9mm Ammo Question

simonkenton

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My dad bought this box of ammo in the early sixties.
Is this ammo non corrosive?
 
Show a pic of the front of the box.

This ammo is from the late 60s or early 70s. It was made for the commercial market by Winchester. It is non corrosive. Pretty much all U.S. made ammo for handguns was non corrosive in the post war period, likely before as well. At least the box carried this at one time. If the original ammo is not in it then it could be something else.

Even a few boxes of corrosive Eastern European ammo through the gun will not harm it provided you clean the barrel afterward properly.

tipoc
 
I am just curious.

That top pic is the front of the box,dad taped it up a couple times and the front and the back are illegible. I can read, on the front, "Luger, Walther P38 and other semiautomatic pistols of."
Like, at that time nobody had heard of this round, and it was called 9m/m Luger.
Quaint.


Thanks for the info I knew I could get a well informed reply on this forum.
 
9mm Luger, 9mm Parabellum, and 9x19 are all three the same cartridge. 9mm NATO is dimensionally identical, but may be loaded to higher pressure.
 
Every box in my cabinet says "9mm Luger" I've honestly yet to buy a box that doesn't say that (at least that I bothered to look, as some are bought at the range). I'd wager they're non-corrosive, 115gr Luger practice rounds. Probably the precursor to the WWB.

Edit: sorry, I had a couple boxes of WWB NATO ammo. That shot hotter (according to my wrist) than normal 9mm Luger, it was also 124GR, IIRC. I might not be remembering correctly. But I thought that info may be interesting to some.
 
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I really think that those may be older than the 70s and maybe into the 50's.

Keep in mind that there were very few 9mm handguns made and marketed here back in those years. You would have had a few brownings, but for the most part, in the 50s and 60s, I strongly suspect that there were more war souvenirs in this country than there were actual working sidearms.

You should also keep in mind that the hollow points of that time were useless in design. Round noses with a 1/8 hole bored in it. Expansion had to be pathetic.
 
I can read, on the front, "Luger, Walther P38 and other semiautomatic pistols of."
Like, at that time nobody had heard of this round, and it was called 9m/m Luger.

Until the mid 70's or so, those were about the only guns around chambered for the 9mm. Those were mostly war trophies. Browning had the Hi-Power, and Smith & Wesson had the 39/59 around that time. Colt probably had a few 1911's, but 9mm wasn't very common. And it was usually called "9mm Luger", at least in my experience.

The 38/357 was the still the king of the hill then.
 
Until the mid 70's or so, those were about the only guns around chambered for the 9mm. Those were mostly war trophies.
+1, and the cartridge stamp on these guns was often cryptic, usually "9mm" and that was it. Interestingly, this was also the only marking on S&W M39s and M59s. I'm sure that the reason for specifically naming the Luger and P38 on the box was to help the store sales staff pick the right ammo for these guns, since many people buying ammo probably didn't know anything about their gun except "my dad picked it up in Germany in 1945 and he says it's a Luger".
 
To be specific...Colt was the first U.S. manufacturer to chamber a gun in 9mm. This was in 1948 when Colt introduced the alloy framed Commander which was also chambered in .38 Super and .45.

Smith and Wesson followed in 1954 with the M39, the first U.S. made pistol built specifically for the 9mm round.

Interest in the 9mm in the U.S. was low till after the war. More bring backs showed up and importers had a big supply of Walther P38s and P08s, the Radom Vis, etc. and they were cheap. The Hi-Power also became more available.

Also in 1947 the U.S. military announced that they wanted a new sidearm in 9mm that carried more rounds than the 1911, was alloy framed, had a da/sa trigger system, etc., etc. This sparked interest in building one. The military had no money for a new handgun and had to wait 40 years for it.

So you have a box of post war 9mm ammo. Should still be fine. A cartridge collector could likely tell you what time frame it is from specifically. Google cartridge collectors.

tipoc
 
9mm Luger

Became, and still is the standard US designation of the cartridge. Thats because, for nearly half a century, the Luger was the most common (and in the early years, the only) pistol chambered for it in the US.

The Browning Hi Power (1935) and the Walther P-38 (1938) were sold in small numbers in the US, before WWII, but Lugers had been here , both as war trophy bring backs (WW I) and commercial sales, for a few decades before WWII.

Many of the commercial model Lugers were in .30 Luger, but there were a lot of 9mms also.

The German name was 9mm Parabellum, but in the US, it was the 9mm Luger. The terms 9x19mm, and 9mm NATO didn't get wide usage in the US until recently (as in the last 30 years or so), and most US ammo makers still use 9mm Luger as the standard name for the cartridge.
 
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