TonyE

Sorry, there is a typo in the above. The calibre should be ".256" not ".276" inch. Also, I have attached a photo of the round. Regards TonyE

There were no Dum Dum bullets used in WWII. Apart from anything else, Dum Dums are round nosed 215 grain bullets long obsolete by WWII. The soldier may have been hit by a British incendiary B.Mark VII which if it struck bone may have detonated and would certainly have dome massive tissue damage. However, it is much more likely that he was struck by a normal Ball Mark VII bullet which because of the alumunium tip broke up as it passed through his arm and the main part hit the second soldier. The ball Mark VII was known to produce worse wounds that a normal lead cored bullet and is prone to breaking up and tumbling whatever it hits. Regards TonyE

You are of course quite right about the dangers of modifying service full jacketed bullets to "Dum-Dum" type configuration, but the original Dum-Dum rounds were in fact made like this. The jacket was open at the base in the normal manner. When the British military adopted the Mark III and Mark IV hollow point bullets there were occasions of the core blowing through and it was not until the introduction of the Mark V hollow nosed bullet with a harder lead antimony core that the problem was overcome. In the Egyptian and Sudan campaigns at the end of the 19th Century troops were allowed to file the tips from their Mark II solid bullets. Regards TonyE

It may be of interest that the British Army purchased a number of these equipments at the beginning of the war and inherited a few more from those the French managed to get back from Dunkirk. I do not think they ever saw any operational use but were used mostly for training. Regards TonyE

Although an expanding bullet, the round shown by Chris B is actually not a classic Dum Dum. It is what is known as a split jacket bulllet (for obvious reasons). The classic Dum Dum, i.e. the Mark II Special made at the Dum Dum Arsenal had a small part of the lead core exposed at the nose of the envelope and would have been headstamped either "D I" (with a small broad arrow over the I) or from one of the other Indian facilities. The photo shows a genuine Dum Dum (headstamped "D I") alongside a British made Cordite Mark IV round which was hollow pointed. The Mark V which followed was similar, differing only in the lead /antimony mix of the core. Although officially withdrawn around 1900 to comply with the Hague Convention, the last issues of Mark V hollow points from Woolwich was made in 1908/9 for use in Somalia. Regards TonyE

Having just registered on the board I was looking through some old posts and came across this, and would like to add some additional information. The production of the P.14 was seriously behind schedule and the first ten rifles from each factory were not accepted by British inspectors in the US until Feb/Mar 1916. They arrived in the UK and were tested and inspected by the Munitions Design Committee in May 1916, so it is unlikely that any were in the hands of troops in the UK until late summer 1916. The decision had already been made to send no P.14s to France due to the problem of interchangeability of spare parts. By that time there were 3.6 million Pattern 14 rifles on order with the three companies and it was apparent that they would not be needed due to the late delivery and the fact that UK production of SMLEs was now sufficient. By August 1916 only 95,000 of the 1,433,300 rifles due to date had been delivered and it was decided to cancel a large part of the outstanding rifles. On 23 August J.P.Morgan (the British Purchasing Agents) cancelled 1.8 million rifles. The US Government had nothing to do with the decision and they did not order the production to end. The companies obviously objected to this and after negotiations it was agreed to amend the cancellations to 1.4 million rifles and approximately 1.2 million were finally delivered, the final production being in mid 1917. It was after that the production of the Model 1917 started. Regards TonyE