Dum-Dum Bullet. A British military bullet developed in India Dum- Dum Arsenal and used on India's North West Frontier and in the Sudan in 1897 and 1898. It was a jacketed .303 cal. British bullet with the jacket nose left open to expose the lead core in the hope of increasing effectiveness. Improvement was not pursued, for The Hague Convention of 1899 (not the Geneva Convention of 1925, which dealt largely with gas warfare) outlawed such bullets for warfare. Often Dum-Dum is misused as a term for any soft nosed or hollow pointed hunting bullet. A bullet with a concavity in its nose to increase expansion on penetration of a solid target. The Russians used it in the Winter War but I was wondering if anyone knows if it was used elsewhere and by whom?
Hitler approved its use in early -45 but it was strictly limited to be used on the eastern front only. Best regards/ Daniel
Boer War 1899-1902-Boer natives used dum-dum bullets, the discovery on a a Boer prisoner's person was enough to warrant immediate execution for the whole string of prisoners.
Don't know exacetly what a "wad-cutter" is, but I think we're thinking of the same. Pinching FMJ-bullets make 'em to a "part-metal-jacket" (dunna know the exact english term, sort of a primitive soft-top/hollow-tip.) But I think that FMJ-bullets for sure have a deeper penetration range than dumdum of teh same caliber. So if you line up three, let's say: pigs and shoot at them, the FMJ will be of better use. Cheers,
Clipping the top of a jacketed bullet seems strange as, if you bought them you wanted them primarily for their penetration characteristics? If you though you might also need a round to spread on impact, then surely you’d also buy some with this characteristic? If you cut the nose off a jacketed round, then you are, in effect, removing the hard jacket from the softer core so on impact and penetration the softer core will tend to split the jacket and splay more than if the jacket was intact. However, this would be significantly less than the splay produced by cross-cutting. The practice of cross-cutting a round was done on solid nose bullets where there was only that type available. The ‘wad-cutter’ round was/is made with a flat head to produce a neater cut-out in a paper target. As it is still a bullet, it can obviously be used offensively, but in itself would not necessarily splay to any great extent unless the metal was soft in nature. If the nose was cut on a hard bullet, the effect would be a wound which was harder to close, but the penetration would be less. Interfering with bullet profiles can cause jamming (especially in automatics) and will affect trajectory and performance over longer distances. Always best to use munitions as specified, and, if you are in combat and happen to be captured with these ‘toys’ on you, don’t expect any favours from your captors! No.9
I believe another problem with 'field-modified' soft-nosed bullets was fouling of the rifling grooves.
The old uncoated ‘leads’ always fouled badly Martin. Then if you go altering a bullet, you can’t expect it to perform as the manufacture designed or intended. If you really want an expander, spend the extra on partition heads or mercuric bead ammo? There again, with old, old black-powder discharges you could silt-up your weapon without too much trouble just by lack of proper regular and religious cleaning. Reasonable quality modern rounds should perform way better re fouling, and nitro-powder is a world better than black-powder of course. One school of thought is that German rounds had an advantage over British rounds as they produced less smoke, though both were of the ‘smokeless’ variety. Perhaps a small but potentially a significant point, you generally need to be able to see your target to aim properly, and, having fired, better to leave as little trace as possible as to your position. Even with modern weapons and rounds you need pull-trough and ‘dry-lube’ your barrel. OK, to some extent maybe it’s a matter of opinion and preference, but in my book you should check your weapon every day, ensure you’ve got a full maintenance kit and perhaps reasonable spares depending on your weapon’s characteristics/known faults, and oil! There again, I personally wouldn’t mock anyone who checked their ammo. What I would hope to get out of ammo is reliability and consistent, predictable performance. But perhaps, like a parachute, if it doesn’t work you can always take it back! No.9
I remember reading many years ago ( can't remember where, but it was in the context of WWI ) that horror was expressed in Germany when the British Army standardised the MkVII .303 cartridge. This had of course a 'spitzer' or pointed jacketed bullet, replacing the previous rounded jacketed bullet. It was felt at the time that the rounded bullet was more 'humane' (!) as it would stop fairly quickly upon hitting bone, whereas the pointed round would be deflected, thus causing a more damaging wound...
WOW! Very nice photos the site has. The real thing looks SO much nicer than the drawed version I made to my site of an exploding arty shell... Cheers, Sami
he he he he BOOM! I doubt whether the use of dum dums did happen in the war but it is possible. The last mention I can find of a substantiated claim of dum dums in use is during the seige of Peking in 1900, but i believe that they were alos used in the north west frontier during the twenties and thirties. They were almost certainly used in China during the fighting in the thirties.
Seems to be lots of web info on the .303 and the Lee Enfield. A couple of sites. http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/303hist.html http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/303headstamps.html No.9
