans even field-tested several of their very early tank concepts "somewhere in Russia". Oddly enough, the crafty Russians appear NOT to have let on to the Germans about their development of the American "Christie" system that lead to the BT-1 and 2 and then into the T-34.
The Russians had certainly not forgotten about their own Imperial era foray into the assault rifle business, the Federov. These were still to be found at the pointy end of the failed adventure in Finland and also well into WW-2.
Why did the Soviets choose the 6.5 x 50? Well, they had "acquired" a fair bit of it during the Russo-Japanese war and, being Russians, they never threw anything away. Here was a moderately powered cartridge that was light, sort-of rimless and with a LOT less recoil that their standard 7.62 x 54R. Gratuitous Federov video here:
Britain made a LOT of 6.5 Jap ammo and sent it to the soviets during WW-2. Remember that back in WW-1, the Japanese had been allies of Britain. Even before then, the entire Imperial Japanese Navy, its weapons, uniforms and service traditions were VERY closely modeled on Royal Navy practice. This extended to adopting .303 calibre machine-guns retaining the calibre until the end of WW-2. Taking it further, the adopted British ship-building practice right down to adopting "Admiralty Threads" for their nuts and bolts. This "transplanted" system has only in the last few years started to be supplanted by "metric".
Their army was based on "Prussian" practice and thus went "metric' a lot earlier; except that the Type 30 and 38 Arisakas are full of very "Imperial" threads, because at the time, Britain had not only started to establish pretty rigorous standardization, but exported a LOT of manufacturing and metrology equipment all over the world. That is why the 98 Mauser has an "Imperial" pitch breech thread with the very British 55 degree Whitworth form.
Japan shipped a prodigious quantity of (mainly) Type 30 rifles in 6.5 x 50 to Britain for training, so that .303 calibre rifles could be sent to the meat-grinder on the Western Front. This may have been the start of Kynoch's involvement in making 6.5 x 50 in Britain.
It appears that a large quantity of the Japanese rifles were transferred to the Royal Navy and eventually to Davey Jones Locker.
StG44. It looks like a steel case to me with a pointed bullet reminiscent of the AK round but smaller in height. It is unfired. The headstamp is Wa then either 51 or S1 or St, then 12 then 44. Can someone tell me a little more about it? Thanks!!!
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Originally Posted by Sunray
