Included in the over 3.25 billion 45acp cartridges made at the Chrysler Production facility located in Evansville Indiana during WW2 were these paper wrapped shotshells. I'm assuming they were designed for dispatching vermin, of the 4 legged variety, and perhaps for survival carry or air crews. Quite a story.....very thankful for all the military personell and civilians that gave so much to preserve our freedoms. The plant in Evansville accounted for 96% of all the .45acp ammunition produced during WW2.

Bullets by the Billions: Chrysler Switches World War II Production from Cars to Cartridges | Defense Media Network

__________________
Ret. LE, FA Instr, S&W Armorer

That is one variety I have never seen before. I've shot quite a few Evansville Arsenal .45 ball cartridges, but not a shot-load. Thanks for posting.

I had a few in my collection, but they were FA. In one of the autobiographies I read, the shot shell were available to pilots for survival. One mag of ball, one mag of shot for hunting, one mag of tracer for signaling.

All the aircrew I ever talked to were 8th Air Force. They always carried only ball!

Ivan

They even made a special magazine for a Thompson to fire them. They were intended for riot control, but could be used in a survival situation. Found the pic on the web.

Attached Images

Peters45ShotBoxes0001.jpg (61.8 KB, 171 views)

__________________
PTLAPTA!

In the book, "Bullets By The Billions", they have a picture of the ad for the 45 shot shells with downed air crewmen using the shells on fish in the Pacific . I can remember seeing the ad in the National Geographic magazines from WW2 time frame.

Attached Images

	20200419_213250.jpg (181.1 KB, 66 views)
	20200419_213304_001.jpg (117.4 KB, 61 views)
	20200419_213329.jpg (132.5 KB, 121 views)

That fish is going to get a big surprise when it pops up for air!

As a cartridge collector, I always enjoy seeing some of the oddities that were produced over the years. I have a comparable shotshell in my collection as well as a .45 ACP made more like a conventional shotshell with a top wad in an extended case whose overall length approximates a ball round.

I have the book and the cartridges and they work perfectly!
These are the first steel cases too. Repacked means they went from wood crates to the sealed cans. The wood crates did not fair well in the south pacific.

Attached Images

	20180303_170913.jpg (121.1 KB, 95 views)
	20180303_170947.jpg (111.4 KB, 89 views)
	20180306_123638.jpg (90.5 KB, 89 views)

Around 1970 I sat in class and watched a demonstration of this round conducted by an old CWO. He fired them from a Thomson during a weekend on riot control. Why the RIARNG still had a Thomson in inventory I have no idea. Chief Fletcher served in the same unit in the Pacific when it was part of the 43rd Division during WWII.

__________________
Made it, Ma! Top of the world!

Hey, those cartridges were made the same year I was! I guess I am a "vintage" model. :-)

Have a blessed day,

Leon

It seems initial production was packed for shipment and storage in conventional wooden crates/boxes which provided inadequate sealing against the tropical humidity and salt water. Therefore many cartridges were ruined by steel case corrosion before they could be used. It is stated in the book that one of the major projects undertaken at Evansville was development of outer packaging to resist adverse tropical storage conditions, and then repackaging immense stored quantities of ammunition in the old wooden shipping boxes into the new sealed steel cans. Most of the inner 50-round boxes will have something like "Repacked Lot E C xxxxx" printed on them.

I remember back about 10 years ago, some ammo dealer was advertising full sealed steel containers of the old WWII steel-cased .45 ammo for sale.

Some of the Evansville-made cartridges will have an E C S headstamp instead of E C. There was a Sunbeam plant (I guess it had made appliances, etc., during peacetime) located on the opposite side of Evansville, and it was converted to the manufacture of steel cartridge cases, which were then trucked to the main Chrysler plant for loading and packing. So the "S" in the headstamp means "Sunbeam" for those cases made there.

That's awesome, I'd be happy to find an original box of that stuff. That's truly American history right there.

Btw, I have the Chrysler war book series (all but the Bullets by the Billion book are original) and I love it. Lots of very interesting information and a very good reminder of what Americans are capable of.

Attached Images

IMG_20190713_160151_483.jpg (66.5 KB, 343 views)

__________________
Jorge

Check out my Karma

The M12 (waxed red paper) round was based on Remington's riot control cartridge for the Thompson SMG. The Ordnance Dept. ordered 10,500,000 rounds for AAF survival use ("intended for killing small game"). The paper did not hold up so the M12 was replaced pretty quickly with the M15 which was all brass.
[IMG][/IMG]

__________________
Kevin Williams SWCA1649 HF208

Yes, I thought they made a crimped version too. Still need one for my collection. Would love a paper on too.

__________________
No baby we aint

Somewhere I have a full box of the M15 shot loads. Maybe someday I will find it and fire a few test rounds. It probably wasn't very effective on anything beyond a few yards. Fired from a rifled barrel, the shot would spread rapidly.