US Military, WW2 Shotgun Shot Shells, M19, Brass, 12 gauge 00 Buckshot, Remington Arms Company, box of 10

Today we'll be taking a look at one of the newest "treasures" that I just picked up at a local garage sale.  It's a vintage box of US Military, WW2 vintage, shotgun shells.

The 12 gauge shotgun was standard issue to many of the US Marines that served in the Pacific Theater during WW2.  

They were also issued and used occasionally, in the European Theater, mostly for prisoner guard duty.

When the US Marines first hit the beaches of the Pacific, shotguns in hand, they were issued the old, paper husk, shot shells.  They soon discovered that the wet and humid environment ruined the paper shot shells.  The US military then decided to go back to the old style, brass cased, shot shells for field combat use.  After switching back to brass, they never experienced problems again.
Huge quantities of the brass cased shells were produced at the end of the war and when the war was over, they had enough stockpiled to last through the Korean war and into the early days of the Vietnam War.  In the 1960's, they switched to the new plastic husk shells.  The age of old-school brass was over.

The box of shells that we are looking at today, was manufactured by the Remington Arms Company, and are standard 12 gauge, 00 Buckshot, shells.  They are in the original issue, cardboard box. The box is missing the lot number stamp (appears to have been scratched off for some reason), and one of the shells is missing. These boxes originally held 10 rounds.

There is not much more to say about them, other than the fact that they are a rare item to find these days!  I will let the photos speak for themselves.