They may also contain lead shot.
Shake them next to your ear and see if you can hear the shot rattling.
In the 19th and early 20th century, a vareity of cartridges were offered with wooden bullets that contained shot. So don't assume that they're
only blanks.
If you have plenty, or it's not a full box, you may want to sacrifice one and pull the bullet.
In my own collection I have a .30-40 blank with a waxed cardboard bullet. I also have a dummy 8mm Mauser round with a wooden bullet.
The German 8mm blanks of WW II, and probably WWI, were made with wooden bullets to ensure functioning.
I recall reading the experiences of a German at Normandy on D-Day. He said that every day they were expecting some visiting general and were issued 8mm blanks with wooden bullets for a "repelling the Allies" demonstration. Their loaded ammo was taken away, to ensure no one got shot with the real deal.
Well, the allies started to invade and all his group of soldiers had were blanks with wooden bullets! It was a tense hour or so, of shooting blanks at invading Allied troops just for show, before they finally got REAL ammo!
It's off-topic, I know, but humorous. The Foul-Up Gods love the military,
any military!
If you know a friendly dentist, he may X-ray those cartridges for you. If he's a shooter, buy him a box of cartridges for his trouble. If he's not, a letter explaining what you found would be interesting to him.
I can live without the flying jet-cars of the future we were promised back in the 50s, but I'd sure like to have my own, portable,
inexpensive X-ray machine! Imagine the fun!
