Ballistics: State Forces Use Mk V11 .303 bullets

Hi all:

I don't know much about ballistics, so apologies in advance...

Up until what approximate year/decade, would the Irish Home Defence Forces have used the MkV11 .303 bullet?

And would the use of the MkV11 bullet have been used only by the Army? Or would Local Defence Forces etc also used them at any time?

Many thanks.

niallb

I know my father used a Lee Enfield .303 with the FCA in the early 60's. There's a shield in the house somewhere and I'm sure he'd rattle off the serial number if I asked him. He was never in the regular army.

Clipped a little gap into his hearing that showed up years later when he needed a hearing aid. The audiologist was able to tell the calibre by the frequency of the notch too!

niallb

According to this page: https://www.historyireland.com/the-fca-1946-2005/ the FCA used the Lee Enfields until 1990!

That's great guys, many thanks! : )

Thanks Dohvolle, we chatted about this a while ago and I cant remember if I sent you any photos, or indeed these photos, so posting again.

I may still be chasing a red herring, however there was a slight possibility that the shrapnel was from a long forgotten about firing RIC range circa 1910-1920, but that's very much in contention. And I've found out recently that there were some either Army or FCA activities in the approximate area in the 1980's, so that's also a possibility.

The one intact bullet seems to be 3.3cm length and 0.8cm width. I'll get it weighed when I get a chance.

Also worth noting, I picked up a lot of shattered pieces of rough plaster/ceramic type fragments, with an age to them, in the exact same area where the shrapnel was found, nowhere else. I thought possibly from the shattered targets? If so, that might help to put a date on the activity?

The shrapnel has also been covered in sand since they were fired.

The area where they were found, has (to my knowledge) always been open to the public with the area never having any permanent association with the Army or State forces. Although one-off Army activity might be a recent enough possibility?

Re: The unconfirmed mention of maps with a zoned area, if they exist would be about 100 years old. if so, pointing towards the RIC.

But I'm not convinced the shrapnel is that old? Maybe much more recent?

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Cheers lads.

The Continental Op

. .

Stovepipe

.303 was in 2 types; Ball Mk VII for rifles and Mk VIIZ for machine guns (Lewis, Vickers, Bren and Browning). The latter had a higher cordite charge for higher velocity for use in machine guns.

Nosler

A lot of military ammunition has the year of manufacture on the case. If you found a case (not the projectile) it could give you a strong clue.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119928555#Comment_119928555

Yeah thanks, tried that. And I'm pretty sure I located 2 of the positions from where they were fired, but found nothing. Very tidy that end.

The Continental Op

Brass would have been picked up after every shoot on a military range. Then in the UK don't know about Ireland, everyone shooting would make a declaration to a more senior rank that they had no live rounds or empty cases in their possession.

One thing that you might still find are the rusty remnants of .303 charger clips and even a part of one could be diagnostic as to the period the range was in use as the design changed.

I'd suggest looking at the rifling marks on the rounds but tbh they don't mean that much, nearly every weapon this side of the English channel (Lee Enfields, Vickers machine guns, not sure about the Bren) created the same marks as they all had 5 square sided rifling grooves with a left hand twist. Your decent picture of a bullet has the left hand twist and the squarish marks from the lands. The land being the high points in the rifling that make the low grooves in the bullet.

Now if you find any with 2 or six grooves that would be interesting as 2 grooves was part of a WWII expedient to make the the Lee Enfield No 4 more cheaper/quicker so that might help put an age on them and after the war I did read somewhere about some No 4's that had six grooves.

I also notice that there is a small cannelure (groove all the way around) on the good bullet pictured. This was there to give something for the crimp on the cartridge to grip on. I seem to remember that the position of the cannelure changed and could help date it.

afaik (happy to be proved wrong) that all those bullets are from rifles. The ammo mentioned previously the Mk VIIz (introduces ~ 1936 and not officially used in rifles) was a boat tail design - tapered in at the back end. The pointy end, to be technical spitzer (The Mk VIIz was a boat tailed spitzer the Mk VII was a spitzer) indicates to me the ammo must be after or just before the WWI but thats a bit open ended and only gives a start date and could be much later. Earlier (before about 1910).303 bullets had a round nose.

But really hard to judge as .303 ammo was made all over the British Empire and Common Wealth https://harringtonmuseum.org.uk/the-303-british-service-cartridge/. Then the date that the ammunition was made could be years before it was fired.

A bit off topic but this is interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANKsPHXMNYA

Thanks for that Continental Op. Really interesting and helpful. The local museum have expressed a strong interest in displaying the shrapnel, if it can be dated to a specific historical time period, whatever that period might be. But that's a big "if".

There might be a clue in the 4th photo, a nail, and a very old and rusty one, and possibly the  shattered pieces/shards of rough plaster/ceramic type fragments which might have been from the targets? They were found in the same small area of the shrapnel.

A historian/author has suggested that that bullets appear to be from the Civil War era, but again that's just an opinion from inspection of the photos.

Is there a time era that could could be ruled out or in? ie: Is it possible they could be from the 1980's or later?

The Continental Op

OP have you checked on osi.ie mapviewer to see when the range first turned up on the map?

You can go back to about 1860 for the earliest surveys.

As an example I found Red Barns Ranges which is to East of RED BARNS ROAD, DUNDALK. On some maps the range doesn't show up on one it shows the range having a 1000yard firing point but recent maps only show it having a 200yard (probably 200m) firing point.

Google will also tell you a lot I've found historic notes on several ranges so maybe just google the area name + firing range and see what comes up.

The other thing to do is see historically what army barracks were in the area and google for information on them.

If you want to say where the location is I'll take a look. For example here's a picture of an old range near me I never knew about till I started googling https://www.geograph.ie/photo/834296 from a search https://www.geograph.ie/search.php?i=170865071.

Your local library should also hold large scale OSI maps of the area which will be dated so searching through what they have may show the range marked at some period or other.

Hi CO and thanks for that.

Yes we've checked the maps (with support from both Local Library services and the Archaeology Dept in the local University both are very interested in the bullets) and can find no indication or reference to an official state firing range. So dating them is really down to ballistics, if that's at all possible.

One big clue, there was an RIC barracks in 10 minutes walking distance from the location of the finds, and I think possibly the ceramic shards and nail might help to zone in on the time zone.

I'll PM you location, many thanks.