Any ideas

[Dougy]

Has anyone any history on this 9mm cartridge please. Chap in the local dug it up while detecting and passed it to me.

 

Thanks folk.

[spandit]

RWS 9mm Flobert

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Neutron619 is using one at the moment to see what can be done with so little shot.

[neutron619]

RWS 9mm Flobert

 

The reason spandit knows it's an RWS shell is the acorn engraved on the back - that's used by RWS on lots of their rimfire ammunition. The chances are it's their "double shot" load, which would probably have contained about 7g of #10 shot (since almost nobody imports / stocks anything else by RWS for 9mm). That's about 188 pellets in all. They're extremely low-velocity cartridges - about 600fps at the muzzle - and you can see the shot cloud as it flies. The #10 shells (people do import Fiocchi cartridges in other sizes) drop to about 325fps at 20 yards, which is probably enough retained energy to kill a house sparrow, mouse or a small rat, but not much else.

 

They pattern like this (through a cylinder-choked, bolt action gun by Modern Arms Ltd. c.1928):

 

 

 

Load them up with #7 or #6 and they'll probably kill a rabbit, jackdaw or pigeon, even with the lower velocity (I haven't tried) but you're probably looking at aiming the gun, with a 15" effective pattern area and a maximum range of 10 or perhaps 15 yards at most. I reckon that judicious use of #8 or #9 might stretch that to 20 yards, but I have no direct evidence for that and do not plan to experiment, except by firing at paper, wet phone books, etc.

 

PM me if you want any more information - there's a non-public website I can point you at.

 

EDIT:

 

Here's the Fiocchi #6 cartridge at 20 yards, from the same gun. The circle is 20" in diameter, as opposed to 30" in the image above.

 

Edited August 25, 2017 by neutron619

[Continental Shooter]

yup! old, beloved Flobert ....

 

used it a lot as a kid (5-10 y.o.) good fun!! we also had the Fiocchi shell and used to load them with unknown powder from grandpa shop (possibly black powder) with a fixed dripper which we used for both powder and pellets; in between cork fillers to make up the height and a small disc on top.

 

I remember we used a level dose of powder and lead in summer, level powder and filled lead in autumn and a filled cup of powder and pellet in winter (to have more pressure and deal with the ticker coverage); in harsh conditions we would add some mud on top of the closing disk or even a drop of hot wax to help the powder burning properly.

 

As Neutron said #10 kills anything sparrow like (finches), mouse or rats without any bouncing so, was used a lot on these pesky birds and pest in granary or stock rooms where we stored grains to feed the 'good' bird in winter (turkeys, chickens, hens, etc.) ... the amount of damage they can do is incredible so, we used to go in and 'lamp' at night for the rats or wait for the birds to come through during the day.

they would also keep black birds, starlings and thrushses off the fruit trees before they ripe.

 

in #5 i used it to kill farmed rabbits as i didn't like the way the elderly did ... more humane and easier to shot them off the cage (anyway, they were so fat they wouldn't even move...); keeps away the odd feral cat or night predators (stoats, beech martens, weasel, etc.)

[Dougy]

Thanks folk. I'll feed back to the gentleman.

[Hendrix's rifle]

Loved nailing rats with the garden gun! Good laugh it was.

[dodeer]

I had one for dispatching animals in cage traps.

Managed a 7 yard pheasant with one also that he dog flushed to me

[Spook]

with such low velocity it would be interesting to try a moderated one if anyone feels like making one....