Wood made bullet?
I have what appears to be a 7,62 or .308 rifle round but with the bullet itself made in wood. I have been told were made to create a serious wound in the battlefield.....seems weird. What are made for? Thanks!
Breech
Breech
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I've been told that this was a Practice Round, Similar to a Blank...Made a Big Bang and at about 25 to 50 Feet would have lost vitually all forward Velocity.....Never used as a Bullet for War....If We wait around for a while...ICONOCLAST will be along and can set us all straight about the Wooden Projectile..............
Captain Kirk, Tech Staff0 -
quote:Originally posted by breechman
I have what appears to be a 7,62 or .308 rifle round but with the bullet itself made in wood. I have been told were made to create a serious wound in the battlefield.....seems weird. What are made for? Thanks!
Breech
There were a number of blank and dummy rounds made that had wood bullets. Maybe that is what you have.
A "real" wood bullet would be too light to retain good velocity over distance, and would tend to be ineffective during battle compared to a standard heavy bullet.0 -
I have a few 7.7 Jap rounds with wooden bullets. I was told that when the war was going poorly for Japan and material scarce, they made some bullets from wood. Don't know if that true, sounds sorts of weird. 0 -
I have a collection of wood bullets the ones i have are loaded with shot.I have a box of 32 rim fire it says on box 32 long R.F shot remingtion UMC black powder. 0 -
They're usually used in conjunction with a shredder attachment, they're basically really complicated blanks
Love them Beavers
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quote:I have a few 7.7 Jap rounds with wooden bullets. I was told that when the war was going poorly for Japan and material scarce, they made some bullets from wood. Don't know if that true, sounds sorts of weird.
Thats what I've been told too, along with the fact that a wounded man takes several off the front line. Curious to hear if thats true from Iconoclast.
"Aim small, Miss small"0 -
Was used for training although they do have trouble feeding in some semi autos, I had somne of them from East Germany, handy for getting rid of predators at close range however too much boom! 0 -
I have them from several countries, they were used for (short range/indoor) practace rounds and in at least one case (30-06) grenade launching.
Some guys like a mag full of lead, I still prefer one round to the head.0 -
Breechman - always helpful to have headstamp(s) and, if possible, photos.
As Tailgunner stated, virtually all nations have used bullet-shaped wood plugs in their blank rounds (I'm not aware of their use as short range / gallery practice loads . . . that purpose was served by metal projectiles / reduced charges until the advent of plastic projectiles in the 1970s) at some point in their history - even the US (again as TG noted) in an early rifle grenade blank. In fact, this type was probably the dominant design outside the US well past WW2. They are also used for dummy rounds, often set in fired cases. I've not seen one in 7.62x51, but my reference by a Belgian author mention that Belgium loaded these in a variety of colors . . . I'd be sure Germany & other European NATO partners had them as well. I've even had at least one wood bullet 5.56x45 blank (Swedish) . . . believe there was another, but cannot verify this.
Preban - Not at all surprised the DDR loaded wood bullet rounds, they drew heavily from the Nazi designs throughout their existance as a Soviet client. I am curious if you have packaging which would indicate the rounds you describe were for practice? The Europeans are very careful about noise & range . . . where these are noticeably loud, I'd lean toward them being blanks ??
Trap - if there had been a Snopes in the 1940s, combat use of wood "bullets" would have been a frequently accessed & debunked legend. With tens of millions of combatants spanning the globe, I certainly cannot assert there was never an incident when some desperate soul grabbed whatever was at hand, but these were never intended for anything but noise. If nothing else, consider the theoretical ballistics of a fragile (cheap clear pine or other softwood in most instances, although the Portugese loadings of the Kropatsheck appear to have used some variety of hardwood based on the samples I have) pushed down a rifled barrel, splintering as it goes. Little accuracy, darn little ME, super short range. Yeah, shoot someone in the neck or similar vulnerable spot at close range and it will kill . . . there have been people killed accidentally (or at least stupidly) by blanks . . . but at such ranges, that's why they were still issuing bayonets. This is the same sort of legend as the Reformado "poison bullets" of the Pulitzer / Hearst era of "yellow journalism."
hedgehopper62 - wood cups were used in all sorts of BP and early smokeless cartridges for shot loads. The military even made .45-70 "forager" loads for the Western garrisons so the troops could augment the menu with small game targets of opportunity. I have a bag of the original "sabots" somewhere . . . basically hollowed-out "bullets" conforming to the profile of a 500gr bullet. A paper-wax composite material was used for this as well in dozens of commercial loads and for early .30 US, .30-03, .30-06 military blanks.
