View Single Post
Old October 9, 2012, 09:51 AM   #1
aarondhgraham
Senior Member
 
Join Date: December 1, 2009
Location: Stillwater, OKlahoma
Posts: 8,638
Lebel Model 1886 rifle ammunition color coding question,,,

I was in my favorite watering hole last night,,,
Having a few beers with a friend after a late afternoon range trip.

We were discussing old military rifles and I got to thinking about the Lebel Model 1886 rifle I had when I was a kid.

My Pop gave me the rifle and about 60-70 rounds of ammunition,,,
It was a WW-II bring-back sent home by his brother Oscar J.

The story goes that Oscar killed a "sniper" who was up in a tree,,,
He told the story that it was a French woman shooting at US troops.

Anyways as we got to talking about the rifle,,,
I remembered the ammunition had very distinct color (dye) around the primer.

There were rounds with:
No color
Red color
Black color
Green color

Dad kept the red and green colored ammo from me,,,
He said the black were armor piercing,,,
That the green were tracer rounds,,,
And the red were explosive.

Now bear in mind that while my Pop was a hunter/trapper in his youth,,,
His knowledge of firearms and how they worked was dismal,,,
He was in his late 70's before I finally convinced him,,,
There were more than one rifling groove in a barrel.

I fired all of the uncolored rounds and all of the black dyed rounds,,,
I remember thinking the black rounds had a lot more whang,,,
But that could have been "suggested" by what Pop told me.

Pop never did let me shoot any of the green or red rounds.

My question is this:

Do any of you good folk know what the color coding really represented?

I have searched the Internet this morning,,,
In a fruitless attempt to find any information.

Aarond

.
__________________
Never ever give an enemy the advantage of a verbal threat.
Caje: The coward dies a thousand times, the brave only once.
Kirby: That's about all it takes, ain't it?
Aarond is good,,, Aarond is wise,,, Always trust Aarond! (most of the time)
aarondhgraham is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.02910 seconds with 8 queries