Positive ID needed. Primer Loading And Tracer Wings factory badge (?)

[Der Finn]

Need actual ID, please. One on eBay right now and it's identified as an Army Air Force badge; I think it's a factory badge - perhaps Winchester or Remington. Note: there is a white start at 12 o'clock position. 2" across, marked "PROPERTY OF U.S. GOVT." on reverse. Any help is appreciated - thanks, guys!

[aznation]

I do not know this for sure, but I strongly suspect that this badge was worn as an access badge by someone who worked in an Ordnance Plant in WW2. The primer loading area was for the loading of primers. There were little special houses out away from the rest of the building. So if anything blew they had the real explosive stuff there, and those roofs hung loose so when they blow in the little building, that roof would just flop open to relieve the pressure. So your building was made to take an explosion. That part of the plant dealt with the assembly line process of priming machine gun rounds, and then likely also had a wing which dealt with or loaded tracer rounds for machine guns. With that said, it probably was a plant which produced 30 caliber or 50 caliber rounds. It's a cool old badge, and likely done to ensure that only authorized or designated people were in that part of the plant. I would assume that there were also some additional safety risks in those sections of the plant as the primers would have been hazardous to deal with and the tracer elements would too.

[aznation]

Regarding a WW2 Ammunition Plant, I found this:

 

The only hints of the factory’s dramatic past were faded wall signs such as TRACER WING/NO MATCHES/NO LIGHTERS, and a curious one in the former cafeteria area: TILTING OF CHAIRS FORBIDDEN.

[aznation]

Found this too from an oral interview with a Ammunition Plant worker:

 

I know they used to put bids up. If you wanted to go in a different department, like the tracer wing paid more, a few cents more, and I didn't go in there because of my lungs. I didn't want to get that powder. I heard that powder was dangerous for your lungs, so I never bid on that. But the loading wing paid a little bit more than the people on the lines. And the inspectors got paid more. Ballistics got paid more. One day I remember going. We got on the bus, and I don't know where this bunker business was, but anyhow, we went in this place where they were testing. They had a machine gun stand up and they had a [inaudible] with them, and they let us hold the little gizmo down and shoot off, and those bullets went out of there so fast. And then way down on the other end, it was like a tunnel, there they had the armor piercing plates, to see how they . . . they test the velocity and how straight they shot. I remember that was one of the highlights.

[Der Finn]

Wow! Thank you so much, aznation - you are a better researcher than I am! Great info, thanks again!

[aznation]

You're welcome Der Finn. That's the real deal. When I queried previous sales on Price-It, a historical database of previous sales I can access from my library account, I found only one that had sold in 2016 for $10 and it wasn't the same one as is being sold on Ebay right now. Those badges are probably not all that common. Good luck!