Unexpected find...need help identifying ammo.

B

BerdanSS

New member
My wife's little brother is renting a house from a lady their parents go to church with. She told him to clean out the garage and repaint it and she'd take the labor off his rent. While cleaning he found an old coffee can (biggest one I've ever seen) filled with ammo.

800 rounds of new un-opened Remington High velocity .22 LR
Unopened box of stingers
600 rounds of old flat point .22 LRs
half a box of .32 short colt.
10 rounds of .32 S&W
handful of .25 APC


and then these:

Headstamp reads FNT 1950---30-06 maybe?


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Grenade Launching Round?
 
FNT is Spanish, Fabrica National de Toledo.

Need case measurements to know for sure what it is. Could be 06, 7mm or even 8mm.
 
OAL 78.02

Case Length 57

Bullet diameter 7.21

Neck diameter 8.05

Rim diameter 12.05



I was way off, as soon as I measured it I started thinking 7mm Spanish Mauser maybe?
 
I don't think that is a grenade blank.
It is a plain report blank, the ones I had were loud.
The powder used will not tolerate any restriction more than the card wad.
 
It has a red card in the end...wasn't thinking about it carefully, weren't most of the launcher rounds crimped anyway?
 
I think you may be reading the headstamp on the blank round incorrectly. Any chance of taking a picture using the macro feature on your camera? That will allow you to take close up photos clearly.

It APPEARS to be a .30-06. If it is, it's an M1909 blank (Jim is correct that it's a blank, and is not for grenade launching), but I can't tell who made it without being able to see the headstamp. The information you provided doesn't match up with anything with which I'm familiar.

Word of warning... NEVER EVER try to use the powder out of an old military blank for anything. Jim's also correct that it won't stand restriction.

The powder used was EC Blank Powder. It was an unbelievably fast nitro powder that was actually used as a filling for grenades during World War II.

EC, like many other flash powders, can be sensitive to shock. It's a lot more stable than some of the chlorate based flash powders, but you don't want to abuse it.


The clipped ammo is most likely 7x57 Spanish Mauser. The case dimensions are correct.
 
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As a matter of interest, all rifle grenade blank launching cartridges have the "rose petal" crimp, for identification.

I once broke down some M1909 blank rounds and the powder looked like orange Kool-Aid mix. It was definately not the expected gray color of most powders.

Bob Wright
 
Blank powder is made of open granules in order to ignite and burn faster, and is not treated with either retardant or graphite, the reason it does not have the gray color of most smokeless powder. It looks a bit like large grain soap powder.

Jim
 
"I once broke down some M1909 blank rounds and the powder looked like orange Kool-Aid mix."

EC Blank Powder was made, I believe, by Hercules, and was orange to pink in color.


Modern 5.56 blanks apparently use IMR 700x.
 
Mike Irwin:
EC Blank Powder was made, I believe, by Hercules, and was orange to pink in color.
Click to expand...

Yeah, as I said, looked like all you had to do was add water for a drink.

Come to think of it, I suspect some of the men in my outfit may have tried it!

Bob Wright
 
Since the identification is moving along nicely, I want to see the coffee can that held that much stuff!
Click to expand...

THAT'S what I want to see as well. Those old boxes on the 22 ammo look awesome
 
Sorry guys, I pitched the coffee can. It was NASTY on the outside, couldn't even see what the brand was. I'll tell ya though, it was about a foot tall and 9 inches in diameter....biggest coffee can I've ever seen.
 
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