airborne outfitting in WWII

[James K]

The Marines kept their M1903's until well into 1942 and every effort was made to make sure that all our troops had the right ammunition and clips. (Remember, unit supply officers were responsible for ordering ammo and they should have known what equipment their own men had.)

I can't say there were no SNAFU's but an M1 with no clips was effectively out of action. An '03 magazine could be loaded with loose ammo or ammo from M1 clips or MG belts (removing the latter was not easy!), but the M1 was a single shot rifle without clips.

Clips were not important for users of the M1903A4 since the scope prevented clip loading in any case.

In my experience, EM's war stories began as soon as they left combat and were well rehearsed by the time they got home. Many (most?) were pure BS; every Walther PP had been taken from Goering personally or at least a German Field Marshal, every Arisaka was captured in a bayonet fight with Tojo.

And of course the weapons stories were the same way.

But I did find out that one I disbelieved for a long time may have been (or at least could have been) true! Japanese 7.7 rifle (rimless) ammo not only will fit and fire safely in an M1903 but the Japanese clip will work as well. It will also fit and fire in and function an M1 rifle, but of course the M1 needs its own clip.

Jim

 

[CLC]

But I did find out that one I disbelieved for a long time may have been (or at least could have been) true! Japanese 7.7 rifle (rimless) ammo not only will fit and fire safely in an M1903 but the Japanese clip will work as well.

Interesting, do you have a source for this?

 

[tahunua001]

Interesting, do you have a source for this?

a member here recently posted complaining that 7.7 brass was bulging significantly in his newly acquired Arisaka type 99, when some other members asked if it had been rechambered for 30-06 he attempted and succeeded in chambering 30-06 in his rifle: the thing has been converted to 30-06 and he had been firing 7.7 jap out of it all along and the brass was fireforming to the 06 chamber.

I have no doubt in my mind that 7.7 will work in a 30-06, I only wish it could work in the reverse, much easier to find 06 than 7.7

 

[BlueTrain]

Interesting comment about the stripper clips. If you have enough different clips lying around, you could always experiment and see which ones work. The thing is, however, that even if the cartridge fits into the clip ever so nicely, it may not fit into the guide or slot on the rifle and vice versa. Some clips are marked with the caliber but hardly all of them. At any rate, there's a big variety of them for all the different cartridges and rifles in use. Even some Remington commercial semi-automatic hunting rifles used them, although in my own experience, they were difficult to use. You know, 7.62 NATO ammunition used to come packed in five-shot stripper clips and there was never any rifle that took them.

Clips, or chargers, for rimmed ammuntion are another story and you're lucky if you have clips for a Mosin-Nagant rifle that actually work but I never had problems with those for a Lee-Enfield, not that I used them very much. That's one of those things that never looked like it would ever work but it always did.

 

[johnwilliamson062]

I imagine Garand clips were pretty easy to get a hold of if anyone in the area was issued a Garand. I don't know what the life expectancy of one is, but mine have been reloaded quite a few times.

Thinking about this, it may be interesting to find out some of the other uses found for Garand clips. I am sure there were a number.

 

[SIGSHR]

The M-14 was designed to be loaded by either changing magazines OR with stripper clips, that answered the complaint that the M-1 Rifle could not be "topped off".

 

[James K]

CLC:

I don't know what source you want, but I think I have one of the fired cases around someplace. I don't have a notarized statement signed by Douglas MacArthur and Hideki Tojo, complete with an original WWII uTube video.

Johnwilliamson:

M1 clips were sometimes reloaded from boxed ammo, but it was uncommon. Ammo was issued in "spam cans" already loaded in bandoliers in the appropriate clips and no one tried to keep track of ejected clips or reloaded them; they were expendable. ("Excuse, please, honorable Japanese soldier, please do not shoot while I am picking up my clips; we must keep the battlefield tidy!)

Blue Train:

Well, the soldiers certainly didn't have a variety of clips laying around. I would guess that American soldiers found out they could use the Japanese ammo simply by trying it for the heck of it, not because of some desperate need.* My own test was based simply on proving or disproving the story of the ammo; it was interesting to find that the clips would work in an M1903 as well. (They are not a perfect fit in the guide, but they work well enough for an expedient.)

*Some say it is unsafe, but I don't think safety is high on the worry list for combat troops; the job is kind of unsafe to begin with.

Jim

 

[BlueTrain]

To SIGSHR, I had totally forgotten that the M14 would take the stripper clip. It's only been 45 years since I got out, so why didn't I remember that?

To James K., my comment was for the present day owners of those old rifles, not about field use in WWII. There was some use of captured ammuntion, along with the weapons that used them but that probably didn't happen much in the Pacific. In the European theater, some captured weapons were quite prized for their utility beyond their trophy value as long as the ammunition held out. For most of the war, British armored vehicles, but not those supplied by the U.S., used 7.92mm Mauser ammunition but not because they could rely on using captured ammuntion.

I think I have at home some clips made for 7.5 French, 7.92 Mauser, 6.5 Swedish and maybe something else but I don't have rifles for any of those calibers anymore. They're close in size but usually not close enough. They may interchange one way but not the other, meaning cartridges for one caliber will fit and (maybe) work in a clip meant for a different cartridge but not the other way round.

 

[James K]

"Stripper" clips were designed to be a pretty close fit in the clip guides. One reason is that they had to stay in the guide if the rifle was being moved around while being loaded. Further, clips (with a few exceptions, one of which is the Russian Mosin-Nagant clip) are designed so they will pop out of the clip guide when the bolt is closed. The shooter should never have to manually remove the clip from a Mauser, Springfield, M1917 Enfield, British No. 1 or No. 4/5, Japanese Arisaka, SKS, etc. Just close the bolt.

The photo shows a clip in a M1903 rifle. The picture is not upside down, the rifle is.



Jim