Here’s an interesting magazine for a weapon I don’t have. This DT15 was intended to be used on the MG15. The MG15 was designed to be used as an onboard gun on Luftwaffe aircraft. This magazine is visually similar to the PT34 saddle drum but cannot fit on an MG34. When the supply of MG15’s led to their employment as a ground gun the DT15 followed into ground use. These were expensive to make and almost all of the examples you see are pre-war manufacture as this Star made model is.
Nice simple item here. This is the ammunition box that was carried inside vehicles mounted with an MG34 or MG42, like the SdKfz 250/251 Halftracks. This is a nice early one dated 1939 and manufactured by Franke & Co GMBH, Machinenwerke in Leipzig.
A few years ago I picked up a Haenel manufactured MP41 Machine Pistol. These are pretty rare because they only made about 20,000 of them before Erma forced them to stop due to a copyright issue on the MP40 design. This is the magazine loader, also made by Haenel, for the MP41. Even more rare that the gun I would expect.
This is the 10 round magazine for the 20mm Flak 30/38 anti-aircraft gun. These were blued steel and supplied in cases of two. This example is stamped cjs for the manufacturer Kallenbach, Meyer & Franke Metallwarenfabrik in Luckenwalde. It is dated 1943. Amusingly Canadian regulations require all magazines for “rifles” to be pinned for 5 rounds as this helpfully has been. For scale I have put one of the mags for my K43 rifle in the photo.
Recently I finally found an MP38 after a decade of searching. Only bit missing was the magazine. I will look for the early flat sided one but in the meantime I’ll stick this unmarked 38u40 in it.
Finally, after three years of searching, I find a 20 round magazine for my MP-28/II submachine gun. These guns are incredibly rare in Canada which makes the magazines even harder to track down. I looked all over, including in the Balkans before finally finding one in a town 60km from me, go figure. The trade in a carpark felt remarkably like a drug deal, but there you go. This one is marked for the manufacturer, Haenel, no WaA’s so definitely prewar, likely pre-Nazi.
I understand, from my friend Andrew, that importing is a slippery slope. If so, I just fell down it. I have a Japanese Nambu Type-14 pistol coming from the States and while I wait I have been gathering the bits and pieces to put together a full kit.
In this case we have two magazines made by the Toriimatsu arsenal. I also found 44 rounds of wartime ammo, no headstamp which I am told is correct.
I was over the other side of Ontario on the weekend picking out of a guys retirement plan when I saw this magazine. It’s unmarked but clearly WW2 vintage, it has the painted zinc button on the base. It was super cheap and since you can never have enough magazines, well here we are.
The MP28/II that I have is missing its magazine and until I find one, well the Sten magazine fits just fine as the mag wells are identical. I had another one in the gun but it was a parkerized version and just too tidy considering how tired the MP was. Here was a cheap buy from the weekend, a tired KC marked (Kelvinator of Canada) example.
This is the holster that I just sourced for my 1944 Walther P38 pictured below. By 1944 they had pretty much stopped making hard shell holsters (they do exist). Instead they supplied the pistol with a breakaway style holster as here. Folks call them a soft shell holster but that is incorrect.
This example is stamped bla 1944 and has the waffenamt WaA159. BLA is the code for the manufacturer E.G.Leuner GMBH in Bautzen. Interestingly the holster is also personalised to the U.S. Army soldier who captured it (or won it in a card game). Inside the flap is the name Henry J. Lavrich and his ASN 33688587. A quick googling reveals that Henry came from Pennsylvania, enlisted in 1943 and served in the 2nd Armoured Division in Europe. He passed away in 2011. An additional modification on this example is the cutting away of the upper, underneath the flap. This is common in these holsters and I expect it was an act by the user to make the holster easier to draw from.
The holster also contains a e/359 stamped magazine which is the correct magazine for this pistol.
A fairly common find, a 32 round stick magazine for the Sten machine pistol. I don’t collect British weapons however I bought the MP28/II below a little while back and the MP came without a magazine. The MP28 mags are hard to track down so in the meantime I will use this mag for display.
The Sten was designed to take a common magazine with the Lanchester SMG. And since the Lanchester was a direct copy of the MP28/II by default, these Sten mags will fit the MP28. Of course the MP28 ones were 20 round but I don’t want to go chopping this down until I give up on finding an original MP28 Mag.
This magazine is marked K.C. This represents the manufacturer, Kelvinator Canada. This makes sense since I found it in Canada.
This is a late war production K43 marked magazine for the K43 semi-automatic main battle rifle. The manufacturer is gcb (Grohmann und Sohn Ad, Metallwarenfabrik, Würbenthal/Süd). The magazine has the two correct WaAB92 stamps along the lower part of the body as well as the simplified two ridge floor plate. This is for use on my K43 rebuild here.
This little item is terrifically tough to find. It’s the adapter for the MP-18/I designed to allow the 32 round drum magazine (snail drums) to fit. Not quite WW2 but since I have a trommel drum and I am looking for an MP-18, it’s a case of hook it when you see it. The MP18 was originally designed with a 20 round box magazine however the Army procurement organization insisted that the weapon be made compatible with the TM08 trommels which were common due to their issue for the LP08 pistol. This required this spacer adapter to be slid onto the snail drum to prevent it being pushed to far into the receiver of the MP18.
Heavily overpainted but still with the original dunkelgrün paint showing through underneath. Yes I did attach this to my MG34. Yes it did fall off with 50 rounds in it and hit my toe.
Kiwi Medals 