Wooden bullets have been around for more than 100 years. No they are not used to stake vampire through the heart, they were primarily designed to be used for training purposes. Wooden bullets often did see live service at the tail end of World War Two.
Wooden Bullets in Combat
With ammunition being in short supply and experienced quartermaster's being hard pressed to deliver, wooden bullets were found among both the Nazi German and Japanese forces. Units of the US 7th Infantry Division reported wooden bullets used in Japanese Arisaka rifles in Okinawa. Famous Marine Lieutenant General “Chesty” Puller reported that the Japanese used wooden bullets frequently in combat. Similarly personnel of the US 70th Infantry Division found desperate German Werwolf and Volkssturm units with pouches of wooden bullets when they crossed the Rhine in 1945. Many stories of being shot with or injured by wooded bullets however most likely came from live rounds hitting nearby trees and creating shrapnel splinters.
Two Types of Wooden Bullets Used in Mausers
Mauser rifles, used by Germany as well as about 50 other countries for the first half of the 20th Century were notorious in their use of wooden bullets for training purposes. Supplied originally by the Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken Aktien-Gesellschaft (DWM) of Karlsruhe they were referred to as platzpatrone (practice bullets). These practice rounds came in two types both of which with reduced propellant loads. The first type had a simple short soft wooden plug, the second with a full -sized hard wood painted (typically red) round nose projectile. The first type of round, which generated a "pop" and a few splinters, would be used for simple training in loading and cycling the bolt action, which in the 1890's was a relatively new invention. Several users, Sweden in particular, later used a special barrel adapter known as a "crusher" attached to the muzzle that would splinter and deflect even the small remnants of the plug coming from the barrel.
The second type of round, with its hard wood rounded projectile was used for initial 'gallery' training for marksmanship fundamentals. While the small weight of the projectile meant that penetration would be much less than an actual wooden bullet, it was still capable of engaging a man-size target on the range at some 50m. While the design was not specifically meant for 'less than lethal' use against civilians, there were several cases of these rounds being used in crowd control. These rounds are often encountered on the surplus markets. A number of these were issued to front line troops by mistake during the Balkan Wars and at least one Turkish unit wound up facing Serb troops in Macedonia in November 1912 with only cases of wooden bullets.
British and Soviet Wooden bullets
The British Commonwealth issued 303 calibers wooden and even wax training bullets for its Bren and Lee Enfield weapons systems. In 1910 they designed the hybrid 303 Mk VII, 174 grain bullet with a ballistic tip in which the first 3/8" of the core was filled with compressed paper or wood under a full metal jacket. The remainder of bullet core was lead and the resulting design would yaw violently on impact, circumventing the Hague Convention banning 'hollow point' or 'dum dum' bullets. The Mk VII was very effective and used in both world wars and was far from being a training round.
The Soviet Union and the Warsaw bloc manufactured a line of berdan primed 5-grain 7.62x39mm wooden bullets for its SKS. RPK and AK series weapons families after 1945. While they did not generally have the power to cycle the weapon’s action they were still useful for training with a short (under 25m range). In Finland these are referred to as paukkupatruuna (practice) rounds and are typically painted blue and the "crusher" is referred to as a sysäyksenvahvistinta.
Today the wooden bullet has gone the way of the dinosaurs, replaced by plastic and in some cases wax.
Sources:
Turks had Wooden Bullets Cartridges Intended Only for Maneuvers were sent to Front, New York Times November 27, 1912
Brophy, William S The Springfield 1903 Rifles Stackpole Books 1905
Burke Davis, Marine! The Life of Chesty Puller, (Bantam Books, 1991 reprint)
Barnes, Frank Cartridges of the World - 3rd Ed., 1972
Datig, Borden Cartridges for Collectors, 3 Volumes 1988
Tregaskis, Richard Guadalcanal Diary Mark Bowden - 2000
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