Help Identify Ammo...

F

FireForged

New member
I ran across a couple of hundered rounds of unknown ammo at an Estate sale. I hope that one of you may know what they are. I got them dirt cheap and figured what the heck.
The look roughly the size of a 7.62x54
The head is stamped:
7.9/FS/1946/backwards C and acresent moon symbol then an upsidedown T or maybe a '1'.
All are loaded on 5 round brass stripper clips.

Any thoughts would be a great help. I will probably sell the lot as soon as I find out what they are.
 
If the bullet is .323" diameter with case length of 57mm, then I would call it 8mm Mauser, commonly found on 5 round clips. Isn't a crescent moon a Turkish symbol?
 
A crescent moon with a star between the points most commonly denotes Turkisk origin or destination ammo, but most Turkish ammo has the year and caliber denoted with markings in Turkish script, not Arabic numerals.

I'm not getting any strikes in any of my headstamp identification books, but I'm going to just flat out guess that this may have been made in France, as this sounds a lot like French 1/4 headstamping.

The 7.9 virtually guarantees that it was made for 7.92X57 rifles, 1946 is year of manufacture.

Any chance of taking a picture, or posting a scan of the headstamp?

It might be more apparent by seeing the relationship of the elements...
 
I wish we had some more information like bullet style and description of the stripper clip.

If the bullet is a large blunt-nosed cupro-nickel job it is the earlier version of the 8mm Mauser. If it is housed in a style of stripper clip which runs up to the shoulder of the round, it is the earliest version of all, designed for the model 88 Mauser. Many 88's were purchased by Turkey in 7.65 caliber and later converted to 7.9 but still required the earlier style of stripper clip.

If it is a spitzer style, it is the later "S" type 8mm round.

I would guess that since these were made in 1946 they were made in Turkey, but I don't really know.
 
Definitely a Mauser stripper clip, and definitely, given the caliber marking, a 7.92x57 Mauser round for the 98k-type rifle.
 
Since they are spitzer style, they are likely "S" type military 8mm Mauser round- the stripper clip is standard Mauser 98.

The original "S" slugs should weigh 154 grains, the overall cartridge 367 grains.

There was a newer round designated as "sS" that had a 198 grain bullet and an overall cartidge weight of 412 grains that slowly replaced the lighter round in the late 30's and through the war. Some of these were made post-war for the West German Police - 1946 would be about the beginning of manufacture for that round.

If they weigh 367 grains they are likely Turkish military, or if they weigh 412 grains they are more likely West German police rounds using Turkish brass which considering the state of German industry at that tie isn't an unreasonable assumption.
 
Keith,

Not a bad guess, but I've got a couple of flies to throw into that argument...

If the rounds were made for West German police, they should have Latin markings, not Turkish script.

And, to the best of my knowledge, German police in the zones of occupation were not armed with German-made weapons, which were pretty much all confiscated. They were armed with weapons supplied by the occupying power in that zone.

I've seen M1 carbines, Lee-Enfields, and French MAS-36s with German police property markings.
 
Mike,

The German police were using a 7.9 Mauser carbine produced by F. W. Heym post-war. I'm sure they had a variety of allied arms as well.

You're probably right about these simply being Turkish military though, I just through in the police suggestion in case they weighed out to be "sS" 198 grain rounds which as far as I know weren't used by the Turks.

Keith
 
Keith,

I've been told that the Heym rifle didn't hit the streets, and start replacing the guns provided by the Allies, until 1948-1949, when destroyed equipment was replaced and adequate stocks built up to replace the weapons in groups.

That was around the time that the P-38 made its reappearance in the German police & military.
 
>>>>>I've been told that the Heym rifle didn't hit the streets, and start replacing the guns provided by the Allies, until 1948-1949<<<<<

Perhaps so, my reference is vague on this. So, sounds like standard turkish military fodder. Perhaps FireForged will toss them on a scale and let us know the weight?
 
"7.9/FS/1946/backwards C and acresent moon symbol then an upsidedown T or maybe a '1'."

It is Turkish. I have a diagram exactly as described above in Identification Guide : Military Small Caliber Ammunition (1989) except for the year being 1934. The C is not backwards, the T is not up-side-down. You read it as you would read the FS.
 
The other cartridge on the right in the first image link appears to be Soviet but I can't make out the character under below the year (if held with the year at 12:00).
 
>>>>It is Turkish. I have a diagram exactly as described above in Identification Guide <<<<<

HKSig,

That sounds right, but my source (Ludwig Olson), leaves the suggestion that the Turks used the lighter 154 grain round with an overall cartridge weight of 367 grains. This is vague though, so possibly they did switch over at some point to the heavier round - he weighed these out at around 410 grains.
Does your source give bullet weights for the Turkish rounds?

It's weird, armies don't like to alter ammo because it throws the trajectory and sight adjustments out of whack.
 
Keith,

The book doesn't specify the bullet weights of the 7.9 for Turkey. Judging by the OA cartridge weight you supplied, it appears they went with a 200 grain spitzer bullet. Maybe buck the wind better?

FireForged,

If the character looks like this Cyrillic D :
picture.BMP

It is Soviet. I'm not sure which factory '52' is/was.
 
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