Thread: Colonial Ammunition Company - History

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

I asked @gundoc on another forum why CAC bit the dust.

In the early 70's I used a CAC round that had a nickel case shooting a 38 gr HP(Hi Speed I think it was called) which was a really good round back then. Used it for all the small game including goats, heaps of goats fell to that round.
We used to use our high powered rifles the first day and generally run out of ammo so we then switched to the 22 and that CAC ammo and sometimes Winchester Wildcat solids both were excellent. Great Days on the hill back then, we did a lot of shooting back then.

When I started shooting in the beginning of the 70's a box of CAC 303 went for about $5.00, not bad ammo but then we didn't use the more expensive stuff especially on goats. When I started working for the Pest Destruction Board in 78 we used CAC super and subsonic rounds( in plain white box) The super sonic round was called SR5 (I think ) but we found that both rounds were very inconsistent some subs went off better than the super sonic rounds. We also got a lot of duds which we would have to check to see if the bullet wasn't stuck in the barrel. Needless to say it was good when we switched to Winchester ammo which was good stuff.

Only just found this thread thanks to Mr Google.

As of today I now have the main books on CAC.

A Little Further A Little Faster, Lynn Harris, arrived today from Oz.
I have been chasing this book for years. I missed it in a New Plymouth auction as I was too miserable with my postal bid.
It came up in Ted's recent auction and I put in a stupid high bid thinking that would nail it but missed again. Failed to reach reserve. How bloody high was the reserve?!
Located a copy in a boutique book shop in Oz and pounced. Expensive but a lot cheaper than Ted's would have worked out to if I had been successful.

At the recent Antique Arms Napier Branch auction I was successful with my postal and got -
Whitney's Heritage by Barry Gracia
The Colonial Ammunition Company Ltd by Barry Gracia

So, it all fell into place over the last month. I'm rapt.

Re the CAC Hi Speed ammo Mooseman mentioned: It is great stuff. I have a couple of surplus packets if any Auckland members are keen. PM Me. And for Ryan, Barry Gracia has a newish book out, titled
"The Colonial Ammunition Company Ltd: Metallic Centrefire Cartridges made by the Company in New Zealand".

Originally Posted by Ranger 888

Re the CAC Hi Speed ammo Mooseman mentioned: It is great stuff. I have a couple of surplus packets if any Auckland members are keen. PM Me. And for Ryan, Barry Gracia has a newish book out, titled
"The Colonial Ammunition Company Ltd: Metallic Centrefire Cartridges made by the Company in New Zealand".

That book is one of the three I have acquired. Looks like 2011 vintage. Printed on good quality gloss paper with all catridge photos in colour.
In the introduction Barry mentions the book was put out on the 50th year of NZ CC.
Very little about the company itself but comprehensive coverage of catridges produced.

I noticed some workshop buildings down at Lincoln University are marked CAC and a date (can’t remember what it was). Being ex NZDF it got me wondering whether ammunition was manufactured there, maybe during the world wars?

What was the "Silver tip" CAC 308 stuff like? I never used it for anything bigger than Wallibies and Goats as I was told it blew up due to being too soft. This was ages ago though.