New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

I stand to be corrected here but the first question I ask is what type of rifle cartridges are they - to be cadet use they would have to be prior to and around the time of WWI either .22 or .297/230 or .310 cadet or .303 and if WWII then .22 or .303

If they are scattered around the park then one must assume that for cadet use they would have to be blanks as live ammunition would be restricted to the range! If they are of WWII vintage then they will be marked with the date if .303 - generally in the case of CAC ammunition the date in two digits eg 41 for 1941

If they have lines which were apparent crimp lines to hold the top in tight without a projectile then they will be blanks and likely cadet practice use. This would likely restrict them to .22 or .303 By the time of WWII both 297/230 and .310 cadet were likely obsolete for cadet use.

I have my suspicions that cadets would have been required to bring spent ammunition back to base as we were so that it could be determined that no little rascals had swiped live ammunition - it all had to be accounted for - live, dead or indifferent!

If they are spent cartridges which had been live ammunition complete with projectile then let me assure you no dear little cadets would have used them in the park - never - unless there was a range sited there and if there was or was not then my quesiton is why werent they just taken down to Burnham a few miles down the road to the Army range? Your article states target practice - that means formal shooting on a range and not all over the park. The cadets would also not be allowed to retain the empties and even if they could they would hardly throw them all over the park.

Is it possible to get some photos of the shells please as I am quite curious about them.

I would be more inclined to believe that soil might have been brought in for fill from some site where a substantial amount of shooting took place and with the soil the spent cartridge cases.

Edited by user Monday, 19 December 2011 11:55:24 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Found 3 more lying around the house.

A blank with C.A.C. 20 VII Z
An unknown type with CAC 1943 VII
One with no visible markings

"A recent find of mine as a button that has rifle volunteers on it."

Can we see a pic of that Dan?
Chris.

Cool post. Found an old .310 in a playground the other day.

Shane

Found an old .310

Edited by user Tuesday, 20 December 2011 9:09:03 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

thats interesting about the different types of rifles I had no idea there were so many...I thought the rings were oil rings and there were 2 types haha!

Here's all my projectiles and a couple of shells...I throw most shells out as they are brittle and break. 2 of them, the smooth ones were obviously drops and were close together.

Also all my millitary buttons..some NZ forces, some british and of course the NZ rifle volunteers one

one day soon I'm ging to make small rimu frames and glass top these in like ya see the yanks do with their collections...then I can hang em on the wall and enjoy them. The stories these could tell....

They're bloody big ae!! I imagine ya'd have to have a decent sized shoulder firing a hundred a day of them! would piss bowl an possum out of a tree pretty good too I reckon!

Always interested in info on history especially if its the rifle volunteers...we had some in my town and they were based at the hall which was originally setup for settlers in the town to stay untill they obtained land etc...

Dan

These are wot ive found with a detector so far. Top four i found on a beach, think there .303, a .310 cadet, a .22 (one of a few) and not sure about the one on the bottom right. Measures aprox 8-9mm by 18mm long. Looks like a pistol shot to me.

Shane

I tend to agree about the pistol projectile. Looks to be a more modern one. A lot of the Hornady swaged lead projectiles had knurling on them and a lubricant in the knurling, rather than in a grease groove. Normally you would expect to see more evidence of the rifling so it may not have been fired out of a proper firearm.

haha cool man you have found some nice twisty ones there :)

Dan

I think that things have changed a bit over the last twenty years because it is not so long ago that if anyone wanted to sight a rifle in all they had to do was to go down to the beach...if they got reported then the local cop would come along and ask you what you were doing. You told him that you were sighting your rifle in and he had a friendly chat about the weather, local happenings, ballistics and then after warning you to be careful because there were others likely to be about went on his merry way.
Today if you sight your rifle in on the beach the first person who comes along whines, whinges, complains and runs off with their tail between their legs pimping to the Police - helicopters are called, the Armed offenders Squad notified and rushed to the scene and before long your are surrounded by Darth Vader and the Gestapo, heavily armed, dressed in black and being the legal psychopaths they are - to anyone who objects to me saying that then carefully bear in mind that if you volunteer to take on a job which involves killing your fellow human being then you are obviously prepared to kill and must therefore have psychopathic tendencies - you find yourself staring down the barrels of several loaded guns!

To cut a long story short Shane I would guess that back sometime in the past someone was either amusing themselves harmlessly passing a Saturday afternoon shooting targets on the beach or sighting their rifle in or during WWII the Home Guard was shooting shit out of imaginery Banzai Monekys.

Edited by user Monday, 26 December 2011 12:17:27 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified