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* March 2006

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Picture Page

April 2006

An experimental that's pretty easy to spot....

Here's a box that should be relatively easy to spot as something special, with that big, bold 'EXPERIMENTAL' on the front. I suppose the only thing missing is a large, multi-colored neon sign saying 'HEY!! LOOK HERE!!'. This is a box full of .22 Remington Experimental (surprised?) cartridges, intended for use in the .224 Springfield Infantry Rifle, of which only two prototypes were made. The cartridge was based on a lengthened .222 Remington case with a higher shoulder, and was developed in the mid-1950s as a cooperative effort between Remington Arms Company and the Springfield Arsenal. The Remington Arms Company, which referred to the cartridge as the .22 Remington Experimental rather than the .224 Springfield perhaps as a means of deflecting unwanted publicity away from the government project, produced 10,000 of these unheadstamped cartridges for use by the Army in the .224 rifle tests. Because of a perceived conflict with the Army's M14 program, testing of the .224 rifles at the Springfield Arsenal was suspended in 1957. Recognizing that the cartridge might have some potential as a hunting cartridge, Remington introduced a commercial version in 1958 as the .222 Remington Magnum. Unfortunately, it never caught on with shooters, and is produced only by Remington at this time. The first three cartridges shown in this picture are, from the left, the .222 Remington, the .224 Springfield (aka .22 Remington Experimental) from the box, and the .222

Remington Magnum. The remaining four cartridges are steps in the evolution of the .223 Remington, the cartridge designed for use in the M16 rifle, which first saw service in Vietnam in 1963, and which was adopted by NATO as the standard rifle cartridge for use by its member nations in 1980. Remington also played a major roll in the development of the .223 cartridge, working closely with Armalite's chief engineer Eugene Stoner to come up with the best cartridge for their prototype weapons. The cartridge that resulted was initially called the .222 Remington Special. The first lot of cartridges was produced in 1957 with the headstamp REM-UMC 222. The next headstamp used was REM-UMC 222 SPL, as is seen on the fourth cartridge in the picture. In 1959, the headstamp was changed to REM-UMC 223. The fifth cartridge has this headstamp, which was used until 1963, after which headstamps assumed the military style with the manufacturer's initials (R A) and two digits for the year (6 3), as seen on the last cartridge in the picture, which is a dummy made by Remington in 1964. The sixth cartridge in the picture with the W C C 5 8 headstamp is a .224 Winchester E2, which was that company's developmental version of the.223 cartridge. It is interesting to note that, like the .224 Springfield, the .223 cartridge design was also based on the .222 Remington case, and although the .223 case is a little shorter than the .224, the shoulders of the two match pretty closely.

.A 11mm Japanese Murata cartridge ...... ....

.Aside from the all-too-familiar crop of lead oxidation that is slowly devouring the bullet, this is a nice example of what proved to be a difficult cartridge to add to my collection. This one bears a headstamp indicating production in the 17th year (1885) of the reign of Japanese Emperor Meiji.

Too much of a good thing ...............

.Ten or 15 years ago, someone stumbled across a full crate of 15mm pinfire and severely dampened the market for these once rare cartridges that at one time were bringing $40 to $50 apiece for even the most common varieties. Several years ago, large quantities of the experimental 4.6 x 36 HK CETME spoon tips and 4.9 x 45 DAG were imported into the US, dropping the collector value for these cartridges from around $50 each to just $1 to $2 each. Here's a similar but somewhat less drastic example, this being a nearly full 250 count can of belted .30-06 M2 ball cartridges with the once uncommon V C 4 5 headstamp. They were produced at the Verdun ammunition plant of Defense Industries Limited (D-I-L), a subsidiary of Canadian Industries Limited (C-I-L) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The cartridges are in an unmarked olive green cloth machine gun belt. At one time, these cartridges sold for as high as $15 each in Robert Buttweiler's cartridge auctions; current value is around $4 each.