"There is nothing lower than the human race - except the french." (Mark Twain)0 -
Iconoclast,
I'm glad to see that you made it with your usual high quality response! Thank you.
I can only add little bits and pieces along with a couple of photos for information sake.
"This is usually found on .30-'06 ammo loaded with wooden bullets and BOXER primed cases. The headstamp will read FA 22-R. This is often mistaken for a blank round. It is, in fact, a lot of 35,000 rounds made for training troops in using the French Viven-Bessiere (VB) rifle grenade. The VB grenade was fired from a cup launcher that fitted onto the barrel of a M1903 Springfield. It had a hole bored through it that lined up with the rifle bore. The idea was that a round fired would have the bullet pass harmlessly through the grenades bore and the gases behind the bullet would launch the grenade. The wooden bullets were for use on short grenade ranges where ball ammo dropping from the skies would bother the neighbors. The bullet, by the way, is described as CAL. .30, V.B. GRENADE PRACTICE CARTRIDGE, MODEL 1921'. The R indicated that the casehead had undergone a special annealing process to make it harder than standard Service ammo."
These are 8x56R for the Krag:
"We came into a wooded area where the Germans had been and vacated. By the rubbish left behind we knew they were there for several days. They left behind boxes of wood tip bullets of the caliber of their rifles. From prisoners taken we learned that the wood bullets were meant to splinter wounding but not killing us. It was thought that it would slow us down trying to assist someone in removing splinters. This type of bullet was only effective at close range so it was abandoned. There was an noxious odour about the German troops. We could smell it in the warm months wherever they had been. I never knew what it was, it could have been some
insecticide."
-An American soldier told about his war day by day, from hell of Omaha to Hurtgen, in the ranks of the Big Red One-
http://www.normandie44lamemoire.com/magazine/numero21/magazine21page3.htm
Blank: During the 1920s and 1930s, a number of German companies produced a wide variety of commercial blanks one by Geco with a red paper bullet filled with iron powder to give it the weight to operate the action. There is also an unheadstamped German load from this period with a mercury filled wood bullet (Figure 14).
Fig. 14: German commercial blanks: From left to right: RWS with pink paper bullet, RWS with mercury filled wooden bullet, Geco with paper bullet filled with iron powder, Geco, DWM with red wood bullet, probably prototype of RWS mercury filled wood bullet, three military blanks by Polte.
"The Danes also produced blanks beginning in the 1950s. Originally their blanks used plain white wood or red wood bullets, and with red plastic bullets in the Swedish style. Later they introduced an extended, brass-case blank. In the early 1960s the Danes adopted a blank barrel for their Carl Gustav machine pistols with a reduced bore to allow automatic fire with blanks. To prevent a ball load from being fired in the blank barrel, the chamber was extended, and after the early 1960s all Danish blanks have a 21mm case length, the extra 2mm's allow a normal 19mm case to drop too far into the chamber to be fired."
This is from a fairly extensive description of 9mm Parabellum ammunition:
http://cartridgecollectors.org/intro9mm/0 -
quote:Originally posted by TRAP55
quote:I have a few 7.7 Jap rounds with wooden bullets. I was told that when the war was going poorly for Japan and material scarce, they made some bullets from wood. Don't know if that true, sounds sorts of weird.
Thats what I've been told too, along with the fact that a wounded man takes several off the front line. Curious to hear if thats true from Iconoclast.
The wooden bullets of the Japanese were used in their training rifles. These were purpose designed rifles that contained as much metal and workmanship as a real rifle but had no rifling in the bore.
These rifles are what gave the impression that the Japanese made low quality military weapons. Most people cannot tell the difference between "99 Type Rifle" and "For blanks only" when written in Japanese. This lead to some spectacular results.
Stolen from, and with thanks, to Kiwibird0 -
We saw a few of the 7.92X57 Mauser cartridges loaded with a wood bullet.
The roumer was " when hit by one the splinters cant be x rayed and will
infect the soldier. Another was, they had poison on them". The usual
unfounded roumers the G.I. gets. I fired one at a cardboard box at 15
feet. Nothing showed. Later we heard that they were actually blank rounds probably still in posession with new traied Kraut troops called into the lines in a hurry and didnt get rid of them. This same "tale"
came up on military.com a while ago and had another ETO vet say the same thing as I did. The bullet was a very soft wood and if I recall was purple? in color. Wish I kept a few of them.0
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