This site deals with ammo boxes for the .30 caliber belt-fed ground machine guns designed by John Browning for the U.S., Belgium, and Sweden.
      I will add to this sight as long as information continues to surface. If you have anything to add to what you see here, please E-mail me with photos and data. Thanks to Rick Shab & Mark Genovese for their input.

      Ammo cans and boxes developed alongside the guns they served. There was some overlap when both wood and steel boxes were made, particularly for the water-cooled 1917. A steel can was modified to attach to the 1917A1 tripod, and the wooden boxes eventually went out of production in favor of more durable and easily manufactured steel cans. I have divided the boxes in to wood and steel to reduce the number of images on one page. Click on one of the boxes below to go to that section.

At left is the instruction sheet for the 1918 belt loader. It was glued under the loader box lid. If you click on the image at left you will get a full-sized printable version. Once it loads, right-click and select Save Picture as. The text and image are sepia colored so when printed on paper it will look old. Printing on tan paper might give it a more authentic look. Just a thought. The original size of the sheet was 8" x 10 7/8". The downloadable image has been cropped to 7.66" x 10.25". There is no point in making the file size bigger by including blank space, and most printers will not print that close to the edge of the paper anyway. After printing just crop to the original size.

A big thanks to Rick Shab of BMG Parts for going to the trouble to remove the wooden bar that obscures some of the text, and then scanning the image for me. The quality of Rick's scan made it possible for me to digitally restore the document. I can't say enough about the considerable help that Rick routinely gives me with my projects.