25 Pounder info needed.

[Mike Cecil]

The Australians were not the only ones to use fabricated and welded parts: the Canadian C No.2 and 4 Saddles were manufactured in this way.

The CM-1600 box for tools was labelled a CCM-1600 in Canada - the Canadians seemed to be very keen to add the extra 'C' prefix to anything of Canadian design/manufacture. The smaller parts box was the CM-1599, labelled 'SPR.PTS. 25-PR' on the upper line, and 'PT.NO.CM1599' on the lower line.

By the time of the last disposals of 25-pdrs in the 1970s, 25-pdrs in Australia were a mix and match of parts due to replacements.

Interesting your images taken at Bandiana all show early breech rings with the rounded curve for the sweep of the breech block handle. Australian breech rings, like most Canadian b/rings, have a series of 'flats' to make up the curve for handle clearance, rather than the smooth, continuous curve. The attached image illustrates this - the breech ring is a Mk.2 manufactured by Chubb Australia in 1942. You'll recognise it Tony - it's not too far from you at Tiaro, and is the one we have both taken measurements from.

Mike

[Private_collector]

Yes Mike, I know the Tiaro gun very well.
Sad that it is in a state of deterioration. It is even noticable in a number of my photo, which span little more than several years. Tyres are splitting and falling apart. Paint that once looked good (it wasn't when you looked closely) is now featuring prominent rust streaks. Some parts never had a decent layer of paint at all, and they are well ahead in the race to corrode away.

[Private_collector]

I've been stripping all removable parts off my tool box, finishing last night by untacking the canvas from the lid. A template has been made to fashion a new one. Could get that done tonight, but I'm tired, so may not put in the effort. I did enough for today, I think.
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The manufacturer did nice solid dovetail joints.
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All the wood has been sanded, primed, and stop putty applied to the worst imperfections.
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Even had enough time to get several small parts refinished in the final color.
If you look really closely at the middle piece, you can see the manufacturers date stamp with year of production and the broad arrow.
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Oh, and all the metal pieces have been sandblasted and finished, too.
I won't be putting paint on those. I want a slightly more aesthetic look than just usable.

[Private_collector]

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Template for the lid canvas had to be altered. My roll of canvas has a slight stretch to it, and to be sure the finished product looked right, I had to reduce template dimensions to accomodate the stretch. I really can't tell yet if canvas stretch property is going to be a good thing or a bad thing. We'll find out when I go to fit canvas to the lid! Not the best moment for that discovery, so I could get all the hard work done, only to find I have wasted my time entirely. If that happens, I can enlarge the template back to 'no stretch' size and give the job to my local upholstery guys.
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Discovered some very interesting facts about original canvas. Firstly, it wasn't colored until after it was on the lid and the leather edge strip was in place. Although it was colored insitu, that occured before the two timber blocks were screwed down. Also, the skirt around the edges, being double layered, folds back up and under the top layer BUT is not sewn anywhere except the corners. Instead, it is the tacks along the leather stip do that job. Original canvas is a very coarse weave that would have made waterproofing difficult, and because of all the perforations from fitting, I suspect the waterproofing may have occured with application of the color.
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Around the edge of the lid, a leather strip was fastened with a large amount of upholstery cut tacks. They were approx 1" apart, with some put along the canvas berore leather was put in place. Guess this was to hold canvas securely prior to tacking the leather strip. There were 2 sizes of cut tacks used. Some are 3/8", some are just over 3/4". There is no pattern to which were used where, as far as I could tell. Long ones weren't used in corners, nor were they spaced along the sides amongst the short ones, with any discernible order. For replacement, I have ordered the larger size only, because I'm intending to use the original holes. Also ordered a propper tack hammer for the task. The new leather strip is vegetable tanned, as the original would have been, and should arrive sometime this week.
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Instead of going on with canvas work last night, I put some time into reproducing the markings on the box. Not as straight forward as I had hoped. Some characters in one font looked correct, some didn't. Other characters from another font looked right, others were wrong. In short, I used characters of 4 different fonts to make one set of markings. Even the '&' symbol had to be searched for. Most military style stencils I have on file, do not have that symbol, so getting something passable became the goal. I think the finished product will look reasonably presentable, although not identical to the original. When you consider the box (and significant pieces of the gun itself) has been completely remade with non genuine color, canvas, leather strap, and metal components that are not painted, etc., the difference in stencil characters really isn't a huge concern!

[rnixartillery]

Tony.

One thing baffles me slightly with this box , I have not seen another with
' Anti tank Guns ' stencilled and I have had dozens of the these boxes through my hands.
We all know the 25 pdr is not an anti tank gun and the majority of these boxes produced ended up on 25 pdr's ,may be its an Australian thing !

Rob......................rnixartillery.

[Private_collector]

That would have been handy to know before I sanded the original markings into oblivion. Still, they're gone now.

If it's of any significance, the date stamped onto one of the lid pieces is, 1953 or possibly 1958.

[Mike Cecil]

The Australian 25-pdr was issued with an Armour Piercing Shot projectile, to be fired using any of three charge values
(1) 'Charge Super' plus increment
(2) 'Charge Super'
(3) Charge 3.

CMF artillery units regularly practiced moving target/anti-tank shooting techniques on the anti-armour range at Puckapunyal up into the early 1960s. The Australian 25-pdr handbooks of the 1950s include descriptions of the AP Shot round and the EFCs that each powder type & quantity resulted in.

An AP Shot may only have 'annoyed' a T-54 or Type 59, but smaller vehicles like APCs would still get a quite a shock from one.

The label was common on these Australian-made boxes of the period.

Mike