Thought you guys might get a kick out of this.
A few years back I was working for ABC on War and Remembrance, one of their boring mini series.
I hauled a bunch of Jap artillery to Ft Erwin, CA. We installed some plywood shields to make them look German.
Director stops by and asks if any of the guns will fire. Stupid us says yea, this 105 works perfect. " Good, get it runnin for next week".
Now where in the Wild World of Sports does one find Jap 105 mm ammo? So I take some chamber measurements and find that the US 105 case is darn close. It's about an inch too long and the rim is too thin. But just maybe we can pull this off. I put in a call to a Marine SGM firiend of mine and he gives me a list of phone numbers. Next AM I get a call from a SSGT Marine who says call this Army guy. he's a friend of mine. So I call this Army Major and he says " I can ship whatever you need, UPS, FEDEX, let me know, these are once fired steel case"
Very cool. Cases in hand we have to trim about an inch of the OAL and drive out the post primer and then build up the rim thickness with a soldered on plate. The post primer was modified for a .45-70 blank.
Well then comes the Nitrogen for the recoil system. Many trips to Barstow to get the proper fittings.
The Army had plenty of 105 TP projos and had gotten interested in the project.
The problem was we were not located in an approved artillery site.
We ended up shooting cannister. It was immpressive.
My "handloads" worked perfect.
The Navy now has the gun back along with the custom ammo.
