Good eyes Dean ,I was wondering the same thing ? 410 ???

It's an aluminum .410 Dean. I think they were military?? The Army Air Corp. used to issue the plastic stocked Stevens .22/.410 O/U as an airplane survival gun. A WWII test pilot friend up here had two from his days as a cold wx test pilot in Fairbanks. The dealer in Anchorage has full boxes of this ammo, the boxes being plain brown coardboard. I have a couple of loaded examples from him. This one had #6 shot in it. Someone must know what they were made for. Shall I send you this one for your collection? I had assumed most folks had seen these before.

I have seen quite a few of the alu-minium .410s, and they all had the 'WCC 52' headstamp. They were, indeed, loaded for aircrew survival guns. As for the nickel plated shells, I had one that was a bit less than nice, and tried the vinegar approach. It gave typical results as far as the inside crud was concerned, with no effect on the plating. That was my experiment! I cannot guarantee results with your nickeled cases.

Many of the REM-UMC No 12 BEST and WINCHESTER No. 12 were Viet Nam and later U.S. military 00B rounds. The Remingtons in my collection had some red sealant around the primers but there is nothing that I can see on the Winchesters.

Interesting. Maybe that's why the REM brass are so clean. I assume they wouldn't have been loaded with BP for Viet Nam.

Not unless you wanted to smoke 'em out of their caves.

As a matter of fact,
 

one time during a daylight patrol in Viet Nam in 1966, somewhere northeast of Saigon if I recall correctly, my rifle platoon was fired upon by a single not too bright Viet Cong using some sort of a black powder firearm at a distance of about 150 yards - we heard the bullet pass through some tree branches overhead and then saw the distinctive white smoke off to our left across some paddies in a tree line. As an experienced rifle musket shooter and a participant in the Civil War Centennial I was able to explain to my troops that the “sniper” probably only had one shot and would take a while to reload - this after they were done expending about a magazine, full auto, each in the direction and general vicinity of the telltale smoke.

It wasn't unusual to capture/kill a vc with only a few rounds for some obscure military rifle when I was there.One of our platoons even captured a beat to hell double rifle with no rounds from one defunct vc.

If the corrosion is on the outside of the nickel plated cases some 000 or 0000 steel wool will clean them right up.

Destry