The C.I.L. Dominion line offers a cornucopia of cartridges for the novice or advanced collector. Anyone interested in firearms, military, hunting or sport shooting is a potential cartridge collector.

The calibers, the various headstamps, the various projectiles, all tell a story. C.I.L. & Dominion have loaded hundreds of different shotshells, rimfires & centerfires calibers and gauges.

Headstamps vary in company stamps and caliber stamps. Rimfire for many years carried the “D” for Dominion & C.I.L. Shotshells have many variations in company and other companies that C.I.L. or Dominion loaded shotshells for. Stamps like Eatonia, Crown, Canuck, Supreme, Maxium, Imperial and more appear on either paper or plastic shotshells. Centerfire ammunition offers a huge assortment of headstamps in calibers, company and other company’s they made ammo for. Caliber wise you may see D.C.C. 32 W.C.F. or Dominion 32-20 which is the same cartridge.

Bullets (projectile) offer another dimension to cartridge collecting. You could find a Dominion 30/06 Sprg. Centerfire cartridge with a pneumatic, soft point pointed soft point, C.P.E., sabre tip, K.K.S.P. or hollow point.

Early 32 R.F. and 25 R.F. were made with all lead bullets. The last CIL manufactured 32 R.F. and 25 R.F. Canuck cartridges had a copper wash over the lead bullet. The 22 rimfires, mostly as noted, had “D” headstamp but could be lead, lead mushroom, dry, lubricated, or copper wash. Shotshells have various dram loads, shot sizes, etc. marked on the hull. Also, earlier paper shells have roll crimps with shot size dram’s equivalent marked w overcards.

On another note, for anyone collecting boxes, C.I.L. imported some cartridges in the late 60’s and early 70’s manufactured by Winchester in a standard Winchester box but with a bilingual sticker stating they were imported by C.I.L.   I have bought and shot 22 Winchester Magnum with such a sticker.

We have failed to mention another avenue of collecting cartridges and boxes is the products from Valcartier Industries C.I.L.’s successor with its distinctive IVI headstamp.

Also, as a footnote, Imperial Shotshell Ammunition is now being loaded by Challenger for Canadian Tire Corporation,