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A headstamp is the markings on the bottom of a cartridge case designed for a firearm. It usually tells who manufactured the case. If it is a civilian case it often also tells the caliber: if it is military, the year of manufacture is often added.
The headstamp is punched into the base of the cartridge during manufacture. A resource for identifying where the ammunition originated can be found at Cartridge Collectors.
The government-operated arsenal K.M. Polican marks number "3" at the 6 o'clock position, and the last two digits of the year at 12 o'clock. [1]
Military cartridges have the manufacturer's head stamp at 12 o’clock, and can include a two or four digit year. The following list of manufacturer initials is taken verbatim from: [1]
There are companies that do not manufacture or assemble cartridges of their own but import or contract them from another manufacturer.
La Porteña ("the young lady from the port town") on business addresses is a nickname for Buenos Aires.
A common head stamp is BOF (Bangladesh Ordnance Factory). Sometimes a two-digit year and/or a caliber may be included. [1]
Cartridges made by Industrial Society Burkina Arms and Ammunition (SIBAM) may be marked SIBAM or CV (Cartoucherie Voltaique (CARVOLT)). [1]
INDUMIL Industria Militar [Colombian Military Industry], company owned by the Government of Colombia operate the only authorised manufacturing company that produce weapons and munitions for both the military and civilian markets. Makes 9×19mm NATO [8 gram / 124 grain bullet], 9×19mm Luger [115 grain bullet], 9×19mm Subsonic [158 grain], 9×19mm Factor 132, .223 Remington, 5.56×45mm NATO, .32 Smith&Wesson, .38 Special, and .38 Special Factor 132. They also make several shotgun shells in 12Ga, 16Ga and 20Ga. Pistol & Rifle ammunition uses "IM" as headstamp, the last 2 digits of the year of manufacture and 2 digits for the designation. Revolver and Shotgun shells are stamped as "Indumil" and the calibre.
NORINCO (North Industries Corporation) – Beijing, China. Operates several state arsenals that produce weapons and munitions for both the military and civilian markets. Makes the Big Star rimfire and China Sports centerfire ammunition brands. Currently they make 9×18mm Makarov, 9×19mm Parabellum, .45 ACP, .223 Remington [5.56×45mm], 7.62×39mm Soviet, and .308 Winchester [7.62×51mm] ammo.
NORINCO 7.62×39mm Soviet ammunition was banned from importation into the United States in February, 1994. This was due to the fact that the military surplus ammunition couldn't pass the "magnet test". Non-compliant semi-armor-piercing and armor-piercing rounds have steel penetrators or steel cores that will be attracted by a magnet. The NORINCO copper-plated steel-jacketed Full Metal Jacket bullets would be attracted by a magnet – making it hard to distinguish between compliant lead-core and non-compliant steel-cored ammunition.
Ammunition headstamp has the arsenal number and the last 2 digits of the year of manufacture. The following are arsenals known to produce civilian lead-core ammunition.
The use of counterfeit ammunition is perplexing, since NORINCO already makes ammunition and sells quite a lot of it. Theories abound: it was made for use by Chinese-backed insurgents, it was designed to get in on the surplus ammo market, or it was designed to make users leery of Western-made surplus ammunition and get them to buy new foreign-made ammo.
There are companies that do not manufacture or assemble cartridges of their own but import or contract them from another manufacturer.
What appears like "TO" is actually the Arabic letters for Haa (ح) and Mim (م), the first letters of the words for "Military Factory". It is an Egyptian Military property mark, much like the broadshead arrowhead used by the British Government. The larger versions of the symbol has the numbers ٧٢ ("27") inset in the circle split by the vertical line. The "TO" is found on the base of shotgun shells, which Military Factory 27 makes for the civilian hunting market.
There are companies that do not manufacture or assemble cartridges of their own but import or contract them from another manufacturer.
Ammunition Manufacturers' Association (Winchester Repeating Arms Company, US Cartridge Company, Union Metallic Cartridge, and Phoenix Metallic Cartridge Company) [1900-1907]. The 'Big Four' formed a group that cut out any arms companies they saw as a potential threat (like Savage and Western). They refused to make ammunition for them or even sell them the components. It fell apart in 1907 due to internal squabbling. The side-effect is that their methods forced their spurned customers to become rivals who made their own components and assembled their own cartridges. Union Metallic Cartridge got bought out by Remington Arms in 1912, US Cartridge Company was bought out by National Lead Company (who owned Winchester) in 1918, followed by Winchester being bought out by Olin Industries (who owned Western Cartridge) in 1931.
There are companies that do not manufacture or assemble cartridges of their own but import or contract them from another manufacturer.
Military cartridge headstamps do not usually have the caliber and cartridge name on it. The headstamp may have a 2- or 3-symbol letter, number, or alphanumeric code indicating the place of manufacture. [14] This is usually followed by two digits indicating the last two digits of the year of manufacture; they may have additional digits or a letter indicating the month or yearly quarter of manufacture. The packaging usually has the manufacturer code, 2-digit year, and a lot number on it so bad or suspect batches can be removed.
This is a table of selected pistol/submachine gun and rifle/machine gun cartridges by common name. Data values are the highest found for the cartridge, and might not occur in the same load.
A centre-fire is a type of metallic cartridge used in firearms, where the primer is located at the center of the base of its casing. Unlike rimfire cartridges, the centerfire primer is typically a separate component seated into a recessed cavity in the case head and is replaceable by reloading the cartridge.
