Thread: Colonial Ammunition Company - History

ICI Chemical building Auckland 1984



Over 60 firemen injured.

Cheers
Pete

A French restaurant at the cbd end of Karori, Wellington used to have a large cac poster on its wall in a frame-when the restaurant went under the poster sold on trademe before I even knew it was happening. I would love any leads on where to buy such a poster-or even if someone had one to have it reproduced

CAC ammo was disappearing from the shops by the time I turned 16 in 1987 but came across a bit of it over the years since.
With strong import controls you would think they had a captive market however the quality was pretty ho-hum when compared to Winchester and other international brands.
A big nail in CAC's coffin was the "High Flyer" drama. High Flyer was a 12 gauge high velocity 1 1/4 oz load of 4,5 or 6 shot in a modern compression-formed case marketed as a duck load. Anyway one batch of these shells blew up a bunch of older SxS guns and injured a few shooters. Read a report of tests which duplicated the effect by placing a live primer in the powder charge and hinted at industrial sabotage!

Must be a good story there for someone to research. I have met guys who still had full boxes of High Flyer in their ammo cupboards,many years later.

Originally Posted by MSL

Graham

Or even Graeme Champion

Thanks for all the info guys!

When I purchased my first 308 rifle, because of government controls/protections in place at the time, CAC 308 ammo (loaded) was virtually all that was available. I did however get given a 10 round box of SAKO from the gun shop at the time of rifle purchase and was also able to source a 20 round box of Winchester plus 60 Norma Re cases so never actually had to use CAC factory sporting ammo therefore cannot comment on its effectiveness. Straight into reloading at a very early stage for me.

Having said all that, CAC 308 target ammo that was made for NRANZ, which I did use later on at rifle club, yielded brass that was and still is superb. The CAC factory used the very best raw material for their brass forming certainly for the NRANZ stuff. I still have a quantity of it ex my rifle club days. Dug it out and gave it a birthday recently - SS cleaned and then annealed. It is still superior to a lot of the modern brass – very weight consistent and very wall thickness consistent.

Likewise the last of their CAC 303 ammo (57? 58?) was very good. Shot this ammo at rifle club in teenage years.

Recently I was given a quantity of old 22 HP ammo. The boxes are marked Eley. One lot is head stamped Eley whilst the other is “SR” head stamp. Both lots are manufactured by the STANLEY AMMUNITION CO. LTD, Normanby Road, Auckland. That is the CAC factory address and I was told Stanley was the last owner of the CAC factory. Could be wrong on this though.

I also used a bit of Rabbit Board CAC shotgun ammo in days of old..... Free ammo ha ha.

@Ryan
Hope this is clear - old pic from a year ago approximately.

When I got my first .308 in 1979 I used CAC 150 gn round nose ammo. No idea as to its ballistic efficiency as I didn't shoot at anything over ~100 m, but it was dynamite on anything that got in its way.

Originally Posted by P38

ICI Chemical building Auckland 1984

Attachment 70183

Over 60 firemen injured.


Cheers
Pete

Nothing to do with CAC by then. I was working on Otahuhu when that went up bloody impressive from up the mountain. The firemen earnt their pay that day. Building was packed with things that shouldnt have been stored together.
Another great fire was the Revertex one in Penrose a few years later.

Originally Posted by zimmer

Having said all that, CAC 308 target ammo that was made for NRANZ, which I did use later on at rifle club, yielded brass that was and still is superb. The CAC factory used the very best raw material for their brass forming certainly for the NRANZ stuff. I still have a quantity of it ex my rifle club days. Dug it out and gave it a birthday recently - SS cleaned and then annealed. It is still superior to a lot of the modern brass – very weight consistent and very wall thickness consistent.

What weight was the bullet in those CAC NRA loads?

Originally Posted by systolic

What weight was the bullet in those CAC NRA loads?

144gn
The rifle clubs could return the brass and it was loaded up to 3 times (green, yellow, and red crimps were used)
Best brass ever produced but most that's still around is now age hardened so needs annealing

My boss has a couple of boxes of old CAC ammo he was going to drop to the police for destruction. I talked him out of it, so if anyone around Auckland or Tauranga wants a packet, he drinks Steinlager..

I'll take 'em please.

At W H Tisdalls in Ch-Ch I used to sell the CAC 'deer & mountains' ammo back in the late '60's for about $4.00 a packet from memory, and then the red and black packs came out and sold for a smidge over $5.00. To put that into proportion I was taking home just under $60.00 a week which wasn't much with a young family!

Originally Posted by gundoc

At W H Tisdalls in Ch-Ch I used to sell the CAC 'deer & mountains' ammo back in the late '60's for about $4.00 a packet from memory, and then the red and black packs came out and sold for a smidge over $5.00. To put that into proportion I was taking home just under $60.00 a week which wasn't much with a young family!

Good memory, date is bang on, those had a receipt with them from 66