Mills cartridge belt for Trapdoor Forager shotgun

[throck3]

When the 1881 Forager shotguns were adopted and issued to the field, there was no approved method of carrying .20 gauge shotgun cartridges when hunting with it. That left the soldiers to make do with what they had, and they either carried the rounds in their pockets or other locations upon their persons. The one good photo we have of soldiers in the field in New Mexico with the Foragers show one soldier with the forager rounds tucked into the yoke of his shirt! In searching for the 1880 Mills cartridge belts for the trapdoors, I happened to stumble across an interesting Mills belt that had been modified to carry shotgun rounds. I found it very interesting that it handily filled just such a need. It is a true military contract Mills belt that had the regular .45 caliber cartridge loops altered and expanded to allow the insertion of a shotgun round. The cartridge loops were split in half, every other one was trimmed away, which allowed the halves to be sewn back together, thus fitting a larger shotgun round. Every loop was done neatly, and used a common brownish thread of the type seen on the M1876 cartridge belts. I'm not sure if the conversion was done at the unit level, or perhaps at the field depot level. I have never seen any mention of such belts in any of the writings associated with the Forager shotguns nor have I ever seen another converted belt. Anyway, I thought I'd share some photos of this belt.[/img]

IMG_2997.jpg (151.9 KiB) Viewed 1045 times

IMG_3519.jpg (163.98 KiB) Viewed 1045 times

[Fred Gaarde]

Wow

[Dick Hosmer]

Not a common buckle, either! Great find. Looks like two Foragers in the photo - bet there are not a whole lot of pics like that - in fact I do not recall ever seeing one before. Thanks for sharing.