WWII 45ACP ammo.....

Xfuzz

Xfuzz

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Anyone up on these.?
Found this long forgotten can in my
storage unit.

Stamped:
EC 43

500 boxed rounds (50)

Todays approx. value ??
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“EC 43” means it was produced by Evansville Ordnance/Chrysler in 1943. There was also an Evansville Ordnance/Sunbeam. I believe EC was in Evansville, Ohio and ES was in Evansville, Indiana. Yours was repackaged in July of 1944. I have a few similar boxes wrapped in plastic and saved for display. It does have corrosive priming, but I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot it. Just make sure to properly clean the gun when you’re done.

No idea on current value. Similar boxes were going for $20-$25 before the current shortage. I t would probably bring more, but the priming may scare some buyers away.
 
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A few weeks ago, I spotted about 8 boxes at an LGS. They were asking $40/box.

The owner of the LGS is a very sophisticated collector and merchant in military surplus weapons and accessories. He knows what he’s got and priced this ammo at the same price point as contemporary 45acp hardball he has in stock.

I suspect that generic ammo prices have outstripped whatever collectable value your surplus ammo may have as a collectable.
 
I believe there is so much of that WWII .45 ammo because the makers were so ramped up at the end of the war that a lot of surplus was available. Then folks tended to shy away from the corrosive priming. A lot of it so well packaged was probably put back for SHTF ammo and forgotten. Ammo is scarce and worth more money so some of it is surfacing for sale...............

Also peoples kids just want to turn Dad's hobby into cash..........
 
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I remember a lot of that from the late '60s, DCM. I bet it still shoots well. Pretty easy to clean a 1911. Go for it.
 
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Over the years I have gone through thousands of rounds of WW2 surplus, and also some WW1 ammo. All good stuff, never any problems.

When the police department supplying my paychecks traded off all the old Thompson SMG's in the 1970's I was able to buy all the GI-surplus .45ACP I wanted for a nickel per round. Steel cases went into the trash, but all the brass is still in use decades later.

Corrosive primers? Yes. So a little hot water and dish soap as a first step in cleaning the pistol after firing. If you can't find hot water you can always use a $2 can of GI-surplus bore cleaner, which will last for decades (even if it does smell awful). No better bore cleaner on the market, IMO.
 
My money says they will all go bang! Neat find and unless they were stored very poorly for a lengthy time, they should all work.
 
chief38 said:
My money says they will all go bang! Neat find and unless they were stored very poorly for a lengthy time, they should all work.
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They should go bang. Years ago was given 1/2 of a brown grocery bag full of loose .45 ACP surplus rounds. A widow had give them to the PD after her husband passed. They gave them to us (Marine Barracks Security) to use. In the bag were rounds from '16-19, 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's. All went bang except 6 with 1932 headstamps.
 
Corrosive primers and steel cases. They are likely just as good now as the day they were made.
 
Foggy memory suggests that sometime in the 1970's GI bore cleaner was reformulated so that trusting it to neutralize the corrosive salts isn't a wise idea. I hoarded the remains of a qt can of the "good stuff" for quite awhile. Long gone now.
 
I am an accumulator of firearms related items. I have a full quart can of G.I. Bore Cleaner and about 20 of the small cans that fit in a cartridge belts pouches. Never use them as mainly I use original forula Hoppes for cleaning. If I shoot any corrosive ammo, I clean with boiling hot water and lots of gun oil.
 
Speaking of old ammo, I came into several of the 20 round "stick' military boxes of .38 Service Cartridge (.38 Long Colt) stamped with various 1904 dates. None of it would fire. The primers had got hard and the firing pin left almost no mark. I pulled the bullet on one and dumped the powder. Tossed a match on it and flared up. Then put the case in a vice and hit the primer with a center punch. BANG! The primers were still good, just too hard to fire with a normal firing pin strike.
 
Dingomann: I would suggest cleaning the innards of whatever revolver you were trying to shoot that ammo thru, and also replacing the mainspring.
 
I've got a couple boxes of those that I've stored in vacuum sealed bags since like the 70s. My gramps flew bombers over Germany in WWII. Ended up coming home with a Luger and his 1911, spare mags, holster and ammo and parts of his plane that never should have stayed in one piece until landing back at the airfield.
 
Was in an antique store today. They had a large box full of the 45ACP brown GI 50 round boxes. I picked one up and it had some weight. I opened it and it was full of fired cases, all brown and dented. They wanted 25$ each for these wartime, maybe postwar, undated boxes of beat up dirty cases. Needless to say, I purchased nothing there.
 
tom2 said:
Was in an antique store today. They had a large box full of the 45ACP brown GI 50 round boxes. I picked one up and it had some weight. I opened it and it was full of fired cases, all brown and dented. They wanted 25$ each for these wartime, maybe postwar, undated boxes of beat up dirty cases. Needless to say, I purchased nothing there.
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Is that $25.00 or $0.25?
 
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