Well...................thanks for all the comments and stories.

It seems as though it wasn't such a silly thought after all. 

I remember back in the '60's, my brother and I had a huge collection of ammunition from WWII and Vietnam.
My grandfather gave us the stuff from WWII and the bloke next door (eldest son) came back from Vietnam a couple of times and gave us heaps of stuff.
It's strange, alot of it was live .50 cal and 20mm canon etc. Even had a "25 pounder" shell casing. Don't know why our parents allowed us to keep it in our room, but they did...............Times were different, I suppose.
I don't know where any of it is now.
I remember we had a 'belt' of .30 cal ammo (the one with the 'canvas' type belt that the rounds slipped into. It may have been from a Spit, because our grandfather flew one................ ???

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Hi Oso...!
..that was nothing compared with the problems we had with Julius Ceasar and the Romans.
Queen Boadicea did her best to save us Londoners, but to no avail... ...!
....I remember it well... ...!
Here is an old photograph taken of her at the time of the invasion.....



Pic courtesy of Arthur Moreland.

Cheers mate... ...!
Paul.
(England).

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We also had some .50 cal rounds (only about 5 or so) that were separate, but they had a kind of 'spring steel' strap around them. The little straps could be connected bt interlocking clips. Would these have been from some sort of aircraft gun?



P.S. What cal. were the smaller guns used in the earlier P40's (.30 or .303 - they also had 2 x .50's on the nose). We had heaps of them here during the war. Also, there were heaps of Boomerangs and Wirraways (Texans) with either .30 or .303 guns. Ciould have been any of them. But if the .30 was used mainly in the Yank fighters, then maybe some of the .30's we had were from a P40.
For my grandfather to have had them, it's more likely that they would have been accessible to RAAF personnel.
But..............then, they would have had Lewis guns for ground defence!.....................so.............Who knows!

No. These were live rounds. they hadn't been in a breach. I understand that the belt part (whatever it is made of) doesn't go into the breach.

We also made our own ammunition. In Sydney there were two locations, both of which are still in existence (the last to actually produce ammo was only shut down about five years ago, right after a greade exploded on the assembly line). That was St Marys (1 mile from my home) and the other was Silverwater (further in towards the city).
At Silverwater, the underground bunkers are still there. You can see the 'mounds'  in the earth with the big double doors going into the side of the hill. It's located on the Parramatta River (obviously so the ammo could be transported by barge to Sydney Harbour directly from the factory or storage bunkers.  

Just remembered. I know we also manufacture Winchester rounds somewhere in Australia, under license, too. I have a box of 8mm (.32 cal) Winchester ammo that has 'Made in Australia' stamped on it.