Thread: Identification please

Found these in the junk drawer....

Originally Posted by DavidGunn

Found these in the junk drawer....

Attachment 174151
Attachment 174152

303 British Top Right?

Top Left 6.5 Arisaka maybe?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=...AAAAAdAAAAABAY

This might help.

Left looks like an Oswald 'magic bullet' (6.5mm Carcano)

Originally Posted by Hermitage

Left looks like an Oswald 'magic bullet' (6.5mm Carcano)

Looks about right this is what I meant to link to before

Left round is Mk 7 .303British and right 6.5×54mm Mannlicher–Schönauer cartridge as used by Mannlicher and Rigby in there rifles. Bell famously used 6.5 and 7mm Rigby rifles to shoot hundreds of Elephants.

A quick google search turned up following and shows that with a 7x57 round would make a collection on its own:

Bell recorded all of his kills and shots fired. It was a business to him, not pleasure, and he needed to record expenditures.

He shot exactly 1,011 elephants; about 800 of them were shot with Rigby-made 7x57mm (.275 Rigby) rifles and round nose 173 grain military ammo.
He shot elephants with a Mannlicher-Schoenauer 6.5x54mm carbine using the long 159 grain FMJ bullets and noted that it was probably the most beautiful rifle he ever had, but gave it up due to faulty ammunition.
He shot his first safari with a Lee Enfield in .303 British and the 215 grain army bullet. Thereafter he kept a ten shot Army& Navy Lee Enfield as a sort of back up and in the hope he might find ten elephants silly enough to stand around long enough for him to use the whole magazine.
He went to rifles chambered in .318 Westley Richards for a while, which is a .32 caliber cartridge firing a 250 grain bullet at about 2400 fps, but found the ammunition unreliable and again returned to the 7x57mm. He later wrote that the .318 Westley Richards was more of a reliable killer for certain shots, while the 7x57 was a "surgeons" rifle.
He also recorded that one of the reasons why he favored the 7x57 was that the ammunition was more reliable and he could not recall ever having a fault with it; whereas British sporting ammunition, apart from the .303 military ammo, gave him endless trouble with splitting cases.

Kynoch one is 6.5 x 54 MS - Mannlicher Schoenauer.
Other looks like something weird from a .303 British case

Good call on the 303, the shoulder definitly isn't a 303 contour

Originally Posted by muzza

The 303 case is Australian manufacture ( MH is Hendon Small Arms Ammunition Factory ), but it doesnt look like a 303 cartridge. Possibly sold as a primed case and loaded as a commercial wildcat - think 303/270 , 303/25 etc.

.303/6.5...looks like 7 or 8 post #4

Originally Posted by Tedz50

Bell recorded all of his kills and shots fired. It was a business to him, not pleasure, and he needed to record expenditures.

He shot exactly 1,011 elephants; about 800 of them were shot with Rigby-made 7x57mm

My brain instantly wondered how many sausages that equated to

Lefthand one is 6.5 Carcano - Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy with one.

Righthand is 6.5 x 54 Mannlicher Schoenauer - William Bell AKA Karamojo Bell shot elephants in Uganda with this round, 19 in one day was his highest tally. The film the Lion and the Darkness with Val Kilmer is roughly based on his early career at age 16 shooting man-eating Lions for the Uganda Railway.

Originally Posted by muzza

50% right . The first pic is a Carcano on the left - Oswald certainly shot "at" JFK with one .

Right hand cartridge began life as a .303 Mk VII case out of the Hendon ammo plant in South Australia . What it became is still a mystery but it certainly isnt a factory 6.5 x 54 Mannlicher

It has 3 crimp marks equally spaced...if that helps.