Case History

At the range while picking up some brass I picked up a .45 ACP case.That's not news at all of course since I've picked up hundreds of .45s over the past year or so. It just had an "old" look to it.For some reason I turned it over.E C 42This case tells a story far beyond it's humble appearance.World War II was a big deal. Everyone knows that. Afganistan and Iraq are a big deal too, right?In a word, "no."There's fewer and fewer folks that know how big the difference really is. I only know through reading and I'm sure I'm only scratching the surface, but it is a big deal.E C 42This round was manufactured in 1942 as you might guess. This was part of the war effort. E C is Evansville Chrysler made in Evansville, OH.Chrysler, the same folks that make cars.Everyone in the US that could make something for the troops was doing so.Chrysler had the equipment to form metal -- they were making cars and all. Brass is a ductile metal just like everything else. The making of brass for shell cases is just a simple matter of squeezing the brass into the shape you need it.Not just folks that make cars... What about IBM?They made almost 350 thousand M1 Carbines. Underwood (the folks that make typewriters) made over half a million of them.Not just industry of course, but every day people needed to change too. The old saw about women drawing lines up the back of their legs to simulate nylons -- nylon was in very short supply. Rubber. Steel. Copper. Just about everything.Imagine yourself in that situation. Like if Google suddenly shut down to crack encryption codes for instance. What would you do without Google? What about gas rationing? Rationing in general?We're soft now.I don't think we could make it.[smugmug url="http://photos.vec.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=19189515_vxxcHW&format=rss200" imagecount="100" start="1" num="100" thumbsize="Th" link="lightbox" captions="false" sort="false" window="true" smugmug="true" size="L"]