Milsurp After Hours

Whilst sitting having my lunch yesterday, a rather fine steak and kidney pie, potatoe and chive mash, steamed vegetables and onion gravy, I was reading a copy of the Times.

In T2 was an article about an album of German photographs from the First World War that was discovered in an attic.

One of the sample photos in the article shows a German soldier holding a SMLE in front of him, the photo covers his top torso and head up to the eyes. He holds the SMLE in his right hand and it appears to have the butt on his hip, the action is clearly visible and the magazine cut off is open, now this where it gets interesting.

The right hand holding the rifle has his thumb coming over the top of the action pressing a .303” round down into the hole in the top of the cut off.

His left hand is visible below this holding two .303” rounds with the points up, the round on the left, with the point clearly chopped off, is visibly shorter than the right one.

It looks to me that the soldier was demonstrating for the camera how the hole in the magazine cut off was used to make dum dum bullets either by snapping it off or closing the cut off.

I shall try it tonight.

Has any one heard of this use for the hole in the cut off before?

You would need hands as strong a hydraulic press to succeed in cutting off the tip of a bullet using the cut-off (either the hole or the slot at the front)!

The photo was most likely one of the many propaganda shots set up by the Germans. The alloy or fibre filler tip in the MkVII .303 round - inserted purely to provide ballistic stability - happens to give it near perfect distortion (ie wounding ability) in human-size animals. The Germans, for good reason completely losing the propaganda war, did try for a while to allege that the British were using dum-dum bullets. There are records of German faked "evidence" of .303 rounds with the tips cut off.

Given that every infantry company held dozens of sets of hefty wire cutters, there would be no need to use a rifle for the task. There is no mention of any auxiliary use of any part of the Enfield rifle in official documents - even the bayonet is strictly not to be used as a general purpose knife in UK military regulations. The cut-off was, of course, designed in the period of Mk1 to MkVI ammunition - round-nosed bullets...

No doubt, but still an interesting photo none the less.

Just tried it and it pops the tip of very neatly.

I,m not keen on kidney in my steak pie, was it a shortcrust pastry on top?

BTW can you bring the picture to the Castle on Thursday night so i can have a ganzie at it?

Joe

Now I like a lot of kidney in my pie, but there was a paucity in my portion.

Short crust.

If I remember.

One of the great urban legends of the 20th century or effective propaganda. It keeps popping up on Enfield forums. There were a couple of threads about it on the Great War forum as well. The problem in making a hollow or soft point bullet by cutting the top off of a full metal jacketed one is that especially with a bullet where the copper jacket does not fully enclose the bottom of the bullet you risk the lead core squirting out leaving the jacket firmly stuck in the barrel. When you fire the next round and it hits the obstruction you've turned your rifle into a club.

While I'm sure there were individual cases of cutting or filing the tip off of FMJ rounds it was never sanctioned, encourage or permitted if discovered.

It would not be in the best interest of captured soldiers to have such non conventional rounds discovered in their rifles. It would cut down the think time on the shoot them now or turn them in question though.

And another thing... no kidney in or out of a pie and I like my steak on the grill with no crust.

There is nothing like a good meat pie, it needs to be a good pie mind.

I'm very partial to a good Scotch or mutton pie as they get called down here in the south in Gordon Browns country.

However getting a good one can be difficult. They need just the right amount of white pepper.

Pies feature quite a lot in me and Joes' shooting regime.

Dum Dum was an arsenal in India, and Doolahly was an aclimatisation camp for new soldiers to the sub continent, when they went off it with heat stroke they were said to go Doolahly.

Thought for the day:

If shooting was difficult and required intellectual effort they wouldn't be able to teach squaddies to do it.

Ah the cut off tip Dum Dum style bullet, as has been pointed out it appears periodically, along with the snap the firing pin tip off in the hole in the charger bridge myth.

Adam, I can't believe you actually tried it. But seeing as you did, are you going to fire it ? Just for scientific curiousity mind.

On a more serious note - steak and kidney pie ? Yes please. Not too much kidney and with mash and lashings of tomato sauce.