Rather than repost the original from The Firearms Blog I thought it would be more enjoyable (and easier to spin out) if I went through each stage of this journey, one post at a time.
I had always had a certain level of interest in the rifle and cartridge ever since I was able to read and able to get hold of historical papers.
I cant recall offhand the date but sometime in the last ten years or so when the HBSA was still meeting on HMS Belfast I was fortunate enough to attend one of Tony Edwards many and informative lectures. Sadly as he explained at the end this was to be his last and no published work would come from it (sadly Tony died not long after) but he was however as ever helpful and happy to answer our questions.
I should explain that I had taken a guest to the lecture, my very good friend Paul.
The lecture has been recorded at least in slide format here I thoroughly recommend reading any and all of his lectures where available. I have all of his published works (I think and hope) and will grab any more that I find.
The lecture was on the development of post war (WW2) British Self loading rifles which really starts at about the beginning of that war.
Paul was enthused as was I and we pondered what possibly we could do to resurrect the cartridge and rifle.
Shortly after that Forgotten Weapons did a series on the EM2 and I sadly missed an opportunity myself to attend a shoot where one was in use.
Anyway as they say thats all in the past.
I was then a fairly regular visitor to various firearms auctions around the country and one item appeared in the sealed bid sale that caught my eye.
This was a box of 1970 production 7mm Mk1z ammo by Radway Green (Later to become part of Royal Ordnance and even later Bae), this was produced according to various reliable sources for use in the 1970's decade of ideal calibre trials (won of course by the Belgian SS109 5,56 x 45) and had been a small line at the factory kept especially for such development work. The brass was also used in various forms apparently to deliver 6 + mm projectiles as part of the trials.

As luck would have it I won the auction and collected my box of ammo still sealed from the auctioneers.

Yes thats it sat on the firing point, more of that later but the ammunition inside was 140 grain ball with a purple tip but of the powder we knew nothing. Later research hasn't given us very much along those lines either.Well thats enough for now, some of us have a bit of work to be getting on with!