7.92x57 ammo headstamp 7.92 MM 42

PA Shootist

I have most of a box, approx. 30 rounds, of ammo measures as 7.92x57 in excellent clean condition, in an unmarked brown box, with headstamp 7.92 MM 42 at 10, 2, and 6 o'clock positions.. Only information I have found (municion.com, in Spanish language) alludes to Dominion Cartridge Co. producing these for clandestine use, perhaps ordered by US CIA, and provided where the CIA thought it was useful. The collector site suggests add 10 years to headstamp for actual manufacture date. Maybe far-fetched... Does anyone here have any additional or verifying information on such ammunition?

rufe-snow

At one time, there was a lot of similarity headstamped 9mm. Being sold, in 64 round unmarked boxes. It was high quality, non corrosive. But it had hard primers, for use in open bolt submachine guns.

I commented on this forum, regarding this ammo. Being made by the Musgrave plant in South Africa. One of the members PM'ed me with the same explanation you were given. That it was of post war manufacture, for clandestine use. Not likely made by Musgrave.

Cheechako

Those "clandestine" 7.9mm cartridges are well known by collectors. There are several different year's headstamps that are known, mostly in the 40s. Questions about them come up every so often, but the municion.org explanation is the one that is generally accepted as factual.

XXCross

For many years the 7.92x57 (8mm) cartridge was in common use by Canadian Armed Forces. DCC is located in Canada.

p3skyking

I used to buy hundred round cardboard boxes of it in Spanish Fort, Alabama when I was a kid. It was from Canada. Ten cents a round and it was great reloadable ammo. All I ever saw was 42 dates.

jonk

It is boxer primed. I find though that it has thick necks; neck reaming is needed to reload (at least in all 20 plus of my Mausers).

Hawk Carse

Commonwealth AFVs mounted 8mm Besa machine guns, it might have been loaded for them.

I remember the similar 9mm, then said to be Canadian make for STENs and Inglis Brownings.
I don't know how hard the primers were, it shot like a champ in my Luger.
Nothing else available at the time was reliable in that S/42 so I sold it to a collector.

richarda

I have many examples w/ 42, 43, 44, 45 headstamps - have never seen any later dates. As Canada made 9mm pistols and 8mm machine guns for Nationalist China during WWII, and as this type ammo is ONLY found in 9mm auto & 7.92 Mauser, I think the CIA connection may be a post-war happenstance - the ammo was available, so they may have used it. The stuff was widely available on the US civilian market in the early 1960s.

62fuelie

To add to the mythology - I had been told back when I used to by the 64 round boxes of 9mm was that it had been contracted by the OSS to be dropped to resistance forces and had the "sterile" headstamp so the Germans wouldn't know where it was coming from. Good story, at least.

machine gun moran

A lot of 9mm in 64-round boxes (twice the capacity of Sten mags) and 8mm in 40-something round boxes, came into the country in the late '60's, I believe from Canada. We shot up a lot of it. The Canadians may have been exporting it to China, which was equipped with 8mm's, as well as to other allies who used the cartridge, during WW2. It was all boxer primed.