The .45 ACP, also known as .45 Auto, .45 Automatic, or 11.43×23mm is a rimless straight-walled handgun cartridge designed by John Moses Browning in 1904, for use in his prototype Colt semi-automatic pistol. After successful military trials, it was adopted as the standard chambering for Colt's M1911 pistol. The round was developed due to a lack of stopping power experienced in the Moro Rebellion in places like Sulu. The issued ammunition, .38 Long Colt, had proved inadequate, motivating the search for a better cartridge. This experience and the Thompson–LaGarde Tests of 1904 led the Army and the Cavalry to decide that a minimum of .45 caliber was required in a new handgun cartridge.
A rim-fire is a type of metallic cartridge used in firearms where the primer is located within a hollow circumferential rim protruding from the base of its casing. When fired, the gun's firing pin will strike and crush the rim against the edge of the barrel breech, sparking the primer compound within the rim, and in turn ignite the propellant within the case. Invented in 1845 by Louis-Nicolas Flobert, the first rimfire metallic cartridge was the .22 BB Cap cartridge, which consisted of a percussion cap with a bullet attached to the top. While many other different cartridge priming methods have been tried since the early 19th century, such as teat-fire and pinfire, only small caliber rimfire cartridges have survived to the present day with regular use. The .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridge, introduced in 1887, is by far the most common ammunition found in the world today in terms of units manufactured and sold.
The 9×19mm Parabellum is a rimless, centerfire, tapered firearms cartridge.
A wildcat cartridge, often shortened to wildcat, is a custom-made cartridge for which ammunition and/or firearms are not mass-produced. These cartridges are often created as experimental variants to optimize a certain ballistic performance characteristic of an existing commercial cartridge, or may merely be intended as novelty items.
.17 Hornady Magnum Rimfire, commonly known as the .17 HMR, is a rimfire rifle cartridge developed by Hornady in 2002. It was developed by necking down a .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire case to take a .17 caliber (4.5mm) projectile. Commonly loaded with a 17 grain projectile, it can deliver muzzle velocities in excess of 775 m/s.
WOLF Performance Ammunition is a trademark associated with Sporting Supplies International (SSI), a corporation founded in the United States in 2005. Most of their ammunition is primarily being manufactured by the Tula Cartridge Plant in Tula, Tula District, Russia, from 2005 to 2009. Some of their 22-caliber rimfire ammunition are also made by Eley Limited in England.
A Khyber Pass copy is a firearm manufactured by cottage gunsmiths in the Khyber Pass region in Pakistan.
The 5 mm Remington Rimfire Magnum or 5 mm RFM is a bottlenecked rimfire cartridge introduced by Remington Arms Company in 1969. Remington chambered it in a pair of bolt-action rifles, the Model 591 and Model 592, but this ammunition never became very popular, and the rifles were discontinued in 1974. About 52,000 rifles and 30,000 barrels for the T/C Contender pistol were sold during its brief production run. Remington discontinued the cartridge itself in 1982, leaving owners with no source of ammunition.
The 6.5mm Creedmoor (6.5×48mm), designated 6.5 Creedmoor by SAAMI, 6,5 Creedmoor by the C.I.P. is a centerfire rifle cartridge introduced by Hornady in 2007. It was developed by Hornady senior ballistics scientist Dave Emary in partnership with Dennis DeMille, the vice-president of product development at Creedmoor Sports, hence the name. The cartridge is a necked-down modification of the .30 Thompson Center.
The .40 Super (10.2x25mm) is a powerful automatic pistol cartridge developed through the collaboration of Fernando Coelho and Tom Burczynski and introduced by Triton Cartridge in 1996. It delivers ballistics comparable to the .41 Magnum revolver cartridge, yet functions in standard 1911s and other full-size pistols. A 5” 1911 chambered in the cartridge is capable of penetrating 46” of Clear Ballistics gel.
.30-06 Springfield wildcat cartridges are cartridges developed from a 30-06 Springfield "parent cartridge" through narrowing or widening the cartridge neck to fit a smaller or larger bullet in an attempt to improve performance in specific areas. Such wildcat cartridges are not standardized with recognized small arms standardization bodies like the SAAMI and the CIP.
The .276 Enfield (7×60mmRB) was an experimental rebated rim tapered bottlenecked centerfire military rifle cartridge developed in conjunction with the Pattern 1913 Enfield (P'13) rifle. Development was discontinued by the onset of World War I.
The 7.62×39mm round is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge of Soviet origin. The cartridge is widely used due to the global proliferation of the AK-47 assault rifle and related Kalashnikov rifles, as well as the SKS, RPD, and RPK light machine guns.
The Small Arms Ammunition Factories (SAAF) were ammunition manufacturing plants run by the Australian government. Nearly all of their production was for domestic use by their military, the police forces, and government-appointed agents.
Red Army Standard Ammunition is a trademark associated with Century International Arms (CIA), an arms and ammunition corporation in Delray Beach, Florida, United States. The official spelling of the brand's name is faux Cyrillic, written as RЭD АRMY STAИDARD. The company supplies various sizes of cartridges for designs of firearms, such as the AKM and AK-47 rifles and the Makarov PM pistol, originating from Russia and former Soviet countries. Cartridges are made in various countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Poland. One manufacturer of RAS cartridges is Lugansk Cartridge Works, in Lugansk, Ukraine and its headstamp code is the letters "LU". Another factory is the IGMAN d.d. Konjic cartridge plant in the city of Konjic, in Igman, Bosnia and Herzegovina and its newer headstamp is the letters "IK", while the older headstamp consists of the Cyrillic letters "ИК".
Barnaul Cartridge Plant JSC is a manufacturer of industrial goods and ammunition in Barnaul, Altai Krai, Russia.
Nosler produces six different rebated rim hunting cartridges. The first to be introduced was .26 Nosler, followed by .28 Nosler, .30 Nosler, .33 Nosler, .22 Nosler, and .27 Nosler.