W.R.A. military 12 ga.

agostino

I recently acquired a box of 12 ga. 00 Buck ammo which is encased in a foil lined cloth wrapping. The markings read:

25 SHELLS, SHOTGUN
12 GAGE BRASS
No.00 BUCKSHOT
LOT W.R.A. 22057
WINCHESTER REPEATING ARMS CO.
DIVISION OF OLIN INDUSTRIES, INC.(in tiny letters at the
bottom)

I'd like to figure out an approximate age. A friend told me this form of packaging was still in use in Vietnam. Any info would be appreciated.

charliemeyer007

Could be, was a little before my time. I was issued brown cardboard boxes that had 5 rounds of plastic cases with 9 pellets of OO. Way under powered if you ask me.

Full length brass cases were used for the trenches in WWI, paper shells absorbed water swelling enough to not chamber.

added mine are olin/win

I think that lot number date code is spot on.

mark christian

The five shell boxes are fairly common, I have a couple myself, although loaded by Remington, but the 25 shell boxes are much less so. Large quantities of what was known as the M19 brass shotgun shell were loaded during WWII and limited production continued until the M19 was replaced with the XM162/M162 plastic case. The earliest XM162 date I've seen was from early 1964, so I doubt brass cases were loaded beyond that point.

shooter10

Copied from another web site: 2006 I believe
Brass and paper shotgun shells evolved more or less parallel to one another but paper dominated eventually. While brass had its following, they did not function well in repeaters, were more expensive to make and not as easy to mass produce as paper.

While brass shells were used in both World Wars, paper shells were the norm in combat. Shell makers produced the same shells they had been making before the war for the Government contracts in and just prior to WWII. Boxes seldom changed either.

Here is a box, date of manufacture unknown, which was most likely made for war. The inner wrapper is foil and the outer paper. This is a full, sealed box and sold for about $250 recently (The box shown is marked with exactly what you listed including the lot number - exactly)

agostino

To everyone: Thanks for all the info, including wags. Sounds like I may have run across more than I thought. Any more thoughts are still welcome.