I have come upon 6 old rimfire cartridges that are dummy or display rounds and I am very curious what they are. They have a U headstamp, have the hard lube like a 22 rimfire on an all lead bullet, nickel plated case and a hole about 1/16" diameter drilled or punched in the side. They have no firing pin hit. The bullet is .358 in diameter as is the case. The rim is .055" thick, the case is .790" long, the rim diameter is.423" and the bullet by best guess is around 130 grains or so. The bullet is in the case the same as a 22 and is the same shape and general appearance as a Remington 22 LR.

These six rounds were in a presentation case for some revolver that my grandfather had. It was stolen in the 1930's but not the box. There is not one marking on the box, in the box or even under the velvet. It has a beautiful high gloss finish on very beautifully figured walnut. I can't even tell from the shape of the indentation if it was a top-break, single action or who knows what.

Anybody have a clue? I have searched every book I can find and even called Remington. That was a waste of time. I have a whole box of 32 caliber rimfires that look like there baby brothers with the same headstamp.

Thanks for the help.

.38 Short Rimfire would be my guess . The case measurements vaguely fit the range for that cartridge and nothing else is close that I can find .
The cartridge cases are presentation dummies so that would explain the plateing and holes.
Any other suggestions ?

The headstamp {U}would seem to indicate they were produced by Union Metallic Cartridge Co.

U.M.C. produced ammo for foreign consumption to
customer specs.

All .38 RF ammo I have "miked"measures .376-.377
,both bullet and case.I have specimens of.38 RF
Short,Long,and X-Long,they are consistant in dia.measurements.

.377-.358=.019,that would be a mighty sloppy fit
in a .38 RF.

Your measurements would be more consistant with
a 9mm rimfire of some type.

Several 9mm RF rounds were manufactured in Europe,especially Belgium.

I see no evidence tying the case,pistol and cartridges together,so really the only way to identify these rounds are by measurements.

If you know anyone with access to ECRA{European Cartridge Research Assoc.},maybe they could help.

WC

The cartridge case measurements given fall within those listed on page 83 of Chuck Suydam " The American Cartridge " book , which is the US Rimfire identification bible for most of us .

Whilst they are somewhat extreme they still loosely conform to .38 Short dimensions. It seems unlikely to me that a presentation revolver in the US would be chambered in a European rimfire calibre.However since we dont have the revolver we will never be able to answer that query . Certainly UMC and others made metric rimfire ammo for export .

Rimfire cartridges are not always easy to identify accurately if you get too hung up on exact measurement ranges.

None of this is really helpfull but someone else may have more to add.

Thank you all for the help. Found out one thing, don't trust electronic micrometers. The battery in mine was dying when I did my measurements and it gave me .019/.020 off on the diameter of the case and bullet. They were the last things I measured. The measurements I got with my old Starret mike were .3775 for the bullets and .378 for the case. The length is okay but the rim dia. is .434 and it is .058 thick.

Thanks again for the help. I wish I had the gun, it sure would have made it easier. I wish too I could remember all the stuff my grandfather said, but don't we all.

[ 07-03-2003, 23:59: Message edited by: fish_bait ]

With all due respect to my esteemed colleague from NZ, a more recent and better reference for North American rimfire cartridges is John Barber's The Rimfire Cartridge in the United States and Canada from Armory Publications, 1987. Looking at the known extremes of .38 short RF specimens listed therein, all your dimensions fall into the ranges listed. I have seen examples of .32 and .38 short rounds in nickel plated cases from Remington-UMC (still using the "U" headstamp) from the mid 20th Century. I have also seen dummy rounds in these calibers with holes in the case wall (copper and brass, but none in nickel plate). Still, I suspect these would be late factory dummies rather than presentation rounds, as no factory weapons in this caliber were being produced at such a late date. The practice of including nickel plated dummies with presentation weapons is, to the best of my limited knowledge, a post war phenomenon.