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Excellent, IL

Here is a similar example, which came with a standard 1896 Mauser round. Accompanying label reads: "Cartridges taken from Captured Boers during South African War".

As with your round, there is no "neck stabbing".



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Hi IL,

Here are some more photos of the case recovered from Colesburg; I can't see any neck stabbings and it's quite symmetrical.

The one thing I noticed from the moment I acquired it was that it was made of a different material, the other casings had been subjected to corrosion from being left in the open for all those years. This case is an excellent condition. Perhaps they were experimenting with the metallurgy of the case as well as the propellant.

Really enjoyed the posts from yourself and Neville_C; thanks for the insights.

Sturgy,

My experience has been that cartridges made of the same copper alloy (brass) can corrode differently on the same battlefield. The three examples below were all picked up at Graspan in the 1970s. The two .303 cases have identical Royal Laboratory headstamps, yet have oxidised in very different ways. As far as I can gather those lying on the surface, open to the elements, tend to blacken, while those buried in the acidic soils corrode.



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I forgot about this one, which is incorporated into a trophy of ABW ammunition brought home by Captain Rowland Brinckman, 2nd Bn. Royal Irish Fusiliers, and presented to his brother officer, Captain Francis Marwood Hext.

Plaque one: "BOER POMPOM SHELL / FROM HLANGWANI HILL, COLENSO, Feb 1900 / and some of the various cartridges / used by the Burghers".
Plaque two: "CAPTAIN F.M.HEXT / FROM R.B. / an old brother officer of the / 2nd ROYAL IRISH FUSILIERS / 1902".

As the cartridge appears to have been fired, this at first seems to be a marriage of a soft-tipped .303 bullet with a "K" "1" case. However, the 10 mm of exposed lead is an exact match for the complete "K" "1" cartridge illustrated in Bester (p. 291). Perhaps the cartridge was "fired" after the removal of the projectile, so as to neutralise the primer composition (the impressions in all the primers look very odd to me). Or, maybe, it was another "dud" round. For Brinckman to have put a matching bullet and case together by accident seems unlikely, especially given the scarcity of this type.

Whatever the history of the "complete" cartridge, two interesting examples in their own right.

Note: the bullets have not been re-inserted to their corrected depths, and therefore appear 4 mm longer than they should be.






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Sturgy, Neville and other interested Forum members
A couple of points to comment upon -
Regarding the corrosion rates of cartridge cases buried versus left on the surface, I cannot offer a better explanation than that of Neville. The Cartridge Brass used for drawing .303" British cartridge cases was set at 68 - 74% copper and 32 -26% zinc giving the best alloy for feeding and extraction. A contributing factor to corrosion of FIRED cartridge cases - albeit internally - can be the mercuric primers used at that time; the mercury attacks the structure of the brass and causes cracking. As far as battlefield recoveries are concerned, perhaps we are lucky if we get anything recognizable.
While the parameters of the .303" cartridge case itself had been set, there was continual experimenting with primer types between 1890 and 1892 - and attempts to prevent possible interaction between the propellent and the brass of the cases. For example, at one point, cases had internal varnishing.
My point here being that until questions of projectile design, primer type and Cordite composition had been dealt with (1890 - 1892), Ammunition Trade manufacturers could be caught short by a sudden change in official specifications at any stage of batch production. Thus, a specification change could mean large quantities of cartridge components (or even batches of loaded ammunition) being scrapped. A fertile field for repurposing ammunition for sporting use by switching projectiles and export to the perhaps less discriminating Colonial market.
Turning to the two .303" rounds seen on the Brinckman Trophy, I see a sample of my old mate, "K" "I". I agree, the soft nosed projectile has been "pulled" and reseated (soldered?) in place at an incorrect Overall Length. In the case of both of the abovementioned rounds, some kind soul long ago has "popped" their primers in place after downloading- probably using a center punch and hammer. They were not fired in a weapon; had they been, there would have been no bulging of the copper primers as seen on both examples. To illustrate how a primer looks when fired in a weapon's chamber, I attach a pic of a .303" round of much later date, fired recently:

No bulging and no messy center punch indent.
I have found recent contributions to this topic to have been most interesting and Neville's illustrations to be excellent.
Best regards to all
IL.

These three rounds were recovered during the exhumation of Gerhardus Jozua van Niekerk (K.I.A., Lower Tugela, 22 Feb 1900), at Davel's Hoek, 3.5 km due west of Pieters Railway Station.
The cartridges were found in his breast pocket.

My diary entry for 8 Aug 1978 reads: – "Working from the head down, I was soon in the region of Gerhardus van Niekerk's breast pockets. Here I uncovered what at first appeared to be a fountain pen, but which, on closer examination, turned out to be a modified .303 cartridge. This I handed up to Mr Schuman, the government appointed inspector from Pretoria. Then a second and a third cartridge came to light. The tips of the three projectiles had been neatly hacksawed off, converting them into expanding bullets".

Unfortunately, I made no record of the headstamps.

I have recently discovered that a soft-nosed .303 cartridge was also found on the body of Johannes van Niekerk (the grave next to that of Gerhardus's). This is illustrated on p. 291 of Ron Bester’s “Small Arms of the Anglo-Boer War”. As I did not record this at the time, I can only assume the nature of the round did not become apparent until it was cleaned up at a later date.







Photograph courtesy of Ron Bester. "The last cartridge [on the far right] was found in the shirt pocket of Burgher J.W.H. van Niekerk after he was killed in action at Colenso on 23rd February 1900" (Bester 2003, p. 291). The seemingly identical cartridge to its left is an Eley Brothers round. SEE: EB Cartridge





The four graves at Davel's Hoek, all of which were exhumed on 8 Aug 1978. The Burghers buried here were (starting with the nearest): Johannes Jacobus Joubert [K.I.A., Colenso(?), 21 Feb 1900]; Gabriel J.J. Uys, [K.I.A. Colenso, 15 Dec 1899]; Gerhardus Jozua van Niekerk, [K.I.A., Lower Tugela, 22 Feb 1900]; and Johannes Wilhelmus Hendrikus van Niekerk, [K.I.A., Lower Tugela, 23 Feb 1900].




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