Cartridge Age

MacD · Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:12 pm Post subject: Cartridge Age

When I received my used rifle I also wasgiven the cartridges that the original owner had placed into two holes bored into the butt. They are Dominion and last made in the late 1950's. The rifle was made in 1953. In testing the rifle before he bought it on my behalf, my friend fired two of the 4 rounds and sent me these cases. One had a neck split. As near as we can figure from the rifles history, these rounds are 55-59 years old. I am keeping the remaing two for my collection.

Suzanne · Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:39 pm Post subject: Re: Cartridge Age

I just watched a YouTube video where a guy was talking about using some Dominion cases at about 4:30 into the video (he's very long-winded and boring to listen to but....) he starts talkin about the Dominion cases and one split that was interesting. He was using black powder to load some 11mm ammo.

Vince · Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 4:31 am Post subject: Re: Cartridge Age

I have a couple of packs of Dominion .22 rimfire ammo, and they regularly blow through the rim on firing. Methinks Dominion was an "el cheapo" brand of ammo from many years ago.

MacD · Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 4:46 pm Post subject: Re: Cartridge Age

So I did some further investigating including depriming and this is what I found. Dominion Cartridge Company was a Canadian company that existed from the early 1900's to 1966. Take a look at these pictures. That looks to be a Boxer case altered with an insert to take a Berdan primer but I can't find any information to support this assumption. Any ideas?

PaulS · Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 1:14 am Post subject: Re: Cartridge Age

That looks like a boxer primer to me and the case looks normal too. Boxer primers always have an "anvil" inserted - some with just twolegs and some with three.

MacD · Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 5:15 am Post subject: Re: Cartridge Age

The picture isn't very clear. Instead of the usual anvil there is cup with two holes that sits in the primer. I will try to separate the two parts. This company made a lot of 303 ammo diring WW2 and they may have been using up surplus berdan primers or it is simply an odd anvil design.

Azar · Member Joined: Jan 04, 2010 Posts: 275 Location: Utah

That's definitely a boxer case and so it would have to be some type of boxer primer. You can't use a berdan primer in a boxer case as there is no anvil in a berdan primer. The anvil is built into the center of the berdan style case with the two small vent holes to the side. With no anvil built into the primer itself, and the large hole in the center of a boxer primed case, what would be there to crush and ignite the primer? Nothing.

It's got to be a different style design boxer case.