Yesterday, while cutting up a pile of 2X6’s, I noticed a large pitch pocket in one of the boards. I cut around it, chopped it with a chisel, and revealed a heavy copper 9 mm. bullet. It was easy to see its path into the tree, and was not mushroomed at all. There was also no discoloration; it looked as new and shiny as the day it left the factory. In the past, I have found smaller caliber bullets in wood, usually 22’s, fragmented and mushroomed. But this was on the level of pulling a huge trout out of a lake where you usually caught perch…
My supplier says the wood came from “Finland”,like all of our pine here. The mill-mark on the end of the board said W-S-M. It looked very probable that there has been 40 or 50 years of growth following being shot, which would obviously put it in the time period of WWII. I intend to take the bullet down to my local shooting range and let some of the ammo jocks weigh it, which will give me a better idea of from where it came. Any ideas from anyone about the type of weapon which might have fired this slug? I’m adding this one to my collection. David Bar-Dov
Replies
Are you sure it's not 8mm, instead of 9? 8mm Mauser rounds probably were flying hot and heavy around that time frame (WWII). Other than that, there are several 9.3mm rounds that are pretty popular in Europe for hunting. I'm not that familiar w/ them myself, but they are probably pretty close to a .35 Whelen stateside: Big, heavy bullets meant to knock something down and have it *stay* down at moderate ranges.
HTH,
Monte
Probably German -- 9mm was a standard issue for them and used in a variety of their weapons.
IanDG
Don't be suprised that it wasn't fragmented. Military rounds are made for penetration while little 22,s are famous for falling apart
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If it actually came from Finland, given the date and size, next thing I'd look at is shape. If it stayed reasonably intact, then you ought to be able to determine if it was a ball type round or a spire point. Balls have a U shape, spires more like a V. Ball ammo, 9mm, very common in Europe around that time in pistols, and more common now. If it's spire point, it's a rifle round, and probably more like a 7.92 or 8mm. Many eastern European nations had DWM (Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken) making their rifles for them in the WWI-WWII era, and the 7.92 and 8mm cal were common. Sweden, for one, had two variants of the rifle. The earlier versions, I've got a 1903, were 6.5x55, and somewhere around the late 30's or maybe even 1940 started producing rifles in the 8mm.